David Cameron meets Task Force Helmand’s unsung heroes

Some of the unsung heroes in Helmand got a major boost to their morale today when the Prime Minister David Cameron, on his first visit to Camp Bastion, addressed the troops and paid tribute to their work describing it as “critical to the success of operations in Afghanistan”.


After spending time with the Camp Bastion Fire and Rescue Service, the Prime Minister visited the British Forces Post Office (BFPO) where he met the soldiers whose job it is to receive, sort and ensure the mail is delivered right out to the frontline.

The soldiers of 884 Squadron of the Postal and Courier Regiment are fully aware of the importance of their role and how receiving letters and packages supports the high morale and spirit of troops in theatre.

The Prime Minister was escorted by the Officer Commanding 884 Squadron, Major Cameron Hill, who explained that Camp Bastion’s Post Office is the hub of all mail distribution to British Forces in Afghanistan. His men process over 3,000 bags per week which converts to approximately 30 tons in weight.

When a delivery arrives the soldiers will work as long as it takes, sometimes 10 hours or more to get the bags sorted.

Major Hill said of their work “Our aim is simply to process the mail very quickly and get it to the Forward Operating and Patrol Bases as soon as we can”. He went on to describe how “everyone in my team knows the value, in terms of morale, of receiving mail and that’s the reward we get from our job”.

Major Hill was able to show how the BFPO is doing everything it can to speed up communication between soldiers and their families and how the growth in popularity of the E-bluey and Fax-bluey is beginning to constitute a bigger share of the overall mail traffic.

For example, a letter from the UK can take four or five days to reach a soldier in a FOB but using an ‘E-bluey’ it might only take hours. Bastion’s Post Office is now processing around 9,500 per month.

Although Mr Cameron decided against sending a message home explaining that he was anxious not to unnecessarily increase the service’s volume of mail he did confess he didn’t know his new postcode.


The Prime Minister met and chatted to members of the Squadron of which 25 are from the Territorial Army and many of them work for Royal Mail. He was very interested to hear how supportive their civilian employers had been in allowing their staff to serve on operations.

Mr Cameron got a sympathetic response when he described how, as an election candidate delivering leaflets, he dreaded the doors with the letter boxes low down which always seemed to “have a brush on the inside and the little bit which snaps your fingers just when you shove – that’s the classic - then if you get the angry dog too that’s the Full Monty”.

Among the soldiers Mr Cameron met was Corporal Pacha Bhaiya, a Gurhka who has served for almost thirty years in the British Army. During the conversation Mr Cameron pointed out that no British Prime Minister had ever visited Nepal, adding that he hoped he might be the first sometime in the future.

Squadron members were delighted to have met the new Prime Minister and appreciated the fact that he had taken the time out to come and meet them. It was a fantastic boost to their morale to be recognised. One soldier added that recently they’ve had visits from three Davids – Bailey, Beckham and Cameron but concluded – “It was great to meet the boss’s boss!”


Pictures: Sgt Ian Forsyth RLC

‘It doesn’t look like your average post office’

In the weeks before Christmas thousands of postbags pile up at the Forces Post Office in Camp Bastion each day

By Melissa van der Klugt - Times

Every day in the weeks before Christmas between 1,000 and 2,500 blue, grey and white postbags pile up at the Forces Post Office in Camp Bastion. At the post office in Kandahar the same amount arrives. Each sack weighs eight kilos and bulges with Christmas parcels and letters for those serving in Afghanistan. Even though the winter air is chilly, everyone in the sorting area is wearing T-shirts.

In December the post office receives as much mail in a single week as it does in the course of a month during the rest of the year. Captain Charlie Malcolm, Officer Commanding the Operation Herrick Postal and Courier Squadron, is based at Camp Bastion and is in charge of 24 soldiers in six locations. The scale of the post received in Camp Bastion is hard to imagine until you see it, she says. Even people who have worked in Forces Post Offices for years are amazed.

“It doesn’t look like your average post office,” she says of the large tunnel-like tent that sits in the flat expanse of the desert base. “But it does look like a Forces post office.” Everything is sorted manually. Postbags are wheeled into the sorting area by trolley and divvied up into different boxes for each unit.

Over the counter they sell stamps, cash cheques and package parcels. Letters are bagged up and sent to Kandahar to make the journey home, along with presents bought at the local bazaars and stalls.

The job of sorting starts as soon as the aeroplanes from RAF Brize Norton and RAF Lyneham land. Sometimes it is 8am, sometimes mid-afternoon. There are days on which no post comes in at all. The mail takes its order alongside all the other stores and equipment coming into theatre from the UK: ammunition, rations and clothing. But, especially during December, there is a push to try to make sure a constant flow of mail reaches the troops.

Two or three times a day unit postal orderlies come to collect their mail and take it to the forward post offices (FPOs) in Kabul, Lashkar Gah and Forward Operating Base (FOB) Price, near Gereshk. Finally, when every bag has been emptied, the sorting team finishes for the night.

A couple of sackfuls with unrecognisable addresses are often left over. Some are intended for chaplains — in the hope that they will pass gifts on to the troops — who left Afghanistan years ago. One chaplain recently reported that he had 70 new toothbrushes sent by wellwishers in the back of his church in a forward operating base. The post office also receives Christmas packages for military dogs in Afghanistan: collars, biscuits and tins of dog food.

In the downdraft of a Chinook the mail lands at the FPOs. From here it is sorted into sub units and transported to some of the remotest FOBs: FOB Edinburgh, near Musa Qala, in the north of Helmand, about 150km away from Camp Bastion or FOB Inkerman, near Sangin, about 120km away. It takes anywhere from five to ten days for a letter to make its way across the country, depending on the operational tempo or the arrival of debilitating sandstorms.

As with every movement in Afghanistan there is an element of risk. “At this time of year there are more letters, more moves and more risks,” says Captain Malcolm.

Every FPO and six FOBs have e-bluey suites, a facility where e-mails written by family and friends in the UK are printed out on to blue paper, folded and glued by a machine for privacy. When Captain Malcolm starts work in the morning she often finds an e-bluey from her husband on her desk that he wrote the night before. “It is one of the perks of working at the post office,” she says.

Last week they received 6,500 e-blueys and 1,000 photographs, that can also be sent digitally. The office spaces around Camp Bastion are dotted with printouts, a testament to their popularity. Fax blueys, more intimate, handwritten letters that are scanned in and e-mailed back to the UK, are also popular among serving personnel.

Preparing to tackle another mountainous pile of mail, Captain Malcolm talks of facing the challenges of this time of year. “Each day you start at the beginning again and keep going until you finish. It’s just another load of mail to get through.”

Plea for end to unsolicited gifts for UK troops - BBC

Helmand Blog Video:


Members of the public are being urged not to send unsolicited Christmas presents to troops in Afghanistan.

The Ministry of Defence said mail from relatives was getting lost among gifts addressed simply to "A soldier" or to individuals not known to the sender.

It also said many presents were perishable and often went to waste.

Anne Forbes, from Operation Welly, which sends gifts to troops, said she took advice from military welfare officers on whom to send parcels to.

Capt Charlie Malcolm, who is in charge of post at Camp Bastion in Helmand province, said: "For personnel deployed overseas, personal mail from loved ones is very important.

Attack risk

"But the system can be completely overwhelmed by the public's generous donations, which results in mail from family and friends being delayed.

"The main cause of this is the huge and unmanageable number of welfare parcels, sent by well-meaning members of the public, to recipients not personally known to the sender."

The MoD said the onward delivery of parcels to troops on the front line required additional flights and convoys which placed the personnel manning them at extra risk of attack.

Many of the items sent were also either already readily available or "not suitable for the Afghan environment", it added.

A spokesman said some items were addressed simply to "A soldier in X regiment", but the armed forces nevertheless felt a moral obligation to deliver them because of the effort made.

Other parcels were addressed to individuals whose names had featured in news reports, he said, which could lead to them receiving hundreds of parcels from strangers.

Lt Col George Waters, who oversees operational welfare at the MoD, added: "There is no denying that the knowledge that complete strangers are thinking of you provides a boost to morale.

"But what the troops on the ground want above all else is to receive their personal mail and the sheer number of welfare parcels in the system causes serious delays to those all-important personal items."

The MoD is asking people who wish to support British troops to give donations to recommended service charities, some of which do send parcels but in consultation with the military.

Click here to see a list of charities: Public support for our Service personnel.

VIDEO: What soldiers want at Christmas

https://www.bmycharity.com/V2/welfarefund

As the season of good will approaches, the British public are being urged to help the forces as much as possible by refraining from sending Christmas parcels to troops in Afghanistan.

Soldiers serving in theatre are literally being overwhelmed by support from the British public who generously post unsolicited parcels, putting a massive strain on the Forces Post Office in Camp Bastion, resulting in packages from friends and family taking longer to reach the intended recipients.

We are all overwhelmed by the support and the amazing generosity and is it very much appreciated.

We are working with the forces charity SSAFA to enable generous members of the public to donate money to the charity as an alternative to sending parcels.

The Operational Welfare Fund is focused on providing support direct to the front line and enables commanders on the ground to bid for those items which they know will boost the troops' morale.

https://www.bmycharity.com/V2/welfarefund