Mail Call for American Troops a Case of Delayed Gratification : Saudi Arabia: Letters and parcels in the largest American overseas postal operation now take 12 to 15 days to arrive.

The rapid repositioning of troops on the front lines and the strain of combat on logistics have interrupted mail deliveries to and from the Persian Gulf War zone, but anxious U.S. and allied troops send word home: Don’t despair; keep the letters coming.

Much of the world may know this as the first truly electronic war--smart bombs and AWACS and instantaneous news broadcasts. But just as the foot soldier still relies on a rifle and boots, the men and women in this theater of war live for that old-fashioned announcement: mail call.

You can read it on the faces of the soldiers, Marines, sailors and fliers. A good day is when a pallet of mail is dropped off at headquarters and in one of the sacks, with your name on it, is a letter sealed with a kiss, maybe with a picture and surely a helping of love.

To hell with CNN and Saddam Hussein. This is your one moment with your wife or husband, your girlfriend or boyfriend, your worried teen-ager, or just with a stranger back home wishing you well. This is the most intimate and often the richest time of a combat soldier’s life. Virtually everything else is done without regard for privacy or comfort.

But it comes with agonizing slowness.

News and pictures and rumors circle the world at dizzying speeds for the participants of the war as well as the spectators, but the largest American overseas mail operation in history moves at barely 35 m.p.h. in 10-ton trucks growling up the highways of Saudi Arabia.

In the capital, Riyadh, a veteran Army colonel expressed the same anxiety as a fresh private. The colonel accompanied correspondents down a runway where towering pallet after pallet of mail sat unattended, covered with webbing and plastic sheets.

“I wonder,” he said, shrugging. “I wonder what’s there for me.”

More than 35 million pounds of mail has been sent to American troops since military operations began in Saudi Arabia last August. The peak occurred just before Christmas, when 525,000 pounds arrived on a single day. Volume dropped after that but is picking up again sharply.

These days 2 million or more letters, plus packages, are arriving in the war zone every 24 hours, by one calculation. Al DeSarro, U.S. Postal Service spokesman in Washington, said this is twice the volume of mail sent to service personnel in the Vietnam War.

He said the average delivery time now is 12 to 15 days, up from a week to 10 days before the war.

At the Military Postal Service Agency in Washington, Maj. Mark Rader said that it takes “at least two weeks” to get a letter delivered in the war zone. And he warned that this would lengthen.

The reasons: U.S.-led coalition forces are increasingly on the move, increasingly deployed farther from supply bases, and their demands for food and fuel and ammunition are steeply on the rise. The Military Postal Service Agency said that moving mail has high priority in the combat zone but can be alloted only a finite share of space in the supply pipeline.

The military Central Command has asked Americans to stop sending packages into the war zone in an effort to help speed up delivery of letters and audiotapes.

“Every effort must be made to limit transportation support to what is necessary for sustainment,” the command statement explained.

Although some soldiers, and their loved ones at home, worry that the contrary is happening, Rader insisted that “mail has not stopped flowing.”

Indeed, mail trucks on the move, sometimes giant convoys of them, can be seen all across highways leading from the eastern ports and airports of Saudi Arabia. Newly arrived units and those that have been recently repositioned on the battlefield suffer the greatest lack of mail.

When units of the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division advanced, for instance, the pickup of letters headed back home was halted. Commanders indicated they did not want troops “broadcasting” the division’s advance. The latest field reports indicate that mail service has resumed for the division.

At sea, some ships have endured periods of a week or more without any mail, then received a huge batch. The carrier Theodore Roosevelt once received 7.5 tons in a single delivery.

Aboard the Roosevelt, men like Seaman Mark Stallins make new friends by answering letters addressed to “any sailor.” His new friends so far have sent Stallins a good-luck teddy bear and invitations to dinners in Wisconsin and California, to Disneyland and to a pair of wrestling matches.

Stallins gave a reporter this message for those who write: “I’ll see everyone when I get home. Underline WHEN.”

Times staff writer David Lamb in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, and researcher Doug Conner in Seattle contributed to this report.

MAIL CALL

More than 35 million pounds of mail have been sent to U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia since August. Delivering that volume in a volatile region is difficult:

2 million letters--plus packages--arrive in the war zone every 24 hours.

Average delivery time is 12 to 15 days; up from 7 to 10 days before the war.

Just before Christmas, 525,000 pounds of mail arrived in a single day.

At sea, some ships receive mail only in batches; the carrier Theodore Roosevelt recently got 7.5 tons at once.

Mail delivery is expected to become even more difficult, as troops are deployed farther from supply bases.

To help speed delivery of letters and audiotapes, officials are suggesting that fewer packages be sent.