Books for Soldiers.com

This is a great idea for a site! Right now they are in the middle of a forum re-shuffle, but their We Have Books & DVDs Ready To Ship! forum is open. It is recommended you read their help forum first. They have a lot of rules protecting the privacy of military guys who want some reading material and to make sure packages mailing go smoothly.You must register a forum account before you can see that forum and help out.

Getting Started on BFS (a few tips and pointers . . . ): do's and don't's. For example, no cd burning requests or offers. They don't want to get shut down.

Books for Soldiers FAQ: helpful info and tips.

APO/FPO Shipping - Basic Training 101: tips and no-nos on shipping stuff. Shipping stuff is more involved than you think. For example:

NEVER send soap or laundry sheets/soap with food items. The scent gets into the food and makes it taste like soap. Even ziplocking these doesn't seem to help, especially in the current heat. NO AEROSOLS, NO SPRAY CANS (including snack cheesewhip, etc), and NO ALCOHOL, even in baby wipes right now - it's forbidden because it's flammable and many MPS mail transport planes are not pressurized so things can burst.

Address Help: a forum posting that helps a bit.

APO - Army Post Office
FPO - Fleet Post Office
Zip Codes start on the east coast with 0 and end on the west with the 9's. The higher the number the further west.

APO or FPO is the 'City' when filling out address forms.

The two letter code such as AE is the 'state' part of an address form. And as I am sure you have figured out by now, those 5 numbers at the end are the zip.

I spent a number of years doing Armed Forces Emergency Services with the American Red Cross. All those code letters mean something for finding the Service Person. Be sure to get them all in.

So, if you are in doubt where to put all the letters and numbers. Keep everything you don't quite understand between the Service Persons name and the 'city' and you'll be alright.

Keeping them in order is also a plus. There is a big diff between 3BN 2Mar and 2BN 3Mar.

Hope that helps.

OR...

Postcode: zip code
City: APO or FPO
Country: AE or AP

Can any military guys/family help me out here? That AE or AP part is confusing to me. Does it go under Country or State? I just posted a list of books and hope to mail some stuff out soon. If anyone has other tips or tricks for mailing to troops please post in the comments, thanks!