No Mail

[Dave Dech]

My son has been at Great Lakes since Dec. 6. He is Ship 02, Division 913. I have been writing to the address that he provided and after the first couple of weeks started sending letters via write2them.org.

I got a letter from him today and he says that he still has not received a single letter from anyone. Not from his mother, girlfriend, brothers, or me.

Is it possible that his mail is being withheld from him?

His last letter to his girl said that all of the sailors who got letters were allowed to call those people last weekend (christmas) and for those who didn't shouldn't spend time worrying about people who don't care enough to spend their time to write him.

His mother is getting upset. I tried to tell her that this was all part of boot camp but I don't think that she is buying it.

Thanks.

[Joel Steffen]

Our son supposedly had his wisdom teeth pulled on December 23 and was not allowed to call us on Christmas because of it. He has been in since December 6 also. Ship 11. We also are waiting for acknowledgement from our recruit on wether or not he has received our letters. We have received 2 letters from him already.

[Dave Dech]

Thank you Joel! We are hoping that maybe we will hear from him this weekend.

Hope the same for you!

[Margaret Clayton]

Withholding mail is a federal offense.  What happens in the first few weeks is they must train a recruit mail handler in every division.  That takes two or three weeks before they can distribute mail.  Odd some are getting it and some are not, but the hold up could be in the main mailroom or even en route in the terrible weather.  

Calls at Christmas actually don't happen for every division as there are more recruits than can use the single phone bank in a day.  Really odd the RDC would only take part of the division over to make calls. That is seriously messed  up, and not something I've heard of often.  RDCs usually are pretty even-handed.

[Dave Dech]

Thanks for the encouraging words. We will keep writing.