Massive mail backlog found at Walter Reed

According to USA Today, U.S. Army officials scrambled to deliver thousands of undelivered letters and packages — some more than a year old — addressed to soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

Alex Neill of Army Times writes that the backlog piled to some 4,500 pieces of mail because a contract employee mail clerk (who was later fired) could not locate the soldiers or staff members to whom they were addressed, and instead left them in the mailroom without further processing.

The Military Postal Service Agency is assisting a team of 20 to 40 soldiers and civilians to screen and forward the mail. Delayed mail will be forwarded with a letter of apology from Major Gen. Eric Schoomaker, commander of Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

Schoomaker is quoted as saying, "This delay is completely and absolutely unsatisfactory. Nobody knows better than the Army how important the mail is to a war fighter's morale, and we have taken immediate steps to address this matter."

Shown above is a 1939 stamp (SC 877) picturing Dr. Walter Reed whom the Medical Center is named after. In 1900, Reed, a U.S. Army Major and physician confirmed the theory that yellow fever is transmitted by mosquitoes.

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