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

Ahhhh, the memories. I certainly do remember Mail Call. It is still done at various Basic Trainings and Boot Camps, and on some overseas deployments as well. When I was in Basic Training, too many years ago than I want to remember, we all feared receiving boxes, In particular those with food from home. We were not allowed to receive food, and were told to let our families know. However, if we did receive boxes, we had to open them on the spot so the Drills could inspect them for contraband, I remember another recruit next to me that received a box of home made cookies. There must have been 5lbs of them, Being "nice" the Drills did allow him to enjoy the "bounty". He was ordered to start eating, and gave him 2 minutes in which to consume the entire box in front of all of us while all the Drills stood around him yelling at him to hurry-up. To keep this short, he did not finish the entire box, but he did eat enough to make him "toss his cookies", pun intended, all over the parade grounds. After that, we all feared getting those "care Packages" from home! Lastly, I not only remember Mail Call, but Pay Call as well. Back in the days when paper checks were still handed out, with armed guards standing around the pay officer. That was all starting to change back in 1985 when mandatory direct deposit was being initiated.

On my first ship you knew when mail arrived when the CH53-E landed. there was a post office onboard but with 600 crew and up to 2000 marines you didn't get your mail from there. Each Division had a mail NCO who would pick it up and you would get it after Quarters the next day. On deployment
you had your spouse number the letters and packages so you could tell if you were missing some.

Did it in Boot Camp & Training…

I sure do, at both Fort Knox and Fort Polk, in 1968! They'd usually be preceded by the command, "MAIL CALL - FIRST TWO (rows) GET DOWN", so that the D.I. could toss the mail to- and across the first two of the four rows of the formation. Then, in Korea, we all crowded into a rather small mail room in a Quonset Hut. The mail clerk would stand in the half-open Dutch door, and toss mail to the recipients. I got my first contact lenses in Korea - they were rather tiny "hard" lenses. One time, in the tightly-packed mail room, a soldier in front of me reached up and turned at the same time, and with his elbow caught me squarely in my right eye, which knocked my small, hard contact lens firmly into the corner of my eye, near my nose. PAINFUL!?!? I had to have the medic remove it!

I never had any one writ to me... Didn't get mail call.... DI wanted to know why, told him and the next day he called out my name, I was surprised, but it was a letter from him.... Said a lot of things that a Dad would say to his son... And he never said anything about it again...

Only in basic. After that there was a mailroom

We had mail call in Basic Trng in our day room. I remember that if anyone rec'd food in the mail, that it had to be consumed by lights out, usually 1 hour or less.

I remember having mail call while out on maneuvers in the rain we tried our best to keep the letters dry but we were not allways successful. Would have to wait till we got back to the barracks and dry them out

Yep... while in Boot Camp I got one - only one - letter from my girlfriend. A Dear Jim (John) letter. With the stress of Boot and the letter, guys were quite whilst I was face into my pillow crying.

On a brighter note, my Pop and I played chess by mail. It was featured in our Company graduation book.

I also remember being paid in cash once a month; "sir, Private Holt reporting for pay"