On a sunny January Saturday, eleven ladies put aside their own lives to brighten the Valentine's Day of seriously injured men and women whom they will never meet. The Blue Spruce Chapter, National Society, Daughters of the American Revolution, designed and hand-stamped 550 valentines which were bundled with packages of candy and shipped to Landstuhl Regional Medical Facility in Germany where America's seriously injured military personnel from Iraq and Afghanistan are treated.

School children from Glennon Heights and Red Rocks Elementary Schools wrote notes to our soldiers, sailors, and Marines and signed all of the valentines. Our troops' spirits will certainly be lifted by such greetings as one drawn by a student too young to write a long note: she drew a big brown puppy with long, hanging ears that had a red heart-shaped nose and red heart-shaped eyes, plus a bubble caption that simply said, "I love you."

Kudos to Glennon Heights and Red Rocks Elementary Schools and to the Blue Spruce Chapter, NSDAR, for partnering to make this Valentine's Day special for so many wounded men and women so far from home!