New Requirements for Letter Mail to Overseas Bases

New Requirements for Letter Mail to Overseas Bases

By Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Erik Luebke, Navy Public Affairs Support Element-East Detachment Europe

NAPLES, Italy (NNS) -- The United States Postal Service (USPS) recently sent out a mandate that all letter mail being shipped to overseas military installations be addressed with a nine-digit zip code, starting January 2013.

The policy change came with an upgrade to USPS's mail sorting system and the opening of an additional centralized gateway for receiving and shipping all government mail.

"The USPS is asking anyone sending letters to service members at overseas bases to label them with a nine-digit zip code," said Chief Logistic Specialist (SW) Jimmy Jimenez, leading chief petty officer of the Naval Support Activity (NSA) Naples Capodichino post office. "This change accompanied the opening of a centralized gateway at O'Hare to take some of the stress off of John F. Kennedy International Airport, which used to be the sole routing hub for government mail."

The new mail sorting system will enable mail to be delivered and sorted quicker by giving the sorting machines another way to divide up the mail. The new address format will include the box number as a four digit number at the end of the zip code. For example:

John Smith
PSC 999 Box 82
FPO AE 09622-0082

"The new system will make it so that everything is already sorted when it gets here," said Jimenez. "This means we don't have to spend hours sorting baskets full of mail, and we can put it directly into the boxes."

For more information, visit the USPS website at https://www.usps.com/ship/apo-fpo-guidelines.htm.