The Postal Service has flat rate boxes you can get at the post office ..for FREE and then it is a flat rate of about $10 or so to ship to an APO or FPO address. You’d be surprised how much I cram into those boxes to ship to my son in Iraq. There are special military boxes with the proper spacing for APO/FPO addresses and then regular flat rate boxes for other addresses.

I use the flat rate boxes, and have yet to pay less than $17 per box. I am able to cram four 6 pound bags of gatorade powder into a box, but sending 3 or 4 boxes per month adds up. IMO, ANY mail or package going to an APO/FPO destined for a combat zone should be free.

Several airlines that charge an extra fee for a third checked bag are relaxing the charge for members of the military….

The same for reports of poor conditions in VA hospitals treating wounded soldiers.

I hate to disappoint you LGM, but the crappy conditions of VA hospitals has been festering for years regardless of whether there has been a Democrat or Republican in the White House.

I kind of wonder if it would be better to close them down and put vets on a medical insurance plan as good as what the Congress gets.

I suspect my view won’t be popular here but it’s not AA’s job to carry military personnel and their luggage at no charge.

That’s what I was thinking too. The charge for the extra baggage was to cover the extra costs. From AA’s point of view, they need to cover their costs, and since the soldiers get reimbursed, why not charge them?

To me, the big question is this: Did AA fight this information? Or was it a case of, “Oh yeah, I see what you mean. I didn’t realize that before.” In other words, did they hold their policy out of ignorance (and changed it as soon as their ignorance was fixed) or out of malice?

On August 15th, 2008 at 12:43 am, Bob Mc said:
Bottom line is that military passengers on AA could already carry, for free, baggage that would cost anyone else $290.

Any airline that takes a military fare probably gets base price plus (most corporate companies do), unlike the auto or other companies trying to nickel and dime their suppliers out of their business.

It’s not like a public or private company sending one of their employees that most likely have a corporate credit card and don’t have to take out monies out of their own pockets which is what a military person would have to do. Military personnel do NOT have pocket change to cover extra costs NOR do they really have the time in combat situations to put in an expense report. Then you have the babies (like mine) in non-combat situations that are either busy training on-the-job and just getting acclimated to their new homes and just aren’t saavy enough to get it done and over with. They are NOT like the average business man/woman who are used to filling out business travel expense reports.

The airlines should have a form that’s filled at the time of boarding that the airline sends to the government for any additional expenses or they lose their government contracts. Sorry, no sympathy from the peons on this end.

Multiply that number by the millions of DoD people AA carries per year and that represents a huge potential subsidy.

The fiduciary duty of AA management to it’s shareholders, AA’s many, many prior concessions and courtesies extended the military to date, the health of a vital national industry struggling against bankruptcy, indeed the fundamental idea of fairness itself- matter not. The mob demands of AA another pound of flesh, and gets it.

The issue here is not AA. It’s the government. I work for a large company and my travel arrangements are made by an in-house travel department. I’m certain that the DOD flies a lot more people every day than my company does.

If soldiers are routinely carrying extra gear, their government-issued tickets/vouchers should cover the expense. Period. The soldier shouldn’t have to do anything (just showing up is enough).

Extra baggage not only increases fuel consumption, it also takes up space and increases weight. Some extra weight may be of no consequence on a 757 but on a packed commuter jet/turbo-prop, extra bags means that some luggage won’t go or someone’s going to get bumped from the flight.

On August 14th, 2008 at 5:26 pm, kemphd said:

Guidance which came out from the DoD said that anyone traveling on orders needed to ensure that the remarks section included information about being reimbursed for checked baggage charges.

Sorry, this is just bureaucratic crap. I wonder how many who have received orders have been able to get them changed because it might not include coverage of something such as this?

I know you’re just the messenger…

Thank you for your service!

…and that idiot spokesman from the Pentagon in the article that first announced this flippantly saying soldiers just need to submit the paperwork for reimbursement.

Easy to say from your office.

Uh, yeah, which foxhole has the forms, and where is the one to file it in?

Sorry the patrol was late, we were busy filing travel vouchers.

On August 14th, 2008 at 9:10 pm, Bruce said:
It’s not just the airlines who are guilty of making money off the troops. How about the US Postal Service?

I know, Bruce! I’ve sent stuff by U.S. Mail to Hawaii, because FedEx, UPS and DHL don’t ship to P.O. Boxes and it was not only expensive, but took two weeks to get there. Now I may be wrong, but isn’t Hawaii part of these United States?

I just saw a commercial that said don’t worry about shipping with those “other” shippers because “their” costs are going up for high gas prices, USPS will be there for you and prices won’t go up. Well THAT commercial will be good for maybe 2 months before they announce the next raise in stamps and shipping!

During Vietnam, I sent packages of magazines, toiletries, and other goodies to buddies in country and never paid a dime to ship them.

I have been sending cases of Gatorade powder to Marines onboard the Nimitz, where a buddies Godson is a fighter pilot in VMFA-232, and also the sons of buddies in the sandbox and am paying $17 per small box for the privilege. Being retired on SocSec this is a bite out of my disposable income, but it’s my honor to get these younf men and women things to make their deployments at least somewhat more tolerable.

This is a government supported (read – taxpayer supported) agency?

Anyway, it was still the best Christmas present I could have had ’cause I had just had spinal surgery in November and it gave me something to look forward to as I was terrified that something would go wrong.

Now our youngest is thinking about the military, so we’ll probably go broke just to see our kids maybe once a year. And, yes, I know that those in Iraq and Afganistan are sometimes gone longer. I know that my husband and I would go two (maybe three) years without seeing our families, but you would hope there would be SOME help out there whether commercial or government for our military and their families like there was in the past.

On August 14th, 2008 at 2:51 pm, emjem24 said:

Well thanks, now everyone in the truckstop restaurant is looking at me funny for shouting encouragement at my laptop. Something about, “Preach on sister! Smack him. Smack him!”, just looks funny when sitting in a booth surrounded by strangers.

As for the body armor nonsense, somebody please correct me if I am wrong. But I seem to remember the idiots making the most noise about soldiers and Marines not having the proper equipment were basing their argument on the lack of “bullet proof” vests. What they didn’t understand, or chose to willfully ignore, is that the vast majority of the military has never had “bullet proof” vests. What we did have however, were flak jackets. Every single Marine I ever knew was issued a flak jacket, even if they were an admin geek.

I can’t speak for the Army, but I never met a single Marine that went lacking for body armor.

I think the average booted infantryman would rather have someone lobby for armor and medical care than low baggage fees.

Speaking as a former average booted infantryman first let me say this. You sir are deranged and hardly resemble anything pro-American. Now that I got that out of the way, I hardly doubt any Democrat president will give a rats butt about supplying our troops with more body armor and medical supplies and care. I served under CiC Clinton and was a military brat under Carter, Reagan, Bush 1 and part of Clinton. Cuts to military spending were rampant under Carter and Clinton. So why don’t do you talk to your buddies on the left and bug them about spending more on body armor, or for starters have them even give a rats butt about our soldiers to begin with. Until then, keep on blathering your insane bullcrap. It is loads of fun to rip to shreds because of how ignorant and foolish you are.