Electronic ‘Postman’ Delivers to Troops Posthaste

A department store chain Saturday unveiled the latest effort to use modern technology on the home front during the Middle East crisis.

An electronic messaging system that allows family and friends to send letters instantaneously to troops involved in Operation Desert Shield is being sponsored by Sears, Roebuck & Co., IBM and Prodigy Services Co.

The service, which began Saturday, will be offered free to people visiting Sears stores in San Diego County and other parts of the country through Monday, said Eric McKenzie, a Sears sales representative in La Jolla.

“The idea here is that we want to boost the morale of the men in the Middle East,” McKenzie said.

Prodigy is a computer networking system that provides services through a home computer such as messaging other Prodigy members, accessing stock market prices and buying catalogue items and travel tickets.

The messaging service to troops in the Middle East is a computer link between the United States and the Persian Gulf through satellite transmissions by the IBM Information Network.

Letters, sent at the speed of light, are received almost instantaneously, then printed and stuffed into envelopes and distributed to the troops two to 10 days later, depending on where they are stationed.

“I think it’s great,” said Linda Mazur, 27, who sent a message to her boyfriend, Pfc. Ronald J. Reed aboard the USS Mount Vernon.

“It’s going to be received by him in two days, and that’s the best part,” said Mazur, who sends letters to Reed about every three days and which take at least two weeks to reach their destination.

“I tried to keep the letter as clean as possible because I figured I’d have to get someone else to type it in for me,” Mazur said of her electronic love letter.

At the Sears store in Carlsbad, four Marines from Camp Pendleton volunteered their typing services to more than 75 friends and family members of troops in the Middle East to get the messages across.

“I find dealing with the computers easier than writing a letter,” said Capt. Kevin Leahy, a software support officer for the Marines and one of the volunteers.

“It wouldn’t take two minutes to type out two pages of text, and when you think how much it would take to round up the paper and stamps and what not, this is much easier,” he said.

Prodigy spokesman Dennis Garlington, said he hopes to send at least 1,000 messages during the weekend through the San Diego Sears stores as the word of the free service spreads.

“We’re trying to reach out to people who don’t have home computers yet and don’t have access to this service,” Garlington said.

Garlington didn’t know how much it cost to set up the service, but said “there was a lot of security and bureaucracy we had to go through.”

The messaging service to the Middle East is also free to Prodigy members, who can send a one-page, daily message through March 31.