Armed Forces News

After receiving more than 300 complaints about mail delivery in Operation Iraqi Freedom, lawmakers asked the General Accounting Office to investigate. Defense Department records showed that mail sent to and from Iraq generally took 11 to 14 days, which is within its 12-to-18 day window. But when the GAO interviewed 127 troops, more than half were dissatisfied with mail delivery in forward locations, and said it took at least four weeks to receive some mail. In some cases, items were never received. The agency recommended that DoD specify “a body” to oversee postal operations in theater, deploy properly trained and equipped postal troops into theater prior to a mail build-up, and dedicate adequate postal facilities, heavy equipment, and transportation assets for postal operations. It also suggested sharing the lessons learned with all combatant commands so that the same problems don’t occur again.