Title: No One Has More Love Than This…: Why We Remember
Author: Warren Robinson
Publisher: AuthorHouse
ISBN: 978172836
Pages: 172
Genre: Memoir
Reviewed by: C.C. Thomas
Pacific Book Review
At first glance, Warren Robinson’s No One Has More Love Than This…: Why We Remember is simply a Vietnam veteran’s recounting of his experiences during the war. To fully appreciate his story, though, readers will have to delve deeper because the book is so much more. While Robinson does give an accounting of his experiences, he also includes memorials of those he served with in a way that is a living tribute of their service.
Those born after the Vietnam War era will get a refresher course on the events leading up to the war. If you’re like this reader, you don’t have a firm grasp of how world events caused the situation and why the United States was drawn into the fray. Robinson gives a succinct history lesson that points the finger at the guilty parties and focuses the narrative that follows. While Robinson also gives his personal feelings concerning the need for the war, he backs up opinions with historical evidence to make things clearer for the reader.
The first part of Robinson’s book focuses on his experiences serving as a combat soldier during the war. In addition to these personal accounts are other artifacts that really bring the war home to the reader in a way that words could just never express: battlefield pictures of injured and suffering soldiers, soldiers off duty around camp smiling amidst hardship and horror, images of young Vietnamese girls carrying guns while dressed in springtime outfits, and a 1969 military pay chart—evidence that puts a human touch on long ago events. Robinson goes a step further, though, and the last part of the book is one that really brings the war home. The middle part of Robinson’s book is a series of vignettes of military officers who served in Vietnam. Robinson provides a picture, brief biography, and circumstances of each officer’s death. There is no finer way to honor these dead warriors than ensuring their lives are remembered. Reading about each man, and his contribution to our American lives, is a beautiful tribute. Robinson also gives statistical data concerning how many men were wounded or killed, how many soldiers came from each US state, as well as what religions were represented in addition to other fascinating data. The last pages of the book are Robinson’s own black and white Vietnam Memorial wall, a listing of those killed in service.
In the introduction, Robinson explained his title, letting readers know that love is more powerful than war. While today’s world has become complacent about the topic of war, the author says that modern people do not truly understand the sacrifices of a national service and laments the lack of a focus on the bravery of our warriors. Robinson’s No One Has More Love Than This…: Why We Remember is a fitting argument to such complacency and a fitting reminder of what sacrifices really look like: our sons and brothers, our fathers, our family.
