Free Mail for Troops Overseas

Free Mail for Troops Overseas

Order Code RS22203
Updated May 17, 2007
Free Mail for Troops Overseas
Kevin R. Kosar
Analyst in American National Government
Government and Finance Division
Summary
Members of the Armed Forces on duty in designated combat areas can send
personal correspondence, free of postage, to addresses in the United States. There has
never been a comparable provision of free postage for letters or packages sent from
family members or friends in the United States to loved ones in wartime service
overseas. Two bills (H.R. 923 and H.R. 2874) were introduced in the 109th Congress
that would have allowed family members and, in the case of H.R. 2874, certain charities
to send letters and packages to servicemen and women in combat zones free of postage.
Neither were enacted. In the 110th Congress, H.R. 1439 was introduced on March 9,
2007. It would provide members of the armed services on active duty in Iraq or
Afghanistan with one voucher per month, which they could give to anyone who wished
to send them a letter or parcel free of charge. On May 16, the House accepted an
amendment (H.Amdt. 104) to H.R. 1585, the National Defense Authorization Act for
Fiscal Year 2008. This amendment would establish a free mail benefit similar to the one
proposed in H.R. 1585. This report will be updated to reflect significant legislative
developments.
The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) has long had a relationship with the Department of
Defense which is designed to facilitate correspondence and the exchange of gifts between
service personnel and their families.1 Post offices throughout the country accept mail and
packages for military personnel and deliver them to military installations in the United
States. Overseas military mail delivery is a little more complicated. USPS delivers mail
and packages to army/air force post office (APO) and fleet post office (FPO) gateway sites
in New York, Newark, San Francisco, Miami, and Chicago. Domestic postage covers
the cost of this service. The cost of transporting the mail from those sites to service
members overseas is borne by the military mail service, though USPS commonly arranges
for the transportation and is reimbursed by the military. In a sense, then, the postage cost
1 This report originally was authored by Nye Stevens, who has retired from CRS. Readers may
contact Kevin R. Kosar with questions on postal issues. This report will be updated to reflect
significant legislative developments.

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is a bargain, because the actual costs of distribution throughout the world to dispersed
military units greatly exceed the normal costs on which domestic postage rates are based.
When the Armed Forces are engaged in combat or other dangerous activities, the
President has authority under 39 U.S.C. §3401 to permit service members to send
personal correspondence, free of charge, to places within the delivery limits of a U.S. post
office. This privilege is currently available to service members in Iraq, Afghanistan, and
certain surrounding countries and seas, and to service personnel hospitalized in a military
facility as a result of disease or injury resulting from service in the designated areas.2 The
Defense Department pays USPS for the costs of delivering this mail from the U.S.
gateway sites to any domestic address. Free mail must have a complete APO or FPO
return address and the word “free” written in the upper right corner with an APO or FPO
postmark.
However, it has never been authorized for citizens in the United States to send mail
to service members, whether overseas or not, without paying postage. During World War
II, the government created “V-Mail” as a means for Americans to correspond with loved
ones overseas. In order to economize on weight and space, V-Mail letters were written
on forms that could be purchased at retail stores or the post office. The forms were micro-
filmed, dispatched around the world, and then reproduced at a mail center near the
recipient’s location. No enclosures were permitted. V-Mail letters were sent free of
postage by members of the armed services, but when sent by others, they carried pre-paid
postage at the standard rates that prevailed then — three cents for ordinary mail, and six
cents for air mail.

Today, sending packages to service members overseas can be quite expensive. It
costs $86.50 to send a 20-pound package by international Express Mail from the United
States to Iraq. USPS will charge domestic postage of $53.45 to send a 20-pound package
from a ZIP Code in Michigan to an APO address in New York (but destinating in Europe)
by Express Mail. On the other hand, it can be much less expensive to send the same
package to the same address by Priority Mail ($19.75), Parcel Post ($11.98), or, for books,
the Media Mail rate ($7.84). There is limited advantage to using Express Mail rates to
speed a package bound for Iraq to New York overnight, when the package will then be
turned over to the military mail delivery system and be treated like all other packages for
transport overseas to military units. It might save three or four days at the outset of the
package’s journey, but will not result in expedited service overseas, which is likely to be
a journey of many more days.3
Should Mail Sent to Service Members Overseas Be Free?
Constituents frequently contact Members of Congress with the suggestion that the
free mail privilege should be extended to letters and packages sent from this country and
2 The authority was delegated to the Secretary of Defense by Executive Order 12556 on April 18,
1986. For a current list of overseas assignment locations eligible for the free mail privilege, see
“Free Mail Program,” Postal Bulletin 22097, March 6, 2003, p. 26, available at
[http://www.usps.com/cpim/ftp/bulletin/2003/pb22097.pdf].
3 On the other hand, USPS says that it does meet the three-day guaranteed delivery standard for
Express Mail to long-established bases in Germany and other European countries.

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addressed to American Armed Forces personnel serving in dangerous areas overseas.
They point out that because such communication is an important link with home and
contributes to morale, it would make sense to remove any economic disincentives to send
letters, photos, “care packages,” or audio tapes to those in active military operations.
They suggest that it is a commonsense extension of the already existing subsidy for such
items to be sent from combat areas to home.
The case for free mail to overseas service members is not quite comparable to that
of free mail privileges for soldiers, however. For troops in a wartime situation, U.S.
postage stamps, and American coins to purchase them, are likely not to be readily
available. The population of eligible soldiers is somewhat confined, and
collection/authorization of the mail limited to a relatively few APO and FPO locations.
Their economic circumstances may also be more constricted than those of correspondents
in United States, on the whole.
Extending free mailing privileges to anyone in the United States who wishes to
communicate with American soldiers could involve some practical difficulties. Removing
any cost considerations essentially would give anyone with printing equipment, an address
list, and a message free license to flood the mails, in ways that might not always be
appreciated by recipients. Large-scale communications such as from advertisers, religious
organizations, or pro-war or anti-war groups might be difficult to exclude. If eligibility
were limited to family members of service personnel, this would add a burden of
verification on postal clerks to determine who qualifies as “family.”
Handling mail that substitutes the handwritten word “free” for a postage stamp or
indicia also will incur some added processing costs. Current postage rates are based on
heavy use of automation; for example, the initial sorting of most mail is fully automated,
as “facer-canceller” machines sense chemicals in postage stamps, turn the envelopes
forward and right side up, cancel the stamps, read address bar codes, and send mail to
sorting trays without human intervention. Individual pieces of mail sent without postage,
indicia, or bar codes, would involve some degree of non-automated handling and perhaps
some verification of the relationship to the recipient. The Postal Service would no doubt
expect to be reimbursed through congressional appropriations for its costs in providing
free or discounted service to a segment of the population, just as it is currently reimbursed
for services it provides for the blind and overseas voters.4
Legislation in the 109th Congress
Legislation was introduced in previous Congresses to provide free mailing privileges
for letters and packages to American troops overseas. Two bills were introduced into the
109th Congress — H.R. 923 and H.R. 2874. (H.R. 2874 supersedes H.R. 887, a very
similar bill introduced by Representative Ford on February 17, 2005.)
H.R. 923, the Mailing Support to Troops Act of 2005 (introduced on February 17,
2005, by Representative Fossella, with 71 current cosponsors), in its original form would
have allowed family members of service personnel to mail letters and packages free of
4 For more information on existing free mail subsidies, see CRS Report RS21025, The Postal
Revenue Forgone Appropriation, Overview and Current Issues, by Kevin R. Kosar.

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charge to active members of the military serving in Afghanistan or Iraq and to servicemen
and women hospitalized as a result of disease or injury suffered in Afghanistan or Iraq.
Mailers would only have needed to write on the envelope or box “‘Free Matter for
Member of the Armed Forces of the United States’ or words to that effect [as] specified
by the Postal Service.” Mail matter that contained any advertising would specifically be
excluded. H.R. 923 would have authorized appropriations to reimburse USPS for its extra
expenses in transporting such mail. H.R. 923 was referred to the Committee on
Government Reform.
H.R. 2874, the Supply Our Soldiers Act of 2005, was introduced by Representative
Ford on June 14, 2005, and had 31 cosponsors. It sought to make it easier for families
and charities to ship letters and packages to soldiers serving in combat zones. Soldiers
mobilizing for overseas duty would have been given an allotment of special stamps
(equivalent in value to $150 per calendar quarter) that they could have sent to their loved
ones, or to selected charities, to allow them to mail letters and packages without further
postage to the service members. There would have been a 10-pound limit on packages
sent to individuals. The Postal Service would have been reimbursed by the Defense
Department for providing this service, and section 3 of the bill authorized appropriations
to the Defense Department for this purpose and for any other expenses it incurs. By
putting individual service men and women into the authorization chain for the mail they
receive, this bill avoided the problem of subsidizing unsolicited mail to the troops.
Additionally, by capping the allotment per service member, it mitigated potential stress
on the military postal system. H.R. 2874 was referred to the Committees on Armed
Services and Government Reform.
On September 29, 2005, the House Committee on Government Reform marked up
H.R. 923, and in doing so, accepted an amendment in the nature of a substitute that
adopted the core concept, as well as the title, of H.R. 2874. As amended and ordered to
be reported by voice vote of the committee, H.R. 923 would have required the Department
of Defense, in consultation with the Postal Service, to establish a one-year program under
which qualified members of the armed services would receive a monthly voucher that can
be redeemed, by their families or friends, to pay the postal expenses of sending one letter
or parcel (weighing up to 15 pounds) to the service member. The Department of Defense
(DOD) would have reimbursed the Postal Service for the postal benefits provided by the
vouchers. Committee Chairman Tom Davis said that the substitute language had the
approval of Representative Fossella, the Committee on Armed Services, and the Postal
Service. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that nearly all of the about 145,000
American service personnel who would have been eligible for the postage benefit would
have taken advantage of it, and assigned it a budget cost of $30 million over fiscal years
2006 and 2007.5
The language of H.R. 923 was added by the House Armed Services Committee as
sections 575, 576 (“Funding”), and 577 (“Duration”) to H.R. 5122, the FY2007 defense
authorization act. H.R. 5122 was passed by the House on May 11, 2006. On June 22,
2006, the Senate substituted its own defense authorization language for the House
5 This assumed enactment in Dec., 2005. U.S. Congress, House Committee on Government
Reform, Supply Our Soldiers Act of 2005, report to accompany H.R. 923, 109th Cong., 2nd sess.,
H.Rept. 109-268 (Washington: GPO, 2005), pp. 7-9.

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language and passed H.R. 5122. Neither the Senate version of the FY2007 authorization
bill nor the conference report (H.Rept. 109-702) included the free-mail-for-troops
provisions.6
Ultimately, the free-mail-for-troops provision was not included in either the FY2007
defense authorization act (P.L. 109-364) or the FY2007 defense appropriations act (P.L.
109-289).
Legislation in the 110th Congress
In the 110th Congress, H.R. 1439 was introduced on March 9, 2007, by
Representative Fossella and 13 other House Members. The bill would provide a postal
benefit to members of the armed services on active duty in Iraq or Afghanistan and
individuals who are “hospitalized at a facility under the jurisdiction of the Armed Forces
of the United States as a result of a disease or injury incurred as a result of service in Iraq
or Afghanistan.” Beneficiaries would receive one voucher per month, which they could
give to anyone who wished to send them a letter or parcel free of charge. The bill would
limit the weight of letters to no more than 13 ounces and parcels to no more than 15
pounds. H.R. 1439 would authorize an appropriation to the DOD to cover the cost of this
program. The bill would require DOD, “in advance of each calendar quarter during which
postal benefits under this Act may be used,” to transfer to USPS from this appropriation
“an amount equal to the amount of postal benefits that the Department of Defense
estimates will be used during such quarter.” H.R. 1439 would authorize this free postage
program to have a duration of one year. H.R. 1439 was referred to the House Armed
Services Committee on March 9. As of May 17, 2007, H.R. 1439 had 68 cosponsors.
On May 16, Representative Fossella offered an amendment (H.Amdt. 104) to H.R.
1585, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008. The amendment was
accepted by a voice vote that same day. H.Amdt. 104 would require the Secretary of
Defense to provide a “qualified individual” with one voucher every second month. A
“qualified individual” would be defined as a member of the Armed Forces serving in Iraq
or Afghanistan, or a member of the Armed Forces hospitalized under the care of the
military. This individual could give the voucher to anyone, who then could mail at no
charge a parcel (up to 10 pounds) or first-class mail piece (up to 13 ounces) to the same
qualified individual.

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6 The free mail for troops measure was not included in either the House or Senate reports
(H.Rept. 109-504, S.Rept. 109-292) on the FY2007 defense appropriations bills.