We decide every moment of our lives how to react to outside influences.

It’s all up to us.

Live Life Happy!

I know it may seem odd to have a competitor reply to your blog but I thought I would do so in this situation. Please know that we will be keeping Bracha and you both in our prayers during this difficult time and are optimistic that her treatments will be successful. Keep a positive outlook and we wish you both the best.

Regards,
Paul Hamilton III
Professional Mail Services, Inc.

Steven Shalom,

I read your Toastmasters speech about your very special son Daniel enlisting in the Israeli Army and I would like to share a few thoughts with you.

As we get older we realize that some realities are hard to acknowledge, especially when they are entwined with expectations and high ideals.

Its becoming a more difficult and complicated world, with intense aspirations coming head to head with each other, sooner and with more impact than there is time to react too, or comfortably cope with.

My son Andrew is now serving in the IDF in Unit 669, and he will be serving for the next 4 1/2 years. Unit 669 is the Israel Defense Forces heliborne medevac extraction unit, subordinate to the Special Air Forces Command of the Israeli Air Force. It is considered one of the IDF’s premier elite units.

Due to the possibility of having to fight their way to casualties beyond enemy lines, unit soldiers are highly trained in special forces tactics and become highly efficient ground soldiers in addition to their high level of paramedic training. Typically, their training and selection lasts 18 months.

Courses that candidates must pass include:

Combat medics’ course

Parachuting course in the IDF Parachuting School

Scuba Diving course Counter-terrorism course in the IDF Counter-Terror Warfare School

Snappling course

Rescue under harsh conditions

Navigation Commanders’ course

Upon completion of their training, unit soldiers are expected to sign on for an extra 16 months of service following their three-year mandatory service.

I served in the United States Army from 1961-1968. Like you, I understand the military environment.

I’m writing to you from my home in Gardnerville Nevada near Lake Tahoe where I live with my wife Jane. In 1999, when Andrew was 9, we made Aliyah, and in July of 2001 we returned to reclaim our life. I don’t need to waste your time telling you all the reasons why, but permit me to share one.

Had we stayed Andrew would not have been able to make his own decision regarding the IDF, and thus determine his own destiny. Andrew finished his freshman year at the University of Michigan and decided on his own to join the IDF.

My stress level is off the charts, but the bottom line is this, Andrew is a man, and he is the master of his destiny.

I support him, without reservation, 100%.

I pray three times a day that Andrew will not be injured, captured or killed. Just thinking about it makes me sick to my stomach.

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free. ” Ronald Reagan,

May He who blessed our forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, bless the soldiers of the Israel Defence Forces, who stand watch over our land and the cities of our Lord, from the Lebanese border to the desert of Egypt and from the great sea to the verge of the wilderness, on land, in the air, and at sea. May God strike down before them our enemies who rise against us.

May the Holy One save and spare our soldiers from all forms of woe and distress, of affliction and illness, and may He invest their every action with blessing and success. May he vanquish by their means those who hate us, and may He adorn them with a crown of deliverance and a mantle of victory. Thus may the verse be fulfilled: “For it is the Lord your God who marches with you to do battle for you against your enemy, to bring you victory. Now let us respond. Amen.

May God bless and safeguard Daniel, you, Bracha, your family, all Israeli soldiers and citizens, Gilad Shalit, and my son Andrew. All the best.

Arthur

Better than going to Afghanistan I would imagine.

“…..I saw little post offices in the small towns of Wanchese, Manteo & Nags Head. I am sure the Post Office wants to close these offices since there is no way they can generate enough revenue to pay their overhead.”

“Multiply that across the country. At a recent Postal Customer Council meeting with a live video stream from Postmaster General Jack Potter, Potter said that ONE Automated Postal Center – the machine at the front of the post office – generated more revenue than 19,000 post offices!”

For the first paragraph, the cost to the Postal Service for those small Post Offices that do not generate enough revenue to cover the overhead amounts to only 1% of the costs incurred by the USPS. To close those small, unprofitable Post Offices would not help an ailing Postal Service recover; in fact, it would hurt greatly. Small communities depend on their local Post Office which is the back bone of these communities, not to mention the USPS. The customers from these small communities will be forced to deal with the larger Post Offices, which are already burdened by cut back to clerk positions that man the windows. The lines at the larger offices, which are already long, will now be longer. Wait-time-in-line is a large concern for the USPS and this concern will only grow larger.

Another thought I’d like to add, this ONE APC (Automated Postal Center) that generated more revenue than 19,000 Post Offices…I wonder how this affected the walk-in revenue to the Post Office where the APC was located? That revenue generated by the APC would have gone to the window had the APC not been there.

For the second paragraph, an APC may generate more than 19,000 Post Offices combined, but that would greatly depend on the location where the APC is located. Using an APC to replace a small Post Office is not an option, as it is not going to generate as much revenue as the replaced office would, and certainly not as much as 19,000 Post Offices. The USPS has been strategically moving these APC’s around the country, striving to locate the most profitable areas. Large offices in my area have lost their APC’s to other offices throughout the country, due to the low volume of revenue being generated. Remember the phrase repeatedly used by the real estate industry, location, location, location!

I am a Postmaster of a small, rural Post Office and in my personal opinion, I see closing of small Post Offices and eliminating Saturday delivery as the beginning of the end of the USPS. If our Congress could get together and work to save the United States Postal Service, the Postal Office could be saved. The over-funding of two separate retiree pension plans, totaling more than $75 billion and $6.8 billion in overpayments each (due to improper, outdated calculation methods) and the requirement to pre-fund retiree health benefits at $5.5 billion a year, for 10 years is a burden that is weighing the USPS down significantly. Combine these two obligations along with the continuing decline of mail volume each year, does nothing but spell disaster for the future of the Postal Service.

The United States Postal Service can survive, given the chance. Congress, are you listening/reading? It’s up to Congress, and anyone else reading this to encourage your representatives to fix what’s broken: the over-funding of two separate retiree pension plans and the requirement to pre-fund retiree health benefits.