How to Write to Recruit in Boot Camp

Regardless of what branch in the military they are in almost every recruit looks forward to receiving letters from home. Many of them are very homesick and a few might be realizing how good they had it at home. Perhaps Mom and Dad weren't so tough afterall.

To write to your recruit you need to be sure to have the correct address. On an average day, the boot camp side of the base receives about 2,000 letters. This is just base, just the boot camp side.

For example at the San Diego Marine Corps Reruit Depot the mail is first broken down by Battalion and forwarded to each accordingly. The battalion mail person then breaks it into Company. Companys are alphabetical in name, rather than saying Company A it is called Alpha. So the list of companies look like this: Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Fox, Golf, Hotel, India, Kilo, Lima, and Mike.

The companys then sort the mail by platoon numbers. There could be as many as 8 different platoons for each company. When the mail is broken down into the Platoon number, THEN it is sent to that Platoon, for the Drill Instructors to hand out to your recruit.

A letter to a recruit in the USA could take 7 to 10 days to get to him/her, because of all the sorting it has to go through to be delivered to the recruit. Counting the time it takes to get to the base then add a day or two for each time it has to be sorted. Nothing is done with mail on Sundays.

Within the barracks the Drill Instructors do the mail call. The last thing a recruit is going to want is to be embarrassed by the outside of the envelope. The drill instructors will be sure to let everyone know that this recruit received something that doesn't meet their standards.

The don't list is as follows:

-No colored envelopes

-No smiley faces, doodles, stickers or other decorations

-No lipstick kisses

-No perfume sprayed on it

-No smiley faces or other doodling on it

It is highly suggested that you use ONLY white envelopes. My son was in boot camp last fall and he seen the drill instructors give a few recruits a hard time over the mail they received. They get enough grief on a daily basis, they don't need us adding to it for them.

The mailing address will look something like this:

RCT Lastname, Firstname (Do not use any rank other than RCT

1st RECRUIT TRAINING BATTALION (Change the number to the correct battalion)

A COMPANY, PLATOON 1234 (Change letter of company and platoon #)

36001 MIDWAY AVE (Change to whichever location they are at)

SAN DIEGO, CA 92140

Occaissionally mail can pass each other and the letter sent on Wednesday gets to him before the letter that was sent on Monday. What you can do is date the letters as well as in small print on the back of the envelope. This way they will know the order they are written in.

So at one point my son, Darek wrote to his dad saying they had no toilet paper. I don't know why, they may have been in the field. They were using baby wipes instead of toilet paper and he was not happy with this. When I heard this I laughed and didn't think too much about it. One day as I was in a checkout line there was a rack of greeting cards, so as I am always on the lookout for cards to send to Darek I was skimming through them and I found the one pictured.

I taped a large piece of the softest toilet paper I could find inside and mailed it to him. He said he laughed so hard! He let the other guys see it and they laughed too. So not only did the humor bring cheer to him, but to others around him. It was worth the $4.00 I spent on it to know that so many recruits had a good moment that day.

Even though you may miss the recruit a lot, more than you think you can stand, NEVER write long depressing letters. The letters from you can say you miss them, but keep it short. Instead be positive, motivational and inspirational. I tried to send two letters and a card each week. The cards were either humorous, inspiration, motivational. I had a bunch of famiy and friends jot a note and sign one, about 20 people in a patriotic one right before he went into the crucible. He kept all the cards and letters he got and brought them home with him. Some looked like they traveled around the world with him they had been carried for so long. Just remember they are homesick and getting their butts kick on a daily basis.