Our company sells custom made jewelry to the US military. There is a
time lapse between the time the product is ordered, and when it is
ready for delivery. Soldiers are often deployed, and their address
changes. We need a way to be able to find the soldiers. We have their
social security numbers. |
Clarification of Question by
jhc1352-ga
on
31 May 2003 08:31 PDT
May I ask what qualifies you to answer this question? The reason I
ask is it sounds very final, and before we essentially close the book
on trying to find the thousands of serviceman who have bought and paid
for jewelry from our company, we would like to have an idea of who is
answering, and what authority they speak from.
|
Request for Question Clarification by
sgtcory-ga
on
31 May 2003 09:52 PDT
Hello jhc1352,
Are packages being returned to you when you send them?
The normal process of a military member leaving a command includes
checking out of the mail room (or a similar process), which requires
them to leave a forwarding address. Even if deployed, the member is
usually still regarded as an augment to their original command, and
all mail is held, or forwarded.
My authority : 2 pumps to Japan, multiple 'trips', 'small cruises',
and sitting in the desert in 29 Palms for weeks on end ;-) I'm still
attached to a unit in the United States in some fashion.
If you indeed are getting mail returned, there are military locator
services for each branch. These services usually require more than a
SSN, and I assume you have that data since they are your customers.
Here's some samples :
U.S. Air Force Locator Service
http://www.afpc.randolph.af.mil/im/aflocator&foia/afwwloc.htm
U.S. Marine Corps
http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/ind.nsf/locator
The Army currently has their locator service restricted. You may want
to contact them, as they do offer guest accounts. If you can prove the
validity of your problem, they may work with you. If you are a veteran
yourself, or related to someone in the Army, you can sign up for a
guest account here:
Army Locator Service (click on World Wide Locator)
http://www.erec.army.mil/default.htm
Let me know if this is heading in the right direction, and thanks for
the clarification -
SgtCory
|
Request for Question Clarification by
tutuzdad-ga
on
31 May 2003 18:00 PDT
Dear jhc1352-ga:
If your question "what qualifies you to answer this question?" is
directed at my comment, without divulging too much about myself in
accordance with GA policy, I can answer you this way:
I am a US Army Military Police Corps Veteran having held a high level
security clearance during my time in service. I specialized in the
physical security of classified material and deployed regularly to
locations as part of highly trained terrorist suppression group. While
deployed, my location was officially my home base and nothing related
to my whereabouts was ever released, even to my family (much less the
mail room). In fact, on more occassions than not, the area of
operations was not disclosed to our group until we actually arrived,
and in a handful of instances, I did not know where I was at the time
or where I had been when I returned. I wondered, of course, but in
keeping with my professional obligations, I did not ask and was never
told (and it remains so even to this day).
The last 22 years of my life has been spent in law enforcement and
even with the technology and information I have at my disposal, I'd
venture to say that it would be highly unlikley that any list of
soldiers could be located by the general public (without an
authoratative "need to know") at this moment without the aid of the US
military (ie Pentagon). Having said that, I doubt that the Pentagon
would be very receptive to such a request from the civilian sector
merely for the purposes of forwarding mail order items or delinquent
bills.
Such is the case with a number of units during peace time and with the
majority of units during war time. At one time "care packages" did
find their way to the front to suppliment the good and services
provided by the military. In more modern times, with the advent of
hundred day long wars, soldiers who deploy in such overwhelming
numbers and overwhelming force that the wars end before replacement
soldiers are even needed. Secrecy is key in order for this to be
successful and it would be profoundly foolish for the US forces to
file a forwarding address for every soldier headed to a classified
location just so he can get his mail.
If you pay for and use a military locator service (which problably
isn't economically feasible for you to do if you do a lot of business
with soldiers) you are likely to get the soldier's home base address
or a forwarding address that ultimamtley reaches a holding point for
his/her mail until such time as it is feasible for him/her to receive
it - provided you get any information about the soldier at all. You
will not, however, find his exact physical location (something like
Sgt. John Doe, C. Company, 1st Plt, PO Box 222, Baghdad, Iraq) - I
assure you. This may change at some point in the distant future but
probably not anytiume soon. I'm sure others who have had experience
with classified deployments into hostile theaters like this would
agree that this is a more than probable senario.
There were some sites at one time that listed soldiers' units and told
what region they were in during the peak of the war, but we are
finding now that this was intentionally belated. A friend of mine had
two sons over there and we found this out my watching their
actitivies. One was listed in Masoul and one on a ship in Greece. It
turned out that at that time the one supposedly in Masoul was in
Baghdad embroilded in combat and the other had already been shipped ot
Albania. The information was at least 3 weeks old at the time of
publication.
The decision is yours. There is obviously no definitive link to
support my comments. I can only suggest you base you decision whether
or not to accept NO as an answer upon logic, reasoning and the
information provided by someone with more first-hand experience with
this issue than I can actually relate to you in am open forum.
Regards;
tutuzdad-ga
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Request for Question Clarification by
tutuzdad-ga
on
13 Jun 2003 17:31 PDT
Dear jhc1352-ga:
I was wondering if, in the last two weeks, you had made any decision
as to whether or not you considered this question sufficiently
answered.
Regards;
tutuzdad-ga
|
The short answer to your question is NO. Assuming you are willing to
accept NO as an answer, here is the explanation:
All deployed soldiers have a "home address". That is to say that their
unit, based in whatever permanent location it was in prior to
hostilities, is still receiving their mail in the normal manner. In
some instances mail was forwarded to soldiers to their position in the
field. Previously, during times of war, all mail was forwarded to
soldiers wherever they may have temporarily been deployed, however, in
recent times (specifically with regard to Afghanistan and Iraq) mail
was held for long periods in order to insure that it was not traced to
specific locations potentially exposing a unit's whereabouts to the
enemy. I happen to know for a fact that some mail sent to soldiers
during the Iraq war is just now reaching its destination and some
other mail has yet to be delivered. I assure you that it will,
however, eventually reach the soldier.
Moreover, it is doubtful from what I know of the situation, that
recently deployed soldiers are very concerned at this point about
where their jewelry is or even if they've paid their bills on time.
Many of them are experienceing great hardships even as we speak and
even if they were getting your messages it is doubtful they would, or
could, be in a position to respond.
If you continue to send mail to their home bases and give up on
sending mail to their temporary APO's, FPO's, etc (unless of course
these post offices actually handle their home bases' mail) I have no
doubt that they will eventually get the mail you are sending. Such is
the difficulties when doing business with soldiers during times of
war. As for the social security numbers and the government (see
commenters post above) don't worry about the government. It is common
for soldiers to identify themselves using their SSAN and there is
nothing to worry about there.
Again, assuming you are willing to accept NO as an answer (and it is
indeed the answer), I'd be more than happy to post this as an answer
and close your question.
Regards;
tutuzdad-ga |
