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Airmen inspect exiled mail for hazardous material

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Tim Beckham
  • U.S. Air Forces Central, Baghdad Media Outreach Team
CAMP STRIKER, Iraq --  Ever wonder what happens to exiled mail that never makes it to its intended recipient? Well here in Iraq all that mail has to be processed by the Army ran Joint Military Mail Terminal, but first needs to be inspected by members of the Air Force for hazardous materials.

According to Army Lt. Col. Jason Kuroiwa, 81st JMMT commander, all mail coming into the Baghdad area that is improperly labeled, doesn't have a return address or simply gets lost in the system has to be inspected before they can process it and get it to the desired location.

"Sometimes people put the word Iraq, or fail to put the zip code or put the incorrect address and what happens to this mail is it gets redirected as international mail to the Iraqi postal service," he said. "On good faith the Iraqi government returns the mail back to us but in regard to that we have to take some necessary precautions because the mail went outside the military postal system."

Once the JMMT has accumulated an adequate amount of exiled mail, they perform several inspections to include using military working dogs, x-ray machines and hazardous material personnel. Members from the 447th the Expeditionary Civil Engineer Squadron emergency management flight have to check the parcels for suspicious and/or hazardous materials that may have inadvertently or intentionally introduced to the package.

"Before all this mail can be redistributed we get with the JMMT personnel and perform radiological, chemical and biological inspections," said Tech. Sgt. Steve Gaunt, 447th ECES EMF NCOIC, who is deployed from the 117th Air Refueling Wing Alabama Air National Guard, is a native of Marietta, Ga. "It's important to protect our personnel and to protect the mail handlers. It's also a great opportunity for us to do a real-world mission and use the skills we are trained for.

Geared in chemical suits and armed with hazardous material sensors, teams of three make their way downrange where the mail is stored and inspect the packages.

"We basically gear up and go downrange with several pieces of equipment to pull samples and run test on them to make sure there are no threats supported and to determine whether it is safe for the next team to go down," said Senior Airman Amanda Heatherly, 447th ECES EM technician.

The inspections, usually performed once a month, are a joint effort between the emergency management team, the fire department and bioenvironmental engineers.

"We (emergency management team) collect the samples and perform the test, the fire department checks our vitals to ensure we are healthy enough to go downrange and bio ensures the environment remains safe throughout the inspection process," said Airman Heatherly, who is deployed from the 117th ARW Alabama ANG, is a native of Huntsville, Ala.