Actually, I went to the post office on Saturday. It is rare that I go there but when I do it is because I need something that I can either get nowhere else or that the post office is simply the lowest cost or best provider of the service.
On Saturday I needed a money order to send to an old Army buddy in South Carolina. He is making up the hoodies and shirts for our company reunion this year at Fort Campbell. I was greeted by three cheerful postal workers who you could tell enjoyed their jobs. The gentleman who waited on me even found time to kid my son about giving him the change. The money order cost me $1.20 and I was able to mail it directly from the post office.
When my friend gets the money order he will in turn go back to the Post Office and will send me a package containing a Bravo Beast-326th Engineer Battalion, 101st Airborne Division hoodie. If all goes as planned I will have my hoodie before the end of the week.
There is not a better value than the U.S. Postal Service. Yet the GOP wants to destroy it. Now, the post office has gotten a bad rap over the years, from the term "going postal" to the image of postal workers we see in popular culture (think Cliff Clavin from Cheers, or the mailman from Better off Dead).
These images from popular culture only reinforce the GOP mantra that government workers are lazy and sucking on the government teat. This will come as a surprise to the 235,985 veterans that are postal workers. Instead of focusing on the the few bad apples it would be nice to see the postal service promote stories about mail carriers that have saved an elderly person's life by noticing mail piling up.
The U.S. Postal Service is an important and necessary part of our nation's infrastructure. Mail service is far too important to be allowed to go to a private carrier like UPS or FedEx.