Marine Corps Base Quantico, VA -- As the holiday season quickly approaches and families seek to connect with their Marines they haven’t seen in awhile, Marine Corps postal services are the intermediaries between their Marine and a small piece of home.
The mission of the Marine Corps Base Quantico (MCBQ) Post Office is to provide direct and general postal support to all Marine Corps and other Department of Defense (DoD) tenant commands aboard base. The Military Post Office is located off 6th Avenue behind the United States Postal Service in Quantico Town and serves as an official mail screening point. The Marine Post Office is typically run and staffed by Marines with the Military Occupational Speciality (MOS) of 0161, postal clerk.
The Post Office was inspected in October by Postal Inspector Gunnery Sgt. Shaune Piper (Marine Corps Installastions Command),using the Inspecting General Postal Affairs Functional Area Checklist. The post office passed in all sections to include the registered cage, barracks receptacles, operation procedures and directory services.
It was the diligent work of the postal clerks performing all the necessary duties allowing the efficient operation of the postal facility which led to this accomplishment.
The typical postal Marines’ day will include mail handling duties such as accepting, sorting, manifesting and dispatching all types of mail, to include official mail. Typically clerks also have the ability to issue and cash United States Postal Service (USPS) money orders, sell stamps, apply postage and mail out parcels.
As the Marines work through the process of scanning, dating, sorting and redirecting mail from more than 56 DoD organizations, they also have a much larger task of delivering the mail to 10 barracks, which include approximately 2,400 active receptacles. USPS civilians deliver mail to base housing.
In addition, one postal Marine serves as the G-1 adjutant carrier transporting official documents, passports and other official correspondence throughout the National Capital Region to areas such as the Pentagon and Marine Barracks Washington 8th & I.
Postal clerks are not assigned to unit mailrooms to conduct mail clerk orderly functions until they complete the Interservice Postal Training Postal Operations course at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, or complete six months standard on-the-job training for grade per the Individual Training Standards.
Many Marines who prove successful in their training have the opportunity to gain additional experience at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan and Marine Corps Base Smedley D. Butler (MCBSB) Okinawa, Japan.
Cpl. Breanna Blankenship, postal clerk andone of many Marines who transferred from Okinawa to MCBQ has been assigned to the postal MOS for four years.
Blankenship recollects her time in Okinawa saying it strengthened her ability to handle her workload at Quantico.
The busiest time of year is consistently October through December. Okinawa postal clerks handle 4,000 units of mail on any given day while Quantico Marines handle substantially less, approximately 250 units. The Marines work long hours during the holiday season and their shift may extend past 11 p.m., typically starting at 7:30 a.m.
“Within the mailroom we are more than a number in the total force, we are family,” Blankenship said. “Everyone within the mailroom works together towards one common goal—the delivery of mail to all on base.”
According to Lance Cpl. Kali Imker, postal clerk, when Marines work in a larger unit it becomes easy for individual Marines to rely on the many to accomplish the mission.
In the Quantico Postal Office there are less than a dozen Marines working in a confined space each conducting a task which is essential to the success of their fellow Marines at the Post Office. There are many factors that affect success including attention to detail and timeliness, which if done incorrectly, may cause mail to be deemed delayed or undeliverable.
Within the Quantico mailroom Marines can handle anything from care packages and letters going to the barracks to appropriate classified information going to the Russell Knox building “Delivery means to move mail,” Staff Sgt. Krista Jones, postal chief, said. “It’s a federal offense if we don’t.”
According Jones, the task could prove to be logistically challenging when trying to move the mail without the proper manpower, so all the Marines have to work together in unison.
Post Office hours:
Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday: 7:30 a.m.–6 p.m.
Wednesday: 7:30 a.m.–noon, (Closed for training)
Mail call hours:
Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday: 10 a.m.--noon
Wednesday: 9–11 a.m.
Closed Saturday, Sunday and federal holidays.
To set up a general delivery request, please call Quantico Military Postal Operations at 703- 784-2100. Civilian USPS Quantico customers call 703-630-2951.