To commemorate the Army, Navy, and Marines!
The U.S. Postal Service is honoring three of the nation’s military branches — the Army, Navy and Marine Corps — with commemorative stamps to mark 250 years of service.
Each of the three stamps features the respective name of the military service, the service seal and the inscriptions “250 Years of Service,” “Since 1775” and “Forever/USA.”
Full article, HERE from Military Times.
For all we complain about the USPS, they have always gotten the mail to troops deployed world-wide year after year, through APO and FPO addresses.
And for many of us old farts, that was the ONLY communication we had with home in either direction. We didn’t have the intarwebz, cell phones, etc. so we actually had to write out letters, send them, then wait a month (average) for an answer.
It was truly on our SOs to ‘manage’ the homefront while we were gone, for better or worse.
And sometimes, those letters brought pictures that allowed us to share significant events that, even though we missed them, were still major events in our children’s lives.
I don’t know about any of y’all, but I’m planning on buying some of the Navy stamps to replace my Forever US flag stamps!
Yes the big yellow mail bags , always looked forward to mail , any kind of mail , even newspapers from cities and small towns I had no connection to . Hell I’d read your Grandma’s letter about her garden if you wanted to share . I remember getting letters from random elementary schools with crayon pictures of ships and planes and such . All really cool , loved to get mail , occasionally set up the (Marsat?) phone where you had to say “over” when talking to the spouse . That was a treat . The spouses were tough back home and handled shit well . When I was an E3 my wife and I had a very ugly and very reliable 76 AMC Hornet , it had 258 straight 6 , alternator went out on it , neighbor was going to fix it but she wrote “I got to looking at it , and it looked easy to fix” , one belt , three pulleys , and she did , with a 101 pc. Craftsman tool kit . I thought she was awesome , and still do .
Very cool. And long overdue. The people who volunteer to provide services to our country should be recognized for their sacrifices. Some paying the Ultimate Sacrifice.
I will look for them in our post office – Thanks for making us aware of them.
Hey Old NFO,
Yeah, I need to buy a sheet of them for display purposes. I have a couple of my “desert Storm” stamps on display. Something cool, like we G.I. need a reason to “Souvenir anything long time” lol
My mum wrote me every single week. Highlight of deployment. Will definitely get some Navy stamps, maybe even a sheet to display.
I hope they create a stamp for the often overlooked Merchant Marines. There is a guy in our neighborhood who has 4 flagpoles on his property. He flies a US flag, a USMC flag, a US Mercant Marine flag – and a “Trump 2024” flag… 🙂
“Give us the oil, give us the gas
Give us the shells, give us the guns.
We’ll be the ones to see them thru.
Give us the tanks, give us the planes.
Give us the parts, give us a ship.
Give us a hip hoo-ray!
And we’ll be on our way…”
Approve!
Too bad they ignored the oldest Service: the Coast Guard. I worked with Coasties at one time in my career & learned to respect them.
My first thought was where is the Air Force stamp, then oh never mind.
Mail Call! The highlight of my week. Brandt got a package! Thee Gud Wyfe sent a goodies box at least once a month. Guys would line up to help consume even the crumbs. Have to buy some Navy stamps.
In the Fall of 1980 the Omaha pulled in to Diego Garcia after 72 days running around the northern Indian Ocean. 5(!) bags of mail came down the forward escape trunk. The yeoman were boggled and tried to tell us the mail would take over a day to sort and distribute. That went over like you would expect, it was time for a little unauthorized mail handling.
A few minutes later the mailbags were spaced around crew’s mess and we were flinging letters in every direction. Ops over here, Weapons over there, Engineering? That way! Each division had a corner of the mess as a target, the sorters knew where every letter went and just sent it over. Guys in each corner took care of sorting everything in to individual stacks.
About 20 minutes later we had Mail Call.
One day to sort? My ass…….
Not on topic but my grandson graduated high school last night and after the invocation, the first thing the principal did was recognize the students joining the military. I thought that was a cool thing to do.
74 years ago my Dad graduated on Friday and enlisted in the Navy on Saturday. The Korean War was on and the principal the week before had gathered all the senior boys in the auditorium. He told them they could wait to be drafted, which meant going into the Army, sleeping in the mud and being shot at; or they could enlist and choose their branch of service, like the Navy or Air Force and sleep on sheets. My Dad couldn’t swim, and had never seen the ocean. But he spent the next four years sleeping on sheets aboard the USS Wisconsin. To his dying day he said it was the best thing he ever did.
Enlisting was the best thing I ever did as well. It’s amazing how much those four years influenced the next thirty eight of my life.
All- Thanks for the comments! And yes, mail call… 🙂
I remember having to put up 200-500 bucks up front to the American Hotel for a phone call.