Congratulations to Kelly Ann Packard for sharing her touching veterans story with us in honor of Veterans Day this year. Kelly is the winner of our contest and will be spending a weekend here with us at Sanibel Harbour. Here is her story:

Andrew Kisz, 27, joined the Army in the summer of 2001, just before his 19th birthday and just after completing his freshman year at the University of Florida. He wanted to follow in the footsteps of his father and grandfather who had both served in the military. A few months later, he was on the rifle range during Basic Training when the attacks of September 11 took place and knew that his goal of seeing combat would happen much sooner than he expected. He served for over five years and three months with the Ranger Battalion and then with the 10th Mountain Division, and completed two tours of duty in Afghanistan and one in Iraq. He actually fulfilled his four-year obligation after the second tour in Afghanistan and had enrolled back into college, but was stop-lossed and sent to Iraq for a year-long tour. When he was finally honorably discharged in December 2006, he reapplied and was accepted back to the University of Florida where he completed his Bachelor of Business Administration with a major in Marketing in May 2009. He’s now attending law school at Florida Coastal School of Law in Jacksonville, but spends a lot of time in the Fort Myers/Sanibel area visiting me, and plans to spend his winter break here doing as much fishing as he can. As of July 2009, Andrew has fulfilled his 8-year commitment, and will not be called back for deployment. He is considering a military career as a Judge Advocate General (JAG) so that he can help the men and women, like himself, who make the decision to serve our nation through military service.