Military mail to benefit from new change-of-address system

The Defense Department hopes to cut $4 million a year from its budget by automating the redirection of first-class military mail. The changes at the Military Postal Service Agency—which will integrate with address-change redirection methods used at the U.S. Postal Service—will go into effect during October and November.

Under the current process, mail that has been shipped from the United States to overseas military post offices is manually redirected to new addresses—whether to other overseas installations or back to the United States.

When the automated redirection process goes into effect domestically, if a change of address is on file, automated equipment will intercept a letter and redirect it to the new address, thereby saving transportation and labor costs.

There is one catch, however. A service member will have to do more than "outprocess" at a military post office—he or she also will have to log onto USPS.com and complete an online change of address so the system has the information it needs to intercept and redirect mail while that mail is still within the United States.

According to a news report from DOD, the change is part of the department's effort to update military mail systems to conform to USPS standards so that military customers can have access to the same services as USPS customers.