Happy Veterans Day! This Veterans Day, we honor all current and former members of the Armed Services. Our Country’s greatness is built on the foundation of your courage and sacrifice. Thank you! There were Veterans Day celebrations happening across our communities this week…I enjoyed sharing the history and reasons for Veterans Day with our Pequot Lakes High School students and why honoring our veterans is so important. I was privileged to attend the 2021 Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association Law Enforcement Gala this week. It was a wonderful night dedicated to the women and men in blue who protect and serve Minnesota. Officers Arik Matson & Ryan Priebe were honored as Officers of the year…. I was truly humbled by their service and sacrifice. Star Tribune piece was published on November 9, 2021 A Veteran’s Day tribute… to Mom While World War II raged on, she quit her job, joined the Red Cross and saved lives. By Carrie Ruud My mom, Virginia Weisbrod Steuber, grew up in the Depression. Small-town girl—one of six children, the butcher’s daughter. She graduated in 1933 and went on to get her teaching certificate. She taught in Pequot Lakes, Austin and finally Des Moines, Iowa. One Saturday night she and her teacher girlfriends went to the movies. They watched the newsreel about the war and were inspired to do more for their country. Mom resigned from her teaching position Monday morning, applied for the Red Cross and was assigned to a club mobile unit affectionately known as the “Donut Dollies.” By March, Mom was sailing to England on the Queen Mary. She wrote about the ship being “stacked with soldiers”…how it took five days to cross, zigzagging across the ocean for submarine drills; and about the gas masks. They landed in Glasgow, Scotland, and took a train to London during the blackout, as everything was bombed out. They trained for D-Day and Mom spent her birthday crossing the English Channel to France. They drove their club mobiles off the LST (a tank-landing ship) at 4 a.m., onto Omaha Beach. Hastily sand-mounded graves of our dead were everywhere. She wrote, “Apprehensive—you said it. My first introduction to the heartbreak that lay ahead.” As the convoy of Red Cross club mobiles pushed farther on, death and destruction littered the French countryside from every hedgerow to every village. Mom shared her stories with family at home about tattered and limping soldiers ecstatic to see a real live American girl, about taking refuge in a Belgian convent when the Nazis broke through the line, and about serving coffee and donuts in the foxholes during the terrible Battle of the Bulge. After 18 months in the European theater, she was in Weimar, Germany, when the Nazis surrendered on May 8, 1945, Victory in Europe Day. She returned home, got her BA from the University of Minnesota—and raised her family. She was posthumously awarded the Red Cross Service to the Armed Forces Legacy award for her service after she passed away at 97 years old. Veterans Day, November 11, reminds us of the sacrifice of these heroes: friends, family and neighbors who defended our freedom at home and abroad—vets who would insist they are not the heroes. We should express our thanks, not just in words, but in action. We should live our lives and honor our country with gratitude for their sacrifice. We should help our neighbors, serve our community, perform our civic duties and vote. What is asked of us is so small in comparison to what veterans have given…I don’t think I can say it better than Mom did: “The conduct of the American soldier on the battlefield was inspiring. Even when seriously wounded they would put forth every ounce of strength and energy to save a pal.” United States Opens Borders to International Travelers On November 8, 2021—the United States reopened its air and land borders to vaccinated international travelers. A fact sheet created by the U.S. Travel Association explains the new policies regarding international travel. The Department of Homeland Security has also announced additional details on the new international travel policy for land and ferry border crossings. The reopening of the Canadian border is a particularly long-awaited development that is vital to the recovery of all segments of the Minnesota travel industry. If you’re looking to hear more from the Capitol, please like me on Facebook. As always please feel free to contact my office with any questions you might have. My office can be reached by phone at (651) 296-4913 or at sen.carrie.ruud@senate.mn. Talk to you soon! Carrie Ruud |
