How do I send mail to an army address from overseas?

[tsarina]

I’d like to send letters to my “adopted soldier” in Kuwait while I’m in Peru this summer. How should I address the letter - should I include the APO code and add “United States Army”, or should I include the camp where he’s stationed, or something else entirely?

[CrankyAsAnOldMan]

I think you should treat it like any other letter you’d mail to the United States. As I understand it, that’s what an APO code is–a point in the United States. All APO mail gets sent to Maine (or wherever), at which point the U.S. Postal Service turns it over to the Army for its own handling.

I am sure someone will be along to correct whatever inaccuracies lie in that explanation, but I think that’s essentially how it works.

[Whack-a-Mole]

Some info you might find useful.

Overseas military post offices operated or supported by the Army or Air Force use the city abbreviation APO [Army Post Office / Air (Force) Post Office], while overseas military post offices operated or supported by the Navy, Marine Corps or U.S. Coast Guard use the city abbreviation FPO (Fleet Post Office). Three (3) quasi-State codes have been assigned depending on the (approximate) geographic location of the military mail recipient. They are:

AE (Armed Forces Europe / Africa / Southwest Asia / Middle East)
AP (Armed Forces Pacific / Southeast Asia)
AA (Armed Forces Americas)

SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_mail

The only legitimate APO or FPO states are “AA,” “AE,” and “AP.”

You don’t need to provide anything except for a standard text box for the city portion of an APO or FPO address. The city will always be either “APO” or “FPO” in a properly formatted APO FPO address. Here’s an example:

PFC Gomer Pyle
CMR 345, Box 12334
APO AE 09250

SOURCE: http://www.oconus.com/zipcodes.asp

The US Postal Service has announced that APO ZIP codes for US military units in Kuwait and countries near the Iraq war zone will be made available only to family members and close friends of deployed soldiers. Postal officials stated that the limitation had been imposed due to anthrax and other terrorist threats.

<snip>

Family members who send regular mail need to use the soldier’s full name (without rank), unit and APO address. Letters to Kuwait will normally take seven to 10 days, according to the Military Postal Service Agency. Priority parcels will normally take 10 to 15 days. Surface Air Mail, or SAM packages, will normally take about 24 days, according to MPSA officials.

SOURCE: http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/weekly/aatroopmail.htm/

[Monty]

Under the APO AE line, you put USA. The USA stands for United States of America.

[Monty]

In case anyone’s wondering, the reason you put USA on the bottom line is because the APO and FPO addresses are USA domestic addresses, no matter where the unit is actually located.