http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,316484,00.html

U.S. Refuses 'Any Wounded Soldier' Mail

Hundreds of thousands of holiday cards and letters thanking wounded American troops for their sacrifice and wishing them well never reach their destination. They are returned to sender or thrown away unopened.

Since the Sept. 11 attacks and the anthrax scare, the Pentagon and the Postal Service have refused to deliver mail addressed simply to "Any Wounded Soldier" for fear terrorists or opponents of the war might send toxic substances or demoralizing messages.

Mail must be addressed to a specific member of the armed forces -- a rule that pains some well-meaning Americans this Christmas season.

"Are we going to forget our soldiers because we are running in fear?" Fena D'Ottavio asked. The suburban Chicago woman was using her blog to encourage friends to send mail to unspecified soldiers until she learned of the ban, which she called a sad commentary on society.

Last season, despite the rule, officials say as many as 450,000 pieces of mail not addressed to anyone in particular managed to reach Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington. But they were returned or, if they had no return address, were thrown out altogether, because the hospital lacked the manpower to open and screen all the mail, spokesman Terry Goodman said.

"A lot of this is because of security concerns because it's unsolicited mail that someone is going to have to go through," Goodman said. "Also, being a democratic society, there could be inappropriate mail from someone who, say, doesn't support the war, and then you've got a wounded soldier getting it."

Lt. Col. Kevin Arata, a spokesman with the Army Human Resources Command, said no one tracks the amount of unnamed-soldier mail being returned, so it is impossible to judge the size of the problem.

The busiest part of the holiday season has yet to arrive, but officials said they are receiving far less mail this year addressed simply to "A Recovering American Soldier" or "Any Wounded Soldier."

Candy Roquemore of Austin, Texas, was also promoting the idea of sending cards to wounded soldiers until she found out about the rule. She suggested the ban is an overreaction.

"I think there are some wackos who might do something, so I can understand that. But I think with a Christmas postcard it would be pretty easy to see it doesn't have anthrax in it," Roquemore said.

She added: "I just wanted to say, `Thank you, sorry you're hurt, and happy holidays."'

USO spokesman John Hanson said that like the military, the nonprofit service organization does not deliver unopened mail to unspecified recipients. He said the USO worries about security as well as hateful messages from war critics.

"We just want to make sure it's not, `Die, baby killer,"' he said. "There are people out there who act irrationally, and we don't want anyone to get a message that would be discouraging."

The USO is one of the organizations the military is encouraging people to support with donations as an alternative to sending cards to unspecified soldiers. The military is also referring people to the American Red Cross and a Defense Department Web site where supporters have posted thousands of messages to troops.

Some groups are offering to forward mail to the troops. Aides to Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., are offering to accept letters, screen them through the U.S. Capitol mail operation, and get them to members of the armed forces.

"We've had about a dozen complaints from constituents about returned mail that they sent to troops," said Steven Boyd, a Sessions spokesman.

Nope. Not really.

There is literally warehouses of old mail that never gets shipped. Last year I got...dozens of letters that were written during the very beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom. All kinds of years old care packages. You honestly probably wouldn't have believed it if you saw it.

Right before Christmas they brought a C-17's worth of pallets with old Christmas mail for us.

How come the government has time to read my fucking mail, but they can't pop open a greeting card for two seconds to make sure it doesn't say "Ha ha! You lost your legs, but Allah's still going to send you to hell!"??

The government reads your mail?

isn't there a way a person can directly be hooked up with a soldier in iraq by name?

i asked the thread title's question because i saw this on a few web sites, most prominently on fox news (shocker there), and was baffled about this being treated as what it's being treated as.

you better be careful... hallmark may steal your idea!!

There are lots of websites for this.

However, "To any injured soldier" is sort of a sentimental thing that people have always done. So people still do it.

How about instead of yelling "DON'T!!!" they just ask people to send post cards?

Because then they'd have no way of sending us their Jesus trinkets.

Perhaps we should send y'all some Muhammed statuettes.

Maybe you should just go on TV and demonstrate this incredibly warm thankfulness you're exuding at the thought that strangers would bother to think about you or your fellow soldiers when they don't even know you personally.


That should stop this tradition right quick.

I don't really have any problem with this at all the way it is explained in the article. The two points are made pretty clearly; there is the chance of it being a security issue, and the military wants to ensure that no idiot sends the "Die, baby killer" kind of message to some unsuspecting soldier. I don't know what an alternative program might be, but I can see why they have put the kibosh on continuing this practice.

No wonder my "Blackman this not your war!" cards kept getting returned to me.