Who remembers standing in formation for mail call? Does the military still conduct mail call?

Last time I had mail-call was in 1978 as an ROTC Cadet. AC in 79, I was an LT so the clerk brought me my mail.

I am sure glad I was in the AF, we had mail clerks but we didn't have to stand out in bad weather to get our mail.

I had a very memorable mail call while in boot camp at Paris Island in the summer of ‘77. The normal platoon mail call would see us standing at attention on line in the squad bay while one of our drill instructors stood at the end near the “DI hut” and called out your name. When your name was called you’d yell out “here sir” and sprint to the DI and stand at attention going through the PVT so and so reporting for mail call routine. This one particular mail call, my name wasn’t called, but right after all the mail had been handed out, the senior DI, SSGT Kemper, told me to report to the DI hut. When I reported, he showed me a large envelope, obviously containing some magazines, that was addressed to me. The return address, which I’ll never forget, was Brucie Gay, 69 Cornhole Way, Out of the Closet, FL. When I saw that I was petrified and my mind raced thinking who could have sent me the package. SSGT Kemper asked me if I knew the sender, and I answered “Hell no sir!” He proceeded to rip it open to find it held three issues of Playgirl Magazine with a short note from my best friend from high school saying enjoy the magazines with some hand drawn laughing smiley faces. My SDI asked if I now knew who sent it and I told him my buddy from high school trying to be funny. I was ready to spend some quality time in the rose garden, but was happily surprised when he just told to go back out and get on line. When I went home on leave after boot camp, I made it a point to go by my buddy’s house and give him a good punch in the sternum...

More then a decade ago i was deployed over seas as a SPC and was assigned as the mail handler for our attachment that was placed on a US Air Force post inside the host countries air force base. The Post had a post office that i would go to every day and help sort the mail then took my units mail back to our tent and handed it out or left it on each soldiers bunk. there was only 19 of us.

I remember mail call. Most of the time my name was never called. I had an Honor Flight in October 208. On the flight back to Las Vegas after about an hour into the flight, the leaders of flight began passing out envelopes making it seem like it was mail call time. That will be one of the things I will never forget. Letters were written to me from adults and children most of which I did know know. Some came from family and friends. It was a crying time for most of us. The saddest part of my flight back is that we lost 2 people. One was civilian and the other was one of us. This was all within 20 minutes over Colorado. Back to now. Two weeks ago I received a "care package" from home. The usual was in inside, cookies,etc.. It does seem people that don't know us will write to us in the cars package. I am happily thankful for my military family. And this includes all you on Rally Point.

LTC Ford, I recall an incident during BCT in 1980 at Ft. Leonard Wood. Our Drill Sgt would have us perform push-ups for every word written on the envelope. A buddy of mine who went there a year before knew this unofficial policy and sent me a letter. The envelope had a one word message “gotcha”. He wrote the entire letter on the envelope! I did push-ups until it felt like my arms would fall off!

We got a few mail call's at NTC rotations and when I was in Iraq in 2003 and 2005. Sometimes, we would do so much moving or would be on patrols and when we got back from our base for refit and repairs, there would be a stack of mail and packages in our bunks or in some instance we would be able to hit our mail clerks during the 48 hours, before we went back out.

Mid-80's.
Basic, yes. We dropped and gave 20 for letters; care packages were opened and shared.

At Bragg, mail came through chain of command and handed to us by squad leader.

Mail was a big deal.

Just in Boot Camp.

You were always expected to share your “care package” from home!