Army Modernizes V-Mail

During the Big One -- that would be World War II -- my father, like many soldiers, communicated from the Pacific with my mother by V-Mail (Victory Mail). It was advanced technology for the time and was developed to reduce the mail sent to forward locations.

My father would write a letter on a special V-Mail form, take it to his unit post office where it was microfilmed. About 150,000 microfilmed letters fit into one mail sack, according to the all-knowing Wiki folks. When the sack reached the states, the microfilmed letters were enlarged, printed and sent on their way.

The Army has updated this approach with HooahMail to speed the delivery of mail to soldiers in Afghanistan. It went into operation on Tuesday. Friends or family of troops in Afghanistan can log on the site, type in a soldier's address, type in a message, attach a digital photo if they want to and then press send.

The letter is routed via the Internet to one of 10 locations in Afghanistan where special equipment will automatically print, fold, address, stuff the message into an envelope and then seal it. The envelopes are then placed into the regular intra-theater mail delivery system.

Bill Hilsher, Army postal program manager, said HooahMail cuts down delivery of mail to troops in Afghanistan from 14 days to next-day or even same day delivery.

What's next? Spam, which my father wouldn't touch after the Big One, that tastes good?