Fitted to serve 100,000; Conveniences Modern; Work Never Halts.
A visit to Camp Codys’ post office was an incident of interest recently. The big building with its excellent Arrangement, full equipment and big detail of soldier assistants to the regular post office employees is one of the places in the camp where work never ceases and hurry is not the order of the hour but of the ever-present minute. Major Philpot’s office axiom, “for God’s sake hurry,” does not need to be visibly posted in this place of activity. They either hurry of their own accord or see themselves buried alive in a deluge of mail, outgoing and incoming.
Clerk in charge O.C. Fisber was asked about his office and its experiences, and he had this to say. “Contrary to general belief, mail to and from soldiers in Camp Cody is handled with all the dispatch and accuracy in distribution that obtains in the largest cities in the union, although the task is much more difficult by reason of the fact that the soldiers’ correspondents are often mistaken as to the units to which they are attached, and often address then by nicknames, which of course do not appear in the directory. We have to deal not only with all kinds of chirography, but with addresses in all languages of the civilized nations of the globe. The mother tongues of Xenophobe, Dante, Cervantes, Tolstoy, Victor Hugo, the Kaiser and others to numerous to mention appear in endless procession. Jokers address letters in the Morse and Semaphore codes and shorthand. However, we manage to translate them all. Some of them show a positive genius for misspelling the names of post offices, though as the average of education is higher in military camps than in the cities, this proportion is most great.”
Some Queer Addresses – “We have learned that ‘Neuva Yorka’ is New York; ‘Sn. F. Co.’ is San Francisco; ‘Norlens’ is New Orleans, and ‘Nieu Jersi’ is New Jersey. In phonetics we have ‘Albqkerki’, ‘Petti Looma’ and ‘She Cargo’. But these are the least of our troubles. Much of our mail is directed to Deming without anything to show that it is intended for a soldier. These are referred to the directory which contains the names and ranks of all assigned soldiers.”
“Unfortunately, we have no mind reader to supply addresses of mail simply addressed ‘Pvt. Johnson, Camp Cody’, ‘Corpl. Jones,’ or may be his name is Smith, and the hundreds that Sammy forgot to address and put is return card on.” “Many of the consignment are packed in flimsy containers. After travelling several days under a hundred sacks of mail they may confidently be expected to resemble pancakes composed of hash. Often they announce their arrival, if not in a dead language, at least in a decayed one.” – Camp Cody, Trench and Camp Newspaper – Date Unknown