Courtesy Photo | Members of the 329th Adjutant General Company (Postal) board a plane bound for Fort...... read more read more
The 329th Adjutant General Company (Postal) from Fort Snelling, Minn., was activated on Dec. 6, 1990, and sent to Fort Dix, N.J., where much of the mail for the Persian Gulf was consolidated before it was shipped overseas. The unit was part of the 88th Army Reserve Command, predecessor to the 88th Readiness Division.
The unit served at Fort Dix because much of the mail bound for overseas was consolidated there. The duties of the 329th included processing incoming and outgoing mail, handling claims, postal finance and directory services for the units it supported.
The 329th AG Company commander was Capt. Richard Hedberg and had a strength of 152 Soldiers. Of those, 40 were cross-leveled from other Army Reserve units and another 34 were from the Individual Ready Reserve and the active component who were assigned after the unit reached Fort Dix.
The 329th worked with two Air Force Reserve Aerial Port Squadrons that had also been mobilized. The 329th and its cohorts worked seven days a week around the clock and moved 200 tons of mail each day, shipping it out to locations in Saudi Arabia.
Included in the unprecedented volume of mail sent to southwest Asia – about 1.88 pounds per Soldier – were the millions of “Any Soldier” letters and parcels that began arriving almost as soon as the first troops deployed overseas, according to the book “Twice the Citizen.”
The 329th was assigned to the Special Troops Battalion at Fort Dix, which was part of the U.S. Army Garrison there. As such, and despite the heavy workload, the battalion commander required the 329th to participate in the same training activities as all the other units in the battalion. These included battalion runs, physical fitness, weekly NCO meetings and post details. The Military Postal Service Agency unsuccessfully tried to have the 329th relieved from these non-mission-related extra duties.
According to “Twice the Citizen,” the Soldiers of the 329th were housed in substandard WWII barracks in an area where basic trainees marched and ran while chanting and yelling throughout the day. For Soldiers who worked 12-hour shifts and needed sleep, these conditions were unacceptable. This situation lasted for about five weeks until the Fort Dix commander moved the unit into barracks away from the basic trainee area.
At the end of its tour of duty, the 329th Adjutant General Company (Postal) received a Superior Unit Award.
| Date Taken: | 12.09.2022 |
| Date Posted: | 12.09.2022 08:37 |
| Story ID: | 434828 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 117 |
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