By Sgt. 1st Class Jeff Troth
jefferey.l.troth.mil@mail.mil
CAMP CASEY -- Before Santa arrives on Christmas Eve, mom's fantastic fudge and Aunt Vickie's terrific banana bread will make their way into Area I along with the thousands of other boxes and letters that come to Warrior Country every day.
For the Camp Casey post office, 1,000 pieces of inbound mail is a normal Monday. But with the holiday gift-giving season now under way, those inbound Monday shipments are expected to double.
"Usually Mondays and Wednesdays are our busiest days," said Staff Sgt. William Sims, the sergeant-in-charge of operations at the Camp Casey post office.
Sims and five other Soldiers from the 19th Personnel Company (Postal) staff the Casey post office, which receives the mail not only for Casey but also for Camps Hovey and Mobile. "But as we get closer to Christmas, what we get on Mondays will be typical for the rest of the week," said Sims.
Normally they have four or five unit mail room clerks who help sort the mail every morning starting at 5 a.m.
But, for the upcoming holiday season Santa has sent the postal clerks some extra hands with sorting the mail.
Three Korean workers from Camp Casey's Korean Service Corps have been sent over this season to help during the day with sorting and processing the outbound mail.
The other extra hands, who get up extra early for the purpose, are Soldier volunteers from the Area I Better Opportunites for Single (and unaccompanied) Soldiers (BOSS)program at the three installations.
"I know it gets congested at the end of the year," said Sgt. Rojelio Taylor, the BOSS president for the Camp Casey enclave. "We know that the holiday mail is going to increase, so we figured we would help out by volunteering to help them sort the mail.
"The mailroom is part of our community and we should help our community stay in the same flow that it normally does," said Taylor.
"Having BOSS here makes everything run faster," said Sims. "And, the faster we can get the mail sorted the faster my Soldiers can get out of here and do PT before they have to be back to start receiving the outgoing mail."
The postal work's a little more involved than Taylor expected.
"Basically, you receive the mail, but when you are sorting it, you have to know which ones are certified, which ones are delicate and what is going to a different area.
"It is interesting just to learn something different in the Army," Taylor said.
Anyone wanting to pitch in with sorting the mail can contact their unit BOSS representative or stop by the BOSS office at the Camp Casey Community Activity Center, building 2236, said Taylor.
But BOSS also welcomes volunteers for other things, he said.
"We are volunteering everywhere," Taylor said. "We go to orphanages and to schools here in Dongducheon and are always looking for more people to help us out."
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