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

Good times during basic.

The only thing I remember about mail call was either boot camp when they would come in with our letters, or when they would pass the word over the 1MC for Mail Call. We never stood in formation for mail call.

We had it in bootcamp, then in the Fleet when deployed (WestPac) on on longer exercises like CAX. Usually, it ended up being one guy from the platoon running over to the mail clerk late in the afternoon and grabbing it for everyone though, and was much less formal though.

I remember one of my guys writing to a hot sauce company while one ship, and ended up getting an entire promo box while we were in Kuwait, which was kind of neat.

The only pace I had been where mail call was done was in basic training everywhere else We had a Mail room to pick up our mail.

Wow! I remember mail call! During my 2nd tour in Korea I was battalion postal section chief. I had HQ battery as well as 7 outlying batteries spread across a pretty large area of South Korea from Seoul to south of Osan. Anyway, in that capacity we had to separate all the mail coming into battalion into 8 sections and get the battery mail ready for the couriers to load up and head back to their respective batteries. Then we sorted HHB mail. We never had mail call as such. Mail was sorted by section and/or hooches. Some guys would come to the mailroom and see if they had anything others would wait until we delivered the bunches to either individual sections (i.e. S-1, Motor Pool, DSP, etc.) or to individual hooches. Then officers, of course, got their mail delivered personally to their duty station or their individual hooch, depending. Other than that I really don't recall mail call, maybe a little memory while in Basic but I have no memory of mail in AIT at Ft. Gordon. Before taking over batallion mail I was in S-2 and TDY from time to time and really don't recall much about mail. Only mail REALLY recall was a letter from my "fiance'" announcing her upcoming marriage the following month. That really fuck with me for a long time. Otherwise, I guess I got goody boxes from time to time. But after my girl dumped me I really had no use for mail. It was better for me to see guys get their stuff from home.

Here’s my most memorable mail call, LTC Stephen F.! I was at Camp Mackall for SF Phase 1 (APR-MAY70), and my mother made the huge mistake of sending me a care package while I was there. All I got was a battered, partially opened box with crumbs in the bottom!
I was disappointed, but not surprised. Needless to say, I said nothing to the SF cadre! I’m sure they were just waiting for me to complain! I figured that was neither the time nor the place to argue about opened mail!
Even there, though, mail call was not done in formation.

CPT (Join to see)

During Basic Training, our unit got smoked because a love letter.

I was Active Duty from 1988-1990 before e-mail was common and long before the Army issued e-mail addresses. I learned to be nice to the mail clerk in Korea. We actually got 7 day delivery, Monday-Friday to the mail room but weekends the mailroom was only open a few hours. I was good friends with the mail clerk, so after she closed the mail room she would deliver mail to my barracks room. I was one of a very select group of soldiers who got room service. At Fort Hood I was designated by my NCOIC of the BAS I worked in to pick up mail for the whole BAS when I went to pick up supplies at the hospital.

LTC Stephen F.
Yeah I remember mail call the "old way" as you described. Now it's much less formal as Sgt Aaron Kennedy, MS stated. One person is usually designated "mail clerk" for your shop/division and they pick up our mail for us, bring it back to the shop and say "here's your mail. Sort out your own." No formations anymore.

I don't remember much mail call, most all units had PO Boxes in the barracks or a central mail room. But I do remember mail being handles out. Long time since That has even entered my mind. Now my son was in during e-mail and the likes. He was on a cariier and if no mail showed up you knew something was going on. At times the legal office got full and it was all the dear John mail.