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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Thursday, April 24, 2003

Tons of mail wait for sailors

By William Cole
Advertiser Military Writer

Petty Officer 3rd Class Marvin Harris, a postal clerk at Pearl Harbor, bundles up love, aching hearts, impersonal bills, baby photos, and sometimes, Jack in the Box food.

Naval reservists, from left, Kevin Smith, Scott Schulz and Tom Kruchowski fill cardboard boxes with some of the 62,000 pounds of mail destined for the USS Abraham Lincoln, which is due to arrive Saturday after extended deployment in the Persian Gulf. The three are from a Minnesota reserve unit in Hawai'i on annual training.

Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser

Yesterday, he was adding to the mountain of mail destined for the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln when it arrives here Saturday after an extended deployment in the Persian Gulf.

The battle group, including the Pearl Harbor-based destroyer Paul Hamilton and frigate Reuben James, set a record since the Vietnam War with a deployment that will stretch nearly nine months.

At 62,000 pounds and growing, the mail for the Lincoln represents a whole lot of emotion waiting for 5,500 sailors and aviators returning in the first big wave from Operation Iraqi Freedom.

That's 75 4-square-foot boxes of letters and packages, the equivalent of eight tractor-trailer loads.

"Nothing like being in Hawai'i and getting care packages — that would be the best feeling — then they are on their way home," Harris said.

Since the Lincoln is stopping in Hawai'i before heading to San Diego and its home port of Everett, Wash., the Navy decided to gather the mail here. The carrier last received mail about two weeks ago out of Bahrain.

"It's unbelievable. I've never seen this much mail," said Harris, 25, of Houston. "I've been in the military six years and ain't seen this much mail, unless it was like for a whole battle group. But this is for one ship."

Tesia D. Williams, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Army's Personnel Command, which oversees the Military Postal Service Agency, said yesterday that it's taking seven to 10 days for letters, and 20 to 25 days for packages to be processed and delivered to Kuwait.

For ground troops, there isn't a problem with the mail getting to Iraq; the problem is with distribution.

"Some of the service members are being reassigned to various units, and there is a problem with the mail being distributed to them — it essentially has to catch up with them," Williams said.

"You receive a care package from home, it's got to be the best feeling," Petty Officer 1st Class Tony A. Zarate said.

Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser

About 400,000 pounds of mail is delivered daily, which Williams said is up from 107,000 pounds at the end of March.

Gunnery Sgt. Gerald Rohn, a 4th Force Reconnaissance Marine in Iraq out of Kane'ohe Bay, received one of three boxes sent by his wife, Lucy.

"I definitely know my parents sent a big box three weeks ago," she said, "and he hasn't gotten anything from anyone else (but me).

"I just think the mail is sporadic. They may get small letters through, but the bigger boxes maybe they're holding back."

For delivery to the Lincoln battle group, mail sent to Bahrain was routed through San Francisco and then New York.

Petty Officer 1st Class Tony A. Zarate, a postal clerk at the Pearl Harbor Mail Center, said 5,000 to 6,000 pounds of mail had been going through Bahrain for the battle group every two days. That has shifted to about 5,000 pounds a day in Hawai'i as the carrier makes its way here.

A lot of the mail is already sealed and bagged for the mail room to screen and X-ray for drugs or bombs.

"We see some packages with pictures of home (on the outside), families holding each other, and that was pretty neat to see," Zarate said. "Just that and 'We miss you,' 'We can't wait to see you.'

".... For myself, I've been on three ships now, and to see this happen now — to get this mail to them — now I can be that other side. Now I know what it feels like to get the mail there."

Baby pictures and videos are highly prized. So is food. Several packages awaiting delivery from Oklahoma, Nebraska and California had March 25 and 26 postage franking dates on them.

Not all the mail is so personal. In the bin for the destroyer Paul Hamilton, also arriving home Saturday, which got mail during a recent port call, were letters from Bank of America, Motor Trend magazine and First USA, and a "Packer Report." The Reuben James is due back Sunday.

Zarate said the Lincoln's mail would be delivered to the ship as quickly as possible Saturday. For sailors at sea, mail call is a big deal.

"It's very important, very important," Harris said. "I mean, it's a morale booster. You can be down, and you're out on the water for all that time. You receive a care package from home, it's got to be the best feeling.

"I've seen it from firsthand experience, because I delivered the mail (on a ship). People would miss lunch for a care package, miss sleep, anything, for a care package."

Reach William Cole at wcole@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-5459.