Fast Facts 2009 April

5 years ago today i was in the middle of my boot camp exnireepce. I can not remember a single letter that took greater than a week to get to me. Somtimes it was about 4 days. Heres some food for thought on the subject. Say you get a letter to the post office at the last pick up time (maybe they picked up early, so it will be morning before it even gets in the postal system). The distance from Chicago will be a factor, letters from indiana will definately get in faster than those from LA, if you are not in a major city, add an additional day. Then it goes to Chicago, then to the city of Great Lakes, IL's post office. Once it gets there it goes to boot camp, where Postal clerks at boot camp must go through all the letters and divide them up divisions, after that they have to go to the different ships or barracks buildings. THEN once they get there they get divided up between divisions, where divisional petty officers (recruits who are assigned to deal with the mail) must go through the letters and divide them out to the recruits. So if you are close, it may take about 6-7 days. If you are writing from a distant small city, I could see it taking 2 weeks at the absolute most. As for mail going out, when I went through (i believe this is how it still works) mail only went out on sundays (some people had hook ups where they could sneak mail to those mail petty officers and get them to a mail box, but its usually not worth all the backdoor workings). Most out going mail will reach its destination by that weekend, my parents usually got my mail at the latest by wednesday or thursday. I hope this helps!