For troops overseas, mail is what matters

Renata Flynn of Sudbury knows the troops look forward to chow, sleep, and mail. Since she couldn't cook for her nephew or offer him a bed when he was a Marine posted in Iraq, she made up for it by sending him packages. Lots of packages.

"I sent him a piñata and it arrived in perfect condition," she said. "I sent him a birthday cake. It arrived. Let's talk about a master of packing."

Flynn boasted of her mailing prowess at a meeting of an area Military Family Support Group, a collection of relatives of soldiers and Marines in Afghanistan and Iraq who gather on the third Tuesday of every month at the West Concord Union Church.

Like a classic support group, members share feelings about their husbands, children, nephews, and nieces in harm's way in Baghdad, Kabul, and other faraway places. They discuss plans to participate in July Fourth parades.

But the group's main order of business often is mail: sending it wisely and cheaply and sending as much as possible. A US Postal Service representative regularly attends the meetings, fielding questions that reflect a laser-like focus on making sure the troops know someone is thinking of them.

The group's brainstorming runs from the best contents for packages to how to make the most of the Postal Service's rate schedule.

"You can't send them chocolates in the summertime. They melt," said Sudbury resident Joan Green, mother of an Army staff sergeant in Iraq. "I send books and toiletries now."

Melted chocolates are fine, said Peter Harvell, veterans' officer for Sudbury. "These are GIs," he said. "If it's food, they'll eat it. If it's not food, they'll eat it later."

The secret of mailing to Iraq, group members said, is using a cardboard box that measures one cubic foot: exactly a foot high, a foot wide, and a foot deep. Such boxes get the best rate the Postal Service offers, because they are easiest to stack for shipping.

"My biggest fear is the novice who goes down to the liquor store and gets an odd-shaped box," Harvell said. "The poor guy pays more. He's charged for an oversized box."

Another little-known point of expertise is understanding where one's package is going before it leaves the country. That will affect its cost and the time it takes to reach its destination.

Military packages are sent to Army post offices or Fleet post offices on the East and West coasts, depending on where troops are based during peacetime. If a Marine in Baghdad is from Camp Pendleton in California, for example, his package goes to San Francisco before it is shipped back East and on to the Persian Gulf.

The group also gathers care packages and mails them in bulk.

On July 20, members expect to gather 600 packages at Hanscom Air Force Base in Bedford to send to Iraq.

Their biggest problem wasn't collecting donated items for the troops like beef jerky or batteries. Rather, it was raising the $8,500 they expect to spend on postage.

"The perception is that we can give a package to the military and they'll send it over for free," said Kathleen Wyman of Sudbury, whose son recently returned home from an Army tour in Iraq. "There is no such thing."

Veterans associations and private corporations donated the money, said Air Force Lieutenant Paul Corn, who is based at Hanscom and helps oversee the package drive.

Corn said he knows how important a box or letter can be for a soldier serving in the desert. "The difference between a good day and bad day is whether you get mail," he said.