From Military.com:
“Boot Camp Revives the Lost Art
of Letter Writing”
Some 2,000 years before the
printing press became a thing, a queen of Persia named Atossa did something
historians say had never been done before. Stylus in hand, she committed her
thoughts to parchment and, in 500 B.C., produced the world's first recorded
letter. For the next two and a half millennia, handwritten notes and letters
dominated long-distance communication between friends and foes alike, before
the 21st century digital onslaught reduced handwriting to a quaint notion. And
yet, even today, few emotional touchstones transcend obsolescence like the
handwritten letter. "Honestly, it's
one of the hardest things I've ever done," says Sue Meyer of Sarasota, who
bid her son Connor farewell in March as the 22-year-old headed off for basic
training at the Marine base in Parris Island, South Carolina. "The thought
of not being able to see him and talk to him every day -- I couldn't fathom
it." Until recruits complete three months of boot camp, contact with the
outside world via phone, email, or other real-time modes is prohibited. Going
cold turkey without so much as a "Hey, Mom, I'm fine" on the
voicemail can be an ice bath. "Going into his room, I cry," says
Meyer. "I cry going to the grocery store and not getting Cool Ranch
Doritos because we don't want to eat them because he loved them." Deanna
Burton of Myakka City was so distraught over the three-month blackout when her
son Dalton went off to basic training at Fort Benning, Georgia, in 2017, she
took daily selfies of her "external presence," archived them in a
photo journal as a form of therapy, and shared them with Dalton when he finally
came home. "I started putting text on the pictures, expressing how I was
feeling," she recalls. "And each day that goes by, I get a little
color back, the bags aren't as bad, you know what I mean?" In order to
cope, both moms found themselves at the mercy of a hopelessly ancient exercise
that began in Asia when Queen Atossa decided to get something off her chest
2,500 years ago. They wrote letters, without any hope of instant gratification.
And they waited for responses at the mailbox. The snail mailbox. Dalton is an
Army specialist at Fort Bragg now, and staying in touch is, once more, just a
keystroke away. Video chats seem to work best. But there are no more letters.
Which is too bad, Burton says. "It's easy to put 'L U Mom' or 'love you' in
an email," Burton says. "But when the young man you've raised writes
and says 'I know I fought against your rules sometimes, but you're the best mom
ever,' or 'I don't know where I would be if it wasn't for you' -- nothing can
compare with that. I've saved all his letters, and I've arranged them in
chronological order. Because that's something I can go back to in 10, 20, 30
years and enjoy."
'Something From Me Every Day'
For Meyer, who will watch Connor
graduate on May 31, the waiting game's end is just a few weeks off. But those
snail mail exchanges have been made a lot easier by -- gulp! -- a downloadable
computer app called Sandboxx. Founded in 2015 by Marine Corps veteran Sam Meek,
the free app lets subscribers write a letter and attach a photo, which Sandboxx
will deliver in hard-copy form to the recruit, along with an addressed envelope
to the sender and a stamp. That clear invitation to reply requires the receiver
to communicate in longhand. Letters on both ends submitted before 5 p.m. are
guaranteed a next-day delivery. "Depending on where you're at, a letter
can take up to a week to reach its destination. But next-day delivery removes a
lot of anxieties and worries," says Sandboxx chief marketing officer Shane
McCarthy. "We've sent two and a half million letters over the past four
years." Bundled pricing starts at $3.99 a letter, and bulk buys can bring
it down to $3.33 per. Sue Meyer tries to write a letter every day, though the
3,000-character limit drives her "cuckoo." But she'll also take pen
to paper on Tuesday in hopes that the note will reach Parris Island by
Saturday. "I'm unrealistically thinking the Marine Corps is giving him a
letter every day," she says. "But in my mind, it's given me comfort
to know my son is getting something from me every day. I know Connor's schedule
is busy, but I'll give him a lot of credit. I'd say between all of us (family
members), we probably get two to three letters a week. And it's just such an
awesome thing for a parent, to hear back." As with Burton's son, Meyer
says Connor's putting thoughts to paper has evoked some real surprises. "Honestly,
when he first started writing, it was like a confessional, like 'I'm so sorry
for anything I've ever said nasty.' But we've always believed in Connor,"
Meyer says, "and the fact that he's so close to obtaining his dream --
we're all so thrilled." There's also this: Connor has told her on occasion
that he can't find his Sandboxx letters, which makes Meyer suspect he's been
giving stamps away to fellow recruits. She has this image in her mind of a
mail-call announcement where some recruits get nothing. Meyer recalls a moment
at Parris Island when the family dropped him off. "I saw three kids with
nobody there. One little girl was 17 years old," Meyer says. "And I
said, 'May I hug you?' and they all said sure. I told them how proud I was of
them, and I pointed out Connor and said, if you want a letter, tell him to let
me know." Not even the most intimate letters will compare to a
face-to-face reunion, and things have happened in Connor's absence that his
family has saved for that moment. And, as with Deanna Burton, once the rookie
leaves boot camp, letter-writing will likely be a thing of the past once more. "I've
always written thank-you notes, that's how my mother raised me. But other than
that," Meyer says, "I guess I haven't written a letter in ..."
She pauses, unable to remember. "A long time ... a long time. I think it's
sad, honestly, that we don't do this enough. Because I love to re-read them. "Maybe
it's just my family. We're all so sentimental, it's ridiculous."
^ I have always written regular
letters (regardless when I lived in the United States, in Germany or in Russia)
ever since before I was a teenager. I know not many people still do that today,
but sometimes (like in boot camp) when you are required to or not hear anything
at all I think the app addressed in this article sounds like a good compromise
to get communication faster than snail mail. ^
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