I DARE SAY —
The Post Office comes through
By Florence Fisher Parry
The specter is drawing close now, the specter we mothers dread most. The specter of not knowing; the haunting of apparition of suspense.
We have no idea how many of our boys have left this country. How many more are to be sent, our imaginations have not the strength to conjure. Certainly, any last remaining illusions of security have vanished from mind, borne away by the hot, evil breath of the news.
The postman’s burden will be sadder now than ever, for hundreds of thousands, yes, millions of little printed postcards will be delivered along the little Main Streets and backstreets of our land. These will be postmarked Brooklyn or New York. Printed on each will be these words:
I have arrived at my destination.
…under which the “sender” will have affixed the signature.
We will know that these signatures were all procured before these boys set sail, and were held by the New York Postmaster until word of the convoy’s safe arrival had been received. That is all the one we may expect to hear.
So, mothers prepare to endure this peculiar form of torture. It requires a definite preparation and resolve. Exactly the same kind as we would exert if, for example, we were called upon to defend our own city or home.
Our nerves are padded by shock absorbers which, if not subjected to too great a strain, provide us the necessary resistance with which to meet at normal experiences.
There are, however concrete, obvious ways in which we can prepare ourselves for whatever is to come.
Our task
First, we must shake free from a purely personal attitude and regard this war, not as a personal visitation, our own particular son singled out for martyrdom, but as a universal calamity affecting all of mankind. We must seek detachment and the dispassionate view.
We must keep well, and omit not one thing that could possibly deprive us of that health. All excess can be cut down, if not cut out. Make room for rest and sleep, but barely enough of each.
We must control our feelings; assume the virtue of an external calm, never mind what tumult rages in our hearts.
We must present a healthy, and happy picture to our men who are fighting this war. Release them to do it. Do not deprive them of their concentration on their task by telling them any distressing news from home. The temptation to pour out to them our own misgivings and loneliness will be increasingly great; but we cannot fail our opportunity, the greatest, I might say, ever afforded parents or wives.
For in our letters, however flattering our first attempts may be, we can learn somehow to release the real feelings toward them which, in normal days, we may have been too self-conscious to express. Let them know of our pride, our hopes in them, our confidence. Let them be reminded constantly of the reality and preciousness of what is waiting for them here when they return.
If we can manage to keep clear the picture of what they are indeed fighting for the great worthwhileness of the future, they will win. Stress not our need of them now, but our need of them later.
U.S. Postal Service
The United States Post Office is doing a monumental work. We can help in countless ways.
First, reduce the weight and bulk of our mail by not sending large packages, by writing closely on thin paper, by letting the contents of each letter count.
Through the new Postal Service, which is known as the V-mail service, the transmission of letters (without enclosures) will benefit members of our armed forces abroad exclusively. For this, we are being provided a special standard, uniform V-mail letter sheet which is a combination letter and envelope of standard minimum weight, stationery so constructed and gummed as to fold into a uniform and distinctively marked envelope.
The War and the Navy Departments will furnish V-mail letter sheets without charge to all members of our armed forces stationed abroad. V-mail messages sent by them require no postage. Parents, relatives and friends of the members of our armed forces may obtain V-mail letter sheets, write their messages, and by affixing a regular 3¢ postage stamp, they will be delivered either in the form of a tiny photographic negative, to be enlarged when delivered, or in original form, to any part of the world. It will be some weeks before these V-mail sheets will be universally circulated, but in Pittsburgh, small stocks are already available.
Until now, the mailing problem has been an easy one. From now on, however, with our men rapidly moving away from our shores, the Navy and Post Office liaison is swiftly inaugurating new methods of handling mail which will maintain the highest secrecy of the movement and location of seagoing units and forces.
If your boy has been sent out of the United States, the greatest service you can render your country is to subscribe, to the letter, to the demands made upon you. Any effort on our part to obtain information as to the whereabouts of any man in the service only serves to congest and complicate what is fast becoming one of the major problems of the Post Office.
