Yokota mail detachment is largest, busiest

  • Published
  • By Master Sgt. Val Gempis
  • Air Force Print News
YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan --  Detachment 2 of the Air Postal Squadron here operates the Air Force’s largest and busiest central mail processing activity. Its 48-person team of Airmen and local Japanese workers oversee the movement, sorting and distribution of more than 50 million pounds of mail annually.

Det. 2 also has remote sites in Tokyo and Osaka to efficiently move mail in and out of Japan. Additionally, it has an operating location in Bangkok, Thailand.

The squadron is part of the Military Postal System that operates in areas where the U.S Postal Service does not operate or in other places where U.S. military is present. Its mission is to provide prompt, reliable and efficient postal service for all Department of Defense people.

Moving, handling and processing mail here is a very complex operation, said Isiah Ravenel, detachment chief. The detachment receives and dispatches mail to about 2,000 commercial and military aircraft a year bound for Pacific Command locations including Australia, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Korea, Thailand, Singapore and Bahrain.

At the mail processing facility, Airmen are usually on their feet, reaching for sacks and trays of mail or placing packages and bundles into sacks and trays. In 2003, the group operated two shifts, 19 hours daily, year-round, while serving more than 300,000 customers in the Pacific Command.

Daily, Airmen load and unload postal trucks and move mail around using forklifts, electric tractors and hand-pushed carts. They also operate mail processing, sorting and canceling machines.

But despite using automated equipment, the work of mail sorters can be physically demanding.

“It’s a lot of work. Your back aches, your hands hurt and your body is exhausted after the end of the day,” said Master Sgt. Neil Mercader, operations chief at Narita Airport in Tokyo.

Workers trek back and forth between Yokota and Narita Airport daily using 32-foot trailer trucks driven by 374th Logistic Readiness Squadron heavy-equipment operators, also from Yokota. Though the airport is only 70 miles way, sometimes the Airmen sit in traffic for up to four hours. But knowing how important mail is to the morale of people stationed or deployed overseas makes the job gratifying, team members said.

All their hard work recently earned them the Air Force’s outstanding aerial mail terminal for 2003 honors. The Bangkok location was named the best small post office in the Air Force.

But what is really impressive is not that the unit garnered the awards, but it accomplished the task with about 90 percent of its Airmen deployed at different times supporting operations like operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom.

Detachment workers were instrumental in initiating mail operations at Baghdad International Airport. They delivered –- often through hostile fire –- more than 16 million pounds of mail to about 130,000 troops in the country. The detachment still has a “contingency kit,” a deployed post office, at an undisclosed location in Southwest Asia.

“It’s been a Herculean effort for us to meet and surpass our goals with so many troops gone. But we have a good cohesive crew,” said Senior Master Sgt. Michael Breazell, unit superintendent.

Even though they have to double up on duties and stay longer at work at times, Sergeant Breazell said people stayed focused and very professional.

“They just did their work with flair and a smile,” he said.