PORT ANGELES — Jeana Johnson-Clayton has a plan to help soldiers fighting overseas connect with their loved ones during what is traditionally one of the saddest holidays for servicemen to be away from home — Valentine’s Day, Feb. 14.
Johnson-Clayton, office manager at the PDN’s Sequim office, is asking community members to donate blank Valentine’s Day cards and mail or drop them off at the PDN’s Port Angeles, Port Townsend or Sequim offices by not later than Jan. 10.
The Jefferson County office is at 1939 E. Sims Way, Port Townsend 98368; Sequim, 510 W. Washington St. (98382); Port Angeles, 305 W. First St. (98362)
“They can be any kind of Valentine’s Day cards,” said Johnson-Clayton, who plans to ship them off to American soldiers stationed in Iraq.
“But they have to be blank cards that soldiers can fill out and send home to a loved one.”
Johnson-Clayton and her husband, Tony Clayton, received national attention last month — including an appearance on Fox News Channel — after asking wedding guests and friends not to give them traditional nuptial gifts, but instead international phone cards for Iraq-stationed soldiers.
The couple married on Oct. 16 at John Wayne Marina in Sequim and ended up receiving 60 prepaid calling cards totaling more than 350 hours of international calls.
The PDN story on the Claytons’ phone card project was dispatched by The Associated Press to other member newspapers and broadcast outlets. That prompted readers from as far away as New York to mail the couple more telephone cards for soldiers.
Thank you from Iraq
Johnson-Clayton came upon the idea to send blank Valentine’s Day cards last week after receiving a hand-written thank-you note from Lt. Carl Rhoads, a Navy chaplain stationed in Iraq.
“Words cannot express my thanks to you for the gift of the phone cards,” wrote Rhoads.
“I have got to be the most popular chaplain ever because people like yourselves send so much stuff.”
Rhoads wrote that in addition to the phone cards, soldiers really appreciated another recent gift of blank Christmas cards.
Johnson-Clayton said the Jan. 10 deadline for receiving the Valentine cards should give soldiers enough time to get them, fill them out and mail them home before Valentine’s Day.
Johnson-Clayton’s 19-year-old son, Chris Johnson, is scheduled to be shipped to an infantry unit in Iraq in a matter of weeks.
His mother says collecting and donating gifts to soldiers helps her deal with her growing anxiousness.
“I’m not sure how I’m going to handle his being over there,” she said.
Vivian Romiza, a PDN advertising saleswoman who works with Johnson-Clayton in Sequim, has a son now stationed in Iraq.
She thinks soldiers will be happy to get Valentine cards they can send home to their wives and girlfriends.
“Birthday cards, Valentine cards, they really cannot go and buy any of those things,” Romiza said.
“When I look at my daughter-in-law, any communication she receives from her husband, I can just see her face light up.”
‘Cool’ project
Johnson-Clayton’s son thinks his mother’s latest project is “cool,” she said, but doesn’t surprise him in the least.
“It’s going to be hard for me to make a big deal about this,” Johnson-Clayton’s son told her over the phone from his military base in North Carolina.
“This is just the kind of thing you do.”
