Mail

At the US Embassy, we get to participate in the military mail system, familiar to many of us by various initials, such as "APO". It's a great system for us as it allows us to get U.S. mail while in a foreign country. And, it costs the same as domestic postage because it's treated as domestic mail, not international mail. In fact, for us, a lot of mail is free! For regular envelopes that contain personal mail we simply write "Free Mail" in the space where a stamp would normally go.....and off it goes! If it's a larger envelope, or a package, then we have to pay postage at the normal, domestic U.S. rates.

Getting mail to military personnel (and civilians serving in certain locations), is a joint effort by the US Postal Service (USPS) and the Department of Defense (DoD). Here's a little overview of how the mail gets delivered to overseas military locations, including the US Embassy in Baghdad.

USPS has a standard addressing format that we all recognize.....name, street address (or PO Box), City, State & Zip.
Military mail has to conform to this. To do this, they've created two "city" equivalents:

APO, stands for Army Post Office
FPO, stands for Fleet Post Office

And, three "state" equivalents were created, and they are:

AA, which stands for Armed Forces- Americas
AE, which stands for Armed Forces- Europe
AP, which stands for Armed Forces- Pacific

Based on these categories, a typical Overseas Military Mail address looks like this:

Name
Postal Service Center + Identifier
APO, AP ZIP

Our address in the Embassy goes like this:

Name
US Embassy + Office Name (and maybe room number)
APO, AE 09316

Mail coming in isn't delivered through typical mail boxes. Instead, each office has 1 person identified as the official "mail person". This person picks up the mail for everyone in their respective office, then hands it out....just like Radar on the TV series, "M.A.S.H." And, just like it's depicted on M.A.S.H., we all look forward to receiving mail. In fact, at the mail receiving shack, there's a sign outside and the staff there writes on it every day, either "New Mail Today!", or "No New Mail Today".

It's just another way that we're allowed to keep in touch with family and friends back home!