Writing Letters ~ Jokes and Fun Stuff to include in your letters

[FireTeamLeaderWife aka FTLW]

Comment by JessicaB-Sailor Mom on April 6, 2011 at 5:04am

Here's how your address should be written:

SR, Last Name, First Name, Middle initial

Ship ##, Divison ###

Recruit Training Command

#### Something Drive or Avenue

Great Lakes ILL 60088-####

SR= Seaman Recruit

(The Recruit Training Command can be left off...it just may be written that way on your Form Letter.)

You may get a ship name, that's not needed in the address but you can use it if you want (my son was on the USS Enterprise...he thought that was cool!) If you use the ship name in the address I think it goes on the 3rd line, under ship/div.

Comment by JessicaB-Sailor Mom on May 27, 2011 at 5:59am

Ya'll as far as writing letters WRITE EVERY DAY...they do not care what you write as long as it's from HOME. One N4M sent her grocery list and her son loved it. Send info from friends and family, gossip, world news, sports news, keep them up on their favorite sports teams, TV shows. Tell them the funny things your pets or other children or YOU are doing. Try not to be sad or tearful...do let them know you love and miss them but follow that with...I'm proud of you and looking forward to seeing you march through those doors at PIR. Send them funny jokes and photos....http://www.jokesgallery.com is good...some of them are a little dirty. I sent them to my son and he shared and his division LOVED them. Cards are fine...try to stay away from colored envelopes. NO musical cards, no glitter, perfume, stickers, NO CARE PACKAGES. Another thing about letters do not use red ink...they tend to read letters in bed (not suppose to) and at night there is a softly glowing red "night light" that makes it VERY hard to read red ink. The red light is used on ships when they go to "darken ship" as red can't be seen across the ocean like white can. That is why there is a the red light on at night... Recruits receive mail every day (except Sundays and holidays, just like the rest of us). They begin getting mail as soon as their Mail Petty Officer (the recruit assigned to collect and distribute mail), is trained. Because the mail is controlled by federal law, the MPO must complete a federal training course before s/he can handle the mail. Sometimes this takes a couple of weeks, but not usually more than three.

Jokes and Fun Stuff to include in your letters

http://www.jokesclean.com/ChristianJokes/

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Word searches

http://www.armoredpenguin.com/wordsearch/

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about.com military humor

(this particular link is on “10 Ways to Make Basic Training Harder )

http://usmilitary.about.com/library/miljokes/bltoughbasic.htm

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Gocomics

Your favorite comic strips!

http://www.gocomics.com/explore/comics

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Military humor-but has all kinds. Poke around.

This was one of my favorites as they have to put their SS# on EVERYTHING!

http://www.swapmeetdave.com/Humor/MilJoke.htm

It’s best to photocopy jokes and such onto the back of the letters you write. Actual clippings may get thrown away. Pictures may be sent but they will be inspected for content…and also remember they do not have a lot of room in their compartment for storage. Please use good judgment on content when sending cartoons and such…you don’t need to get you or your SR in trouble.

[Angela]

This is so awesome! Thank you.  Quick question- in the address, do the letters not need to be all caps?  I was under the impression that these were to be all caps and the 0's have to have a slash through them?

Thanks,

Casper

[FireTeamLeaderWife aka FTLW]

RTC Website's "Contact your Recruit" page doesn't use all caps...so I don't think it has to be...but I personally wrote it in all caps with slashes through zero...just thought it would be better to write it how my recruit did!

[Jolene2Sailors]

Okay...I found a really funny article in Reader's Digest that I know my son will love!!! I tore out the page. Can I send it to him without his getting in trouble?

[Kosborne88]

Great info! Thanks so much! I sent a paper copy of our favorite photo of us and put clear tape all over it so it wouldn't rip...do u think they would throw that away?? If so, no loss since it was only paper but I know he would love to have it!

[FireTeamLeaderWife aka FTLW]

Jolene and Kosborne...all I can say is, I hope not! ;-) Each RDC is different...Jolene...you could photocopy it into the letter...or type it over if you want to be on the safe side.