Posted: 5/1/2014 9:19:57 PM EDT
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Mail Call !!
Two words that bring so much fear and joy to ones soul when walking in the darknest of combat. Will there be a letter for me? Or or will I have to wait until the next time. Will it be good news or bad? No matter what it will make me cry. How many times will I read this letter until the next one comes. And will I be here to hear the next Mail Call? 
You will never know the joy that can come from a few lines scratched on a piece of paper untill your name is called during Mail Call. 
A letter from home is sometimes called a letter from the real world. But in combat it is a candle in the window of a world that you are starting to believe is only a dream. It is easy to get lost in the darkness of war, every candle helps. 
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Once a month in Helmand. Pretty important to everyone. Lots of young Marines who got no packages at all most months, so I would pass around the contents of mine for those that wanted to pick out a few things they might like.
Once a week or so in Kandahar. It was pretty common in Kandahar to get a few generic care packages dropped off to us and the contents would wind up in a communal bin for those who were running short of something.. I still think that most of those packages should have been pushed out to the remote COPs where guys needed them more. It enraged me to come back to Kandahar and find them storing undelivered care package mail in connexes; packages that then got dumped and picked over during the RIP by people who were short of few creature comforts and had their own PX a couple of blocks from the white house ...... |