Last Updated on May 12, 2023
The Holding Mail Rumor:
Drill Sergeants hold the soldier’s mail at basic training.
The Truth on Basic Training Mail
True and false. Ask those running basic training if this is happening, and they will swear up and down that it is not.
However, when my husband was at basic training, I remember crying when I heard the voice message wanting to know why I had not written him any letters yet.
I cried because I missed the phone call and had been sending letters…daily.
Since then, I have received countless emails, which all have similar stories to what I described. It seems to routinely take two weeks after reception before the soldiers start receiving their letters.
Do they hold letters? Does it take that long to process mail for a new class? Who knows?
What I know is that in most cases, you can expect that it will take two weeks or so before he receives his first letter from you, regardless of when you sent it or how many you sent.
Continue to Write Regardless
This does not mean you don’t have to send mail to him in those first few weeks. Just let those letters pile up but always continue to write and send letters.
The last thing you want is for him to finally have a mail call and discover there is nothing for him. Don’t let this happen to your soldier!
I’ve been sending my son letters. His last letter today said he was disappointed to not receive any letters from me.
My son went to his basic training last july 30, 2019 we kept sending letters after we got his info. but it seems that he is not answering on our questions. maybe or looks like he might not getting our letters. And it sad when he called both me and my wife missed it. He left some messages on voice mail felt very sad because you can tell through his voice that he is disappointed. I hope and pray that he ‘ll recived our letters and we are ready whenever he will make some call. Military in general should improve this issues so our troops who sacrifice will have a very positive views on what’s they are doing soon…
My husband has written me 20 letters or so and he is getting really upset when I tell him that me at home, still have not gotten them yet. I am not sure what is going on with the mail right now, but none of the moms and spouses have recieved mail from his troop in at least 3 weeks even though all the men have been saying they are writing. I finally got a HBL letter, 3 weeks after it had been sent. No one else has gotten that yet. Now waiting on the +20 letters… Not sure what is happening. I have even filed a missing mail search now.