Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 19, 1991 TAG: 9102190187
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JACK DORSEY LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium
Loved ones back home curse the lack of it. So do the soldiers and sailors with Operation Desert Storm. Postal handlers think there's too much of it. Cargo plane crews can't find enough room alongside the needed spare parts and supplies to carry all they want.
"Our mail had really been bad," said an ombudsman for the Norfolk-based fleet oiler Platte, in the Persian Gulf. "We've had a lot of lost mail. The CO's wife and I went to the Fleet Post Office and put a tracer on some of it. We found five letters."
Some soldiers are still looking for Christmas gifts mailed three months ago. Others claim they've yet to hear from friends in the States.
"We're in a rear-area unit," said Army Sgt. Joel Cole of Baraboo, Wis., who said last week that his unit hadn't received any mail since arriving in Saudi Arabia on Jan. 13.
"If this is happening to us, what's happening to the guys at the front?"
One recent day, Cole says, he saw armloads of letters flying out into the desert from boxes loaded on a flatbed truck.
The complaints come easy.
But mostly, those accustomed to instant communications from telephones, the fax machine and television, can't understand why it takes three weeks or more for a letter to get through a war zone.
The military says it is trying to correct the problem.
"I was talking to an officer whose wife is a doctor in a desert field hospital, and he got a letter in eight days," said Rear Adm. James A. Morgart, director of supply and logistics for the Atlantic Fleet in Norfolk.
The 212 crew members of the Platte received 18 bags of mail Feb. 11 and have sent a big "thank you" to the hundreds of Americans who took the time to write.
Cmdr. Roger K. Hope, commanding officer of the ship, said the mail, much of it addressed to "Any Sailor," is welcomed.
"We received 18 bags of mail today," Hope said in a radio message to the ombudsman in Norfolk.
"Half of it was from people all across the U.S. that we don't even know. We got packages galore and about three letters or cards for each crew member.
"The troops loved it," he said.
Morgart, who helped make changes in the way mail reaches U.S. ships, says he hears the complaints and says the Pentagon brass wants nothing more than to make the system work better.
In some cases the mail is slowed because a ship can't be reached by helicopter because of operational commitments, Morgart said.
Once fighting began Jan. 17 and commercial airlines stopped, or at least severely curtailed, flights to the region, the mail backlog became acute, he said.
That's when the complaints really surfaced.
To get rid of an estimated 500 tons of mail and supplies that were backed up for a week at the Norfolk Naval Air Station alone, Morgart got more Military Airlift Command flights to come to Norfolk.
Morgart said the best advice for mailers is to be certain of the ZIP Code on every letter.
by CNB