Inside this Issue: Going Postal | PTS | MLK Jr. Celebration | Tools of the Trade VOL 2 / NO 6
January 18, 2011
Going Postal! How Mail Gets Here From Home Story by MC2 Byron Linder USS Carl Vinson Staff Writer
T
he U.S. Postal Service is a gargantuan infrastructure, with thousands of employees working around the clock to provide mail to millions of American citizens. While mail can be expected six times a week in the U.S., the average mail carrier would be ill-equipped to acquire a package signature hundreds of miles from land. On board Carl Vinson, the ship’s logistics specialists working in the post office face a considerably larger set of challenges to meet the postal needs of more than 4,000 Sailors. Getting a package from home into a Sailor’s hands is a complex formula, requiring multiple elements working in congress to achieve a successful result. The end of the line for a parcel in the civilian mail system for Vinson Sailors is the Joint Military Postal Agency Pacific (JMPAPAC) facility, explained Chief Logistics Specialist (SW/AW) Noe Nesmith, Vinson’s Postal Officer. “JMPAPAC is the large entity on the military side that processes our mail leaving from (Los Angeles International Airport) LAX. The ship’s postal officer and supply officer write a Mail Routing Instruction (MRI) for them, and that’s a confidential document saying how to route our mail,” explained Nesmith. Parcels with expedited or overnight shipping will only go as far as the port of exit at LAX before being added into the mail shipment going to the ship, Nesmith added. With a warship needing to be fluid and adapt to mission schedule changes, the key players work to ensure the MRI is updated accordingly and intelligently using all available resources. “All the mail follows where we’re going, but rerouting can cause delays. If we’re in range to fly a carry on delivery (COD) flight, we do that, and we do a mail call the same day. If not, we receive mail when we do a refueling at sea (RAS), and we’ve seen it’s a large volume of The Carl Vinson Voice is an internal document produced by and for the crew of the USS Carl Vinson and their families. Its contents do not necessarily reflect the official views of the U.S. Government or the Departments of Defense or the Navy and do not imply any endorsement thereby.
mail with three or four mail calls throughout the day,” Nesmith said. Vinson’s operational area during the deployment will allow for a steady influx of mail, said Nesmith. “We understand mail is a big part of morale and where we’ll be operating, getting mail sources will be easier than when we were in South America,” Nesmith explained. “Military flights are the most cost-effective way to deliver mail and there will be plenty of those in the area we’ll be in.” A simple way to avoid delays is to ensure packages coming to the ship have complete and accurate information. The five personnel working in Vinson’s post office spend many hours processing “directory mail.” “Directory mail is mail we get after mail calls that just have a name on the package, no department or division,” said Nesmith. “We have to go to the directory database or alpha roster and find out where that Sailor is.” See ‘POSTAL’ Page 6 U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class (SW) James R. Evans