Army Mail

When we get mail from the United States, it is delivered to our post office box at the Army Post Office (APO) on the local military base.  As a benefit to citizens living overseas on military orders, the cost of mailing things to overseas locations is subsidized (the cost to the sender is the same as mailing the item to New York City).  This means APO mail is a lot cheaper than other international shipping services (FedEx, UPS, and others).  We get a fair amount of mail via the APO and are grateful to have this convenience while living in Germany.

The APO is mostly reliable and we usually receive things from the United States in about a week.  Occasionally, however, we get things like this box that came a few days ago:

The employees at the APO said it was received in this condition from the United States.  Fortunately the contents were not damaged.