Klobuchar signs snowy cards for Minn. troops

Senators are asked to sign papers all day long, but last Tuesday, a handful of them signed some very special documents.

More than a dozen members of the Senate, along with congressional staffers, took part in the annual Red Cross “Holiday Mail for Heroes” drive to deliver signed holiday cards to troops serving overseas. House members had signed cards a few days before.

ITK stopped by just as Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) was finishing up. “I didn’t write anything too fancy,” she said. “I just wrote, ‘Thank you for your service,’ and signed them ‘Sen. Amy Klobuchar.’”

Klobuchar was looking down at her signed cards, and then suddenly looked up. “I started signing a few, and then realized the most important part, and I went and got some cards with snow on them, because we’ve got to remind these Minnesota soldiers what they’re coming home to!”

She leaned in conspiratorially and said, “I’ll tell you what, [Sen.] Pat Roberts [R-Kan.] saw my snow cards, and he went and got some snowy cards, too, even though there’s a lot less snow in Kansas than in Minnesota.”

Klobuchar is spot-on about that: Minnesota’s snowiest city, Duluth, averages 85 inches a year. By comparison, Kirksville, Kansas’s snowiest city, only averages 22 inches.

The Minnesota senator also shared a personal connection she has to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. “The member of my staff who handles veterans’ affairs just returned from serving a second tour in Iraq,” she explained. “So this summer, during the [Minnesota] State Fair, his fiancee and I held up a sign that says, ‘Come home soon!’ and we took a picture, so he would know we missed him.”

In case you missed the card drive on Capitol Hill, there is still plenty of time to send service members holiday greetings. Visit www.redcross.org for more information on dates and addresses.

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