You find yourself doing things that you'd never expect to in the Army. I think that it's even in the commercials. One thing that I didn't see myself ever doing though was calling the Postmaster General to lodge a complaint against my unit.
"Hold on!" you say. "You did what? What about chain of command?" Well, gentle readers, I'm stuck many miles away from my unit, and I'm sure you remember how mail was becoming a big issue for many of us here. I'd been told by some of the soldiers back at our home base that the mail was piling up for me at the battalion mail room, and that I needed to pick it up. Fat chance of that being as far from there as I am right now, but some of the soldiers here went through this same problem when we were at a different outpost some weeks ago. It was rectified by a company mail clerk going to the battalion mail room, signing a little pink slip of paper saying that the soldier was currently on operations elsewhere, and the mail clerk would sign for, and deliver the package.
Fast forward to this morning when more mail was brought down to us. I received a letter from my girlfriend with replacement pictures of her and I on New Years (the wind ripped my last picture of us out of my turret a few weeks ago) - which really made the day better. When I asked where my boxes were, I was informed that the designated company mail clerk (as opposed to platoon level) had stated that he wasn't going to walk the 200 meters from his office to the battalion mail room to sign the pink piece of paper. Wrong answer so far as I'm concerned, and after doing an informal survey of the other soldiers stuck here who are also waiting on packages that they KNOW are there (it doesn't take a month to receive mail, after all, usually just about seven days) - they agree that it's just plain wrong. After doing some research online about mail delivery to soldiers, it turns out that it's criminal, too.
I spoke with my chain of command here about it, and it was dismissed as being not their problem. That's a wrong answer on their part, and so I took it to the next higher authority I have access to - the Postmaster General. It was a nice woman that I spoke with, and very helpful. Really all they need is the APO number - and if any of you at home are concerned that your troops aren't receiving their mail, or have heard of similar problems, I encourage you to lodge your own complaints. The number for the Postmaster is 1-800-275-8777 and our APO is APO/AE 09331. They'll direct you to the military mail issues desk, which is another number, 1-800-810-6098. They're all very helpful.
I've also been working on a ballad for the Destroyers of Hope. It's set to the tune of "Haul Away Joe" which is an old sea chanty from way back when. I haven't figured out how to do a verse about the mail yet, but the idea of the song is to sing about hopes that get destroyed in the military. Not neccessarily all of them are personal experiences, but they're common themes in the army. Here's the rough:
"Destroy our hopes!"
The lads cried out
"We find we have too many."
The officers, they did oblige
And gave us bullsh*t plenty.
Refrain:
We'll never break
One hundred days too many
We'll never stop
We'll always go.
When I was a little man
I dreamed I'd be a soldier
Then I became an army man
and discovered imperfection.
Refrain
I left behind my darling bride
In life there was no better
Then one day to my surprise
She sent to me a letter.
Refrain
"Dear John," she wrote, "I loved you so
and that's all i think that I'll put up here so far - it's a work in progress, obviously.
Other than that, we're running as close to on schedule with our projects as we can (our work depends on another unit, which are moving at decent pace, and doing a good job when they aren't rushed) and we're all discovering that we didn't bring enough clean uniforms with us when we came out here. We all thought we'd be going back to our homebase in a few days, but we've had out work here extended. More later, as I'm typing on a borrowed computer because a fraternity took over our MWR.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
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3 comments:
Pushing the army's buttons, are you? --Mom
okay so im not quite sure where you got that there were packages back here that weren't picked up but they're aren't... i brought out every single package and piece of mail that was in possession of us and Battalion... i know this for a fact because i covered down on Battalion in the mail room on Thursday and went through ALL the accountable mail... myself and Evans picked up everything that belonged to 485th minus two packages that were for people here... i know it may suck but what i brought was what there was... as far as mail taking a month, some of them have... granted it AVERAGES as week, but that is no guarantee... hell the XO waited a month for two packages from his wife... im sorry you feel cheated/screwed but we ARE doing what we can to take care of you, if my trip out there yesterday didn't serve as adequate evidence... we'll talk...
the last time that mail made it out, there were things left behind for the reasons that I stated - and you let me know what was going on with the mail the day before you arrived. When guys here have been waiting on packages for over six weeks now some of them - and they still aren't here - it's time lodge a complaint anyways with the postmaster and find out just where the USPS is messing up. If the problem isn't on our end, then it's on theirs. You've seen where we live now, and most of us brought two uniforms with us, and one set of PTs as this was supposed to be a quick mission. Nearly everything that we own is back at the homebase, so mail becomes that much more important to us.
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