The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want
He makes me down to lie
Through pastures green He leadeth me the silent waters by
With bright knives He releaseth my soul
He maketh me to hang on hooks in high places
He converteth me to lamb cutlets
For lo, He hath great power and great hunger
When cometh the day we lowly ones
Through quiet reflection and great dedication
Master the art of karate
Lo, we shall rise up
And then we'll make the bugger's eyes water.
The Ace of Cups
From The Key to the Tarot by A.E. Waite:
The waters are beneath, upon which are water lilies. The hand issues from the cloud, holding in its palm the cup, from which five streams are pouring. A dove, bearing in its beak a cross-marked host, descends to place the wafer in the cup - the dew of water is falling on all sides.
Ten of Swords
From The Key to the Tarot by A.E. Waite:
A prostrate figure, pierced by all the swords belonging to the card.
XVIII. The Moon
From Wikipedia:
The card depicts a night scene, where two large pillars are shown. A wolf and a domesticated dog howl at the Moon while a crayfish emerges from the water. The Moon has "sixteen chief and sixteen secondary rays", and "is shedding the moisture of fertilizing dew in great drops" (totaling 15 in the Rider–Waite deck) which are all Yodh-shaped.
From The Key to the Tarot by A.E. Waite:
A woman, bound and hoodwinked, with the swords of the card about her.
XII. The Hanged Man
From The Crowley Tarot the Handbook to the Cards by Akron & Hajo Banzhaf:
We see the Hanged Man stretched out with his head downwards, crucified between life and death. The snake of life winds around his left foot, binding him to the ankh that appears out of the white light. This ancient Egyptian tau cross embodies vital energy. Head and hands, however, are turned towards the snake of death that rests beneath him in the grave. The background forms a lattice of small quadrants representing the table of elements, upon which all the names and symbols of the natural energies are listed. These quadrants and the crossed legs are symbolic of the number four, always an expression of earthly reality. However, the circles upon which the Hanged Man is nailed have the symbolic value of the absolute and divine, just as the number three expressed by the three nails represents the divine. This then reflects the most common form of the crucifix, where Jesus is nailed to the cross with three nails: the divine (3) is nailed to the earthly suffering (4), hung between the human basic values of life and death. The sense of this sacrifices is redemption. On the level of depth psychology, the ego sacrifices itself in order to be resurrected in the divine self. The indispensable experience for this transformation is the encounter with death (the following card), the central theme of the initiation rites of all mystery cults. The insight into one's own narrow limitation allows the ego to become modest and entrust guidance to the Higher Self.
Trump stands with jazz hands proudly presenting McDonalds to the Clemson Tigers in the White House in 2019. On the wall behind Trump is a portrait of Abraham Lincoln, and above the portrait is a looped hook made of gold, reminiscent of the ankh from XII. The Hanged Man.
From Wikipedia:
The dead body of Benito Mussolini next to his mistress Claretta Petacci and those of other executed fascists, on display in Milan on 29 April 1945, in Piazzale Loreto, the same place that the fascists had displayed the bodies of fifteen Milanese civilians a year earlier after executing them in retaliation for resistance activity.
This description is from a different photo taken by Vincenzo Carrese from in front of the building with the UPiM sign. I searched for the original photographer, but reverse image search too me to the following website:
Here, I found both the original black and white photo of the dead body of Benito Mussolini from a different angle and in among the crowd along with a modern day comparison shot of the current site where Mussolini was displayed in Milan.
If anyone knows the original photographer feel free to let me know.
XIII. Death
From The Crowley Tarot the Handbook to the Cards by Akron & Hajo Banzhaf:
The card shows the dance of death that embodies the eternal cycle of the "dying and growing" principle in its interplay. We see a kneeling skeleton wielding a scythe and harvesting all the withered forms that have fallen through fate's woven pattern. The separation of the mortal threads lets bubbles rise up out of the muddy cesspool where new life is germinating. It climbs up on the threads of time like shining cotton swabs, continuously expanding itself into new formations of time and space. Death itself creates them by stirring them up out of the slag of the unfathomable. This instinctual drive of the eternal is symbolized by a scorpion with a poisonous stinger, brooding between two dead swamp flowers (lotus and lily). Together with the snake, fish, and eagle it is a symbol of resurrection. The Teutons knew from their god Odin that he cold take astral trips into distant, afterlife worlds if he changed his form before doing so. His body then lay there as if it was asleep or dead. However, he himself had turned into a bird or a wild animal (corresponding here to the perilousness of the scorpion), a fish, or snake. According to Crowley, this card illustrates the idea of putrefaction, the rotting fermentation in the alchemical process, which - just like humus - is the prerequisite for new life or for a new push in development.
It's time for a new life in this country, one where the old are buried and rot away to feed the new.
Odysseus (pileus hat) carrying off the palladion from Troy, with the help of Diomedes, against the resistance of Cassandra and other Trojans. Antique fresco from Pompeii.
In an image posted by NASA on April 3, 2026, shows a full disk image of Earth, as seen from the Orion capsule. The planet is pale blue, swirling with white clouds and glowing slightly lighter blue in places from reflected light. From the lower left, a large brown landmass is Africa, with the Iberian peninsula twinkling with lights just where the planet curves. In the upper right, aurora glow in a thin green glow, just barely separated from the planet’s surface. Earth is set against the black of space.
Reid Wiseman, NASA
Aerial view of an area of Amazon rainforest deforested by illegal fire in the municipality of Labrea, Amazonas State, Brazil, Aug. 20, 2024.Evaristo Sa/AFP via Getty Images
Trump supporters near the US Capitol following a "Stop the Steal" rally on January 06, 2021 in Washington, DC. The protesters stormed the historic building, breaking windows and clashing with police.
To worship the Emperor is to turn wisdom on its head, sullying the energy of life, and transmuting it into something coarse and dense. But unlike soil this material begets death.
Julius Caesar, Perpetual Dictator, from Twelve Famous Greek and Roman Men, Boëtius Adamsz Bolster (after Peter Paul Rubens), ca. 1633. Source: The Art Institute of Chicago
Page of Cups - A fair, pleasing , somewhat effeminate Page, of studious and intent aspect, contemplates a fish rising from a cup to look at him.
Divinatory Meanings: Fair young man, one impelled to render service and with whom the Querent will be connected, a studious youth, news, message, application, reflection, meditation - also these things directed to business.
Cybele Mayes-Osterman
USA TODAY
Updated April 16, 2026, 5:19 p.m. ET
Dan F. was alarmed when his daughter, a Marine aboard the USS Tripoli, a warship deployed to fight the Iran war, sent him a photo of a meal served on the ship. A lunch tray, two-thirds empty, carried one small scoop of shredded meat and a single folded tortilla.
A picture of a mid-April dinner on the USS Abraham Lincoln, shared by a service member with his family, was similarly unappetizing – a small handful of boiled carrots, a dry meat patty and a gray slab of processed meat.
Dan and other military family members worried that their loved ones deployed to the Middle East are going hungry are filling boxes with items they hope could help service members ride out prolonged deployments in the Middle East – homemade fudge, Jolly Ranchers, crossword puzzle books, playing cards, toothpaste, Girl Scout cookies and fresh socks. But mail delivery to military ZIP codes across the Middle East has been indefinitely suspended as of April, and packages in transit now hang in limbo.
Dan asked to go by his first name only to protect his daughter from retaliation.
Military says war conditions prompted suspension
The U.S. Postal Service temporarily suspended mail delivery to 27 military ZIP codes after the United States and Israel attacked Iran. The Army said there is no end date in sight for the suspension, despite a ceasefire in the war.
(Photo Included: A picture by a US Marine deployed on the USS Tripoli of a meal service members on board received. Dan F.)
The Postal Service and the Military Postal Service Agency have suspended deliveries as of the beginning of April "due to airspace closures and other logistical impacts from the ongoing conflict," Maj. Travis Shaw, an Army spokesperson, told USA TODAY. Mail already in transit when the suspension took effect is being held in secure Postal Service or military facilities "for future delivery once service resumes," he said.
The suspension is "in effect until further notice," Shaw added. "Resumption of mail service is contingent upon the reopening of airspace by civil authorities, and the area commander’s evaluation of regional transportation and distribution stability."
No mail is being "returned to sender" for those ZIP codes, Shaw said.
David Coleman, a USPS spokesperson, noted in an emailed statement that temporary suspensions to military zip codes can be monitored through the postal service's website.
"No military mailings are being returned to the sender during a suspension. They are held until they can be delivered," he added.
The Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment on the mail stoppage or reports that some U.S. vessels were short on food.
Dan F.'s daughter told him in sporadic messages – when the USS Tripoli reached a pocket of internet service – that members were rationing their food supplies on the ship. Fresh produce was nowhere to be found, she told him.
After his daughter told him the coffee machine on board had broken down, Dan said he stopped drinking coffee in solidarity with what she's going through.
When Dan F.'s daughter said hygiene products were running low on the ship, the family sent a care package with shampoo and conditioner, deodorant, toothpaste and tampons, filling every open space with candy and snacks.
(Photo Included: People pack care packages at a drive in Monson, Massachusetts. Monson Military Care Package Drive)
They filled the second box with Emergen-C vitamin C packets – Dan's daughter said she was feeling a sore throat coming on – and clean socks.
The boxes were sent nearly a month ago, yet neither has reached its destination.
"We have the strongest military in the world. You shouldn’t be running out of food, and you shouldn’t not be able to get mail on the ship," said Dan, 63, who also served in the Marines.
"The one thing we had over our adversaries [was] we fed our people."
A Texas mother whose son, a Navy sailor, is also aboard the Tripoli, said she panicked after hearing he was hungry on the ship. Her family has now spent at least $2,000 on care packages, but none have reached her son. The mother asked to remain anonymous out of fear her son would face retaliation.
In message exchanges with him that she shared with USA TODAY, the sailor said service members on the ship eat when they can, and they divvy up food evenly when one person gets more than the others.
Supplies "are going to get really low," and the crew doesn't anticipate any port visits until the ship returns from its mission, he wrote in a message on March 11.
"Morale is going to be at an all-time low," he wrote.
Karen Erskine-Valentine, pastor of a church in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, said she was alarmed to hear from a community member whose son is in the Middle East aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln about the poor quality of food on the ship. The Abraham Lincoln is one of two aircraft carriers sent to the region, along with the USS Gerald Ford. A third, the USS George H.W. Bush, is on the way.
"The food is tasteless and there’s not nearly enough and they’re hungry all the time," Erskine-Valentine said. "That kind of breaks your heart."
The community packaged and sent 18 boxes to the sailor to share with his shipmates. She sent another four boxes on April 15.
"I put out the announcement that they were in need of love and nourishment," she said. "Within two days, I had 18 boxes of stuff."
Sending the boxes wasn't cheap – at least $540 for shipping alone, she said.
Six of the packages reached Tokyo on April 14, according to Postal Service tracking. They have yet to reach their destination.
The Tripoli has been at sea for more than a month since it left its home port in Japan to join the Iran war. The 3,500 sailors and Marines aboard the Tripoli and its two accompanying warships are now tasked with enforcing the U.S. blockade of ships leaving Iranian ports, according to the U.S. Central Command.
Other warships have been at sea far longer. On April 15, the USS Gerald Ford broke the record for the longest deployment of any aircraft carrier since the Cold War – 295 days. The carrier retreated to Naval Support Activity Souda Bay on the island of Crete for maintenance work March 23. The military said a laundry fire had erupted on the ship, and it was plagued with plumbing problems.
'Extenuating circumstances' affect military mail delivery
It's common for wars and other operations to delay package deliveries to deployed military members, said Lynn Heidelbaugh, a curator at the Smithsonian National Postal Museum. She said she had not come across an all-out suspension of mail delivery to a military ZIP code like those now in place, but the absence of a formal announcement, especially in the pre-internet age, doesn't mean mail hasn't been stalled before.
(Photo Included: Karen Erskine-Valentine, a West Virginia pastor, has shipped 22 boxes to a community member deployed on the USS Abraham Lincoln. Karen Erskine-Valentine.)
"There are always extenuating circumstances," she said. "It's far more complex than domestic mail."
The Military Postal Service provides mail service across 76 countries, according to the Postal Service's Office of the Inspector General. It operates 1,670 Postal Service operations worldwide and moves about 80 million pounds of mail a year, an agency fact sheet says.
Non-expedited shipping of packages to the Middle East usually takes up to 24 days, the Postal Service says. In 2003, mail took an average 11 to 14 days to reach service members deployed to the Iraq war, according to a Government Accountability Office report.
USPS historian Steve Kochersperger said in a statement emailed to USA TODAY: "Interruptions and delays in mail service have been a part of every American conflict since the Revolutionary War. Communications and supply networks that work well during peacetime are invariably disrupted during wartime."
He noted the "tremendous backlog of mail following the D-Day invasion of 1944."
USPS has no internal records about mail delayed to military addresses during more recent conflicts in the Middle East, but "newspaper reports from the time indicate there were numerous disruptions due to the war," he said.
(Photo Included: The American Legion Auxiliary Post 226 bought snacks for care packages, but one for a service member deployed in Bahrain couldn't be sent. American Legion Auxiliary Post 226.)
Packages wait in living rooms, stuck between destinations
Karen Turgeon, organizer of an annual Thanksgiving care package drive for military families in Monson, Massachusetts, rushed to organize an extra drive for the four service members from her community who were sent to the Middle East after the war broke out.
None of the group's packages have reached their destinations. Instead, the drive has redirected its energy toward dropping cards of encouragement and flowers at the homes of service members' families.
Photo Included: Packages sent by Karen Turgeon, the organizer of the Monson Military Care Package Drive, have yet to reach their destination in the Middle East. Monson Military Care Package Drive.
"We’re trying to cheer them up at home," she said. "We give them an envelope filled with things to send so that when they can, they will."
Dawn Penrod, treasurer of an American Legion Auxiliary chapter based in Edgewater, Maryland, said she spent an hour at the post office roughly two weeks ago trying to send a care package to her nephew, an Army Reserve member stationed in Bahrain.
In the package was a grab bag of small pleasures to ease the difficulty of a lengthy deployment – Kind bars, candy, homemade fudge, Girl Scout cookies, puzzle books, pencils, pens, decks of cards and other games. The auxiliary chapter gave Penrod $100 plus postage to spend on the package, and a client of hers gave another $50.
But Penrod said a postal worker told her she couldn't send anything to the military address she had listed.
Additional information:
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want
He makes me down to lie
Through pastures green He leadeth me the silent waters by
With bright knives He releaseth my soul
He maketh me to hang on hooks in high places
He converteth me to lamb cutlets
For lo, He hath great power and great hunger
When cometh the day we lowly ones
Through quiet reflection and great dedication
Master the art of karate Lo, we shall rise up And then we'll make the bugger's eyes water.
The Ace of Cups
From The Key to the Tarot by A.E. Waite: The waters are beneath, upon which are water lilies. The hand issues from the cloud, holding in its palm the cup, from which five streams are pouring. A dove, bearing in its beak a cross-marked host, descends to place the wafer in the cup - the dew of water is falling on all sides.
Ten of Swords
From The Key to the Tarot by A.E. Waite: A prostrate figure, pierced by all the swords belonging to the card.
XVIII. The Moon
From Wikipedia: The card depicts a night scene, where two large pillars are shown. A wolf and a domesticated dog howl at the Moon while a crayfish emerges from the water. The Moon has "sixteen chief and sixteen secondary rays", and "is shedding the moisture of fertilizing dew in great drops" (totaling 15 in the Rider–Waite deck) which are all Yodh-shaped.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moon_(tarot_card)
Eight of Swords
From The Key to the Tarot by A.E. Waite: A woman, bound and hoodwinked, with the swords of the card about her.
XII. The Hanged Man
From The Crowley Tarot the Handbook to the Cards by Akron & Hajo Banzhaf: We see the Hanged Man stretched out with his head downwards, crucified between life and death. The snake of life winds around his left foot, binding him to the ankh that appears out of the white light. This ancient Egyptian tau cross embodies vital energy. Head and hands, however, are turned towards the snake of death that rests beneath him in the grave. The background forms a lattice of small quadrants representing the table of elements, upon which all the names and symbols of the natural energies are listed. These quadrants and the crossed legs are symbolic of the number four, always an expression of earthly reality. However, the circles upon which the Hanged Man is nailed have the symbolic value of the absolute and divine, just as the number three expressed by the three nails represents the divine. This then reflects the most common form of the crucifix, where Jesus is nailed to the cross with three nails: the divine (3) is nailed to the earthly suffering (4), hung between the human basic values of life and death. The sense of this sacrifices is redemption. On the level of depth psychology, the ego sacrifices itself in order to be resurrected in the divine self. The indispensable experience for this transformation is the encounter with death (the following card), the central theme of the initiation rites of all mystery cults. The insight into one's own narrow limitation allows the ego to become modest and entrust guidance to the Higher Self.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/15/world/2019-food-stories-trnd
Trump stands with jazz hands proudly presenting McDonalds to the Clemson Tigers in the White House in 2019. On the wall behind Trump is a portrait of Abraham Lincoln, and above the portrait is a looped hook made of gold, reminiscent of the ankh from XII. The Hanged Man.
From Wikipedia: The dead body of Benito Mussolini next to his mistress Claretta Petacci and those of other executed fascists, on display in Milan on 29 April 1945, in Piazzale Loreto, the same place that the fascists had displayed the bodies of fifteen Milanese civilians a year earlier after executing them in retaliation for resistance activity. This description is from a different photo taken by Vincenzo Carrese from in front of the building with the UPiM sign. I searched for the original photographer, but reverse image search too me to the following website:
https://www.warrelics.eu/forum/after-battle/then-now-531993-12/
Here, I found both the original black and white photo of the dead body of Benito Mussolini from a different angle and in among the crowd along with a modern day comparison shot of the current site where Mussolini was displayed in Milan.
If anyone knows the original photographer feel free to let me know.
XIII. Death
From The Crowley Tarot the Handbook to the Cards by Akron & Hajo Banzhaf: The card shows the dance of death that embodies the eternal cycle of the "dying and growing" principle in its interplay. We see a kneeling skeleton wielding a scythe and harvesting all the withered forms that have fallen through fate's woven pattern. The separation of the mortal threads lets bubbles rise up out of the muddy cesspool where new life is germinating. It climbs up on the threads of time like shining cotton swabs, continuously expanding itself into new formations of time and space. Death itself creates them by stirring them up out of the slag of the unfathomable. This instinctual drive of the eternal is symbolized by a scorpion with a poisonous stinger, brooding between two dead swamp flowers (lotus and lily). Together with the snake, fish, and eagle it is a symbol of resurrection. The Teutons knew from their god Odin that he cold take astral trips into distant, afterlife worlds if he changed his form before doing so. His body then lay there as if it was asleep or dead. However, he himself had turned into a bird or a wild animal (corresponding here to the perilousness of the scorpion), a fish, or snake. According to Crowley, this card illustrates the idea of putrefaction, the rotting fermentation in the alchemical process, which - just like humus - is the prerequisite for new life or for a new push in development.
It's time for a new life in this country, one where the old are buried and rot away to feed the new.
https://youtu.be/0gkbn3_7CM0
Twelve Sunflowers in a Vase, Vincent van Gogh, 1888
American Astrophotographer Clicks Most Detailed Image Of The Moon
Odysseus (pileus hat) carrying off the palladion from Troy, with the help of Diomedes, against the resistance of Cassandra and other Trojans. Antique fresco from Pompeii.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odysseus
The return of Ulysses, illustration by E. M. Synge from the 1909 Story of the World children's book series (book 1: On the shores of Great Sea)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odysseus
In an image posted by NASA on April 3, 2026, shows a full disk image of Earth, as seen from the Orion capsule. The planet is pale blue, swirling with white clouds and glowing slightly lighter blue in places from reflected light. From the lower left, a large brown landmass is Africa, with the Iberian peninsula twinkling with lights just where the planet curves. In the upper right, aurora glow in a thin green glow, just barely separated from the planet’s surface. Earth is set against the black of space. Reid Wiseman, NASA
https://www.usatoday.com/picture-gallery/news/local/arizona-science/2026/04/06/views-of-earth-artemis-ii/89485507007/
Aerial view of an area of Amazon rainforest deforested by illegal fire in the municipality of Labrea, Amazonas State, Brazil, Aug. 20, 2024.Evaristo Sa/AFP via Getty Images
https://theextinctionchronicles.wordpress.com/2025/03/13/satellite-appears-to-show-new-highway-cutting-through-brazils-amazon-rainforest/
Coral Bleaching: Before and After. Credit: XL Catlin Seaview Survey, Ocean Image Bank
https://www.barrierreef.org/news/explainers/what-is-coral-bleaching
Why is the Sun Yellow and the Sky Blue?
I Knead Dem Biscuits
The Fletcher Memorial Home
Get Your Filthy Hands Off My Desert
Trump supporters near the US Capitol following a "Stop the Steal" rally on January 06, 2021 in Washington, DC. The protesters stormed the historic building, breaking windows and clashing with police.
To worship the Emperor is to turn wisdom on its head, sullying the energy of life, and transmuting it into something coarse and dense. But unlike soil this material begets death.
Selcuk Acar/NurPhoto via Getty Images
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/trumps-personality-cult-plays-a-part-in-his-political-appeal/
Jesus on the Mount of Olives receiving charism from God, charism denoting any good gift that flows from God's benevolent love.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Taisten-Tabernakelbildstock_04.jpg
Julius Caesar, Perpetual Dictator, from Twelve Famous Greek and Roman Men, Boëtius Adamsz Bolster (after Peter Paul Rubens), ca. 1633. Source: The Art Institute of Chicago
https://www.thecollector.com/roman-empire-imperial-cult/
Page of Cups
From The Key to the Tarot by A.E. Waite:
Page of Cups - A fair, pleasing , somewhat effeminate Page, of studious and intent aspect, contemplates a fish rising from a cup to look at him.
Divinatory Meanings: Fair young man, one impelled to render service and with whom the Querent will be connected, a studious youth, news, message, application, reflection, meditation - also these things directed to business.
Reversed: Taste, inclination, attachment, seduction, deception, artifice.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cups11.jpg
She wasn't even able to fill out the customs form required to ship a package to a military ZIP code abroad. She left the post office, package in hand.
"It's sitting in my living room, waiting," she said.
Others in the auxiliary chapter who had sent care packages to service members for decades had never seen such delays and suspensions, Penrod said.
"They were delivering mail and packages all the time," Penrod said. "I just don’t know why they can’t now."
(This article was updated to add new information.)
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2026/04/16/iran-war-mail-packages-middle-east/89609308007/?link_source=ta_first_comment&taid=69e13fd09549e40001cc0946
Cybele Mayes-Osterman USA TODAY Updated April 16, 2026, 5:19 p.m. ET
Dan F. was alarmed when his daughter, a Marine aboard the USS Tripoli, a warship deployed to fight the Iran war, sent him a photo of a meal served on the ship. A lunch tray, two-thirds empty, carried one small scoop of shredded meat and a single folded tortilla.
A picture of a mid-April dinner on the USS Abraham Lincoln, shared by a service member with his family, was similarly unappetizing – a small handful of boiled carrots, a dry meat patty and a gray slab of processed meat.
Dan and other military family members worried that their loved ones deployed to the Middle East are going hungry are filling boxes with items they hope could help service members ride out prolonged deployments in the Middle East – homemade fudge, Jolly Ranchers, crossword puzzle books, playing cards, toothpaste, Girl Scout cookies and fresh socks. But mail delivery to military ZIP codes across the Middle East has been indefinitely suspended as of April, and packages in transit now hang in limbo.
Dan asked to go by his first name only to protect his daughter from retaliation. Military says war conditions prompted suspension
The U.S. Postal Service temporarily suspended mail delivery to 27 military ZIP codes after the United States and Israel attacked Iran. The Army said there is no end date in sight for the suspension, despite a ceasefire in the war.
(Photo Included: A picture by a US Marine deployed on the USS Tripoli of a meal service members on board received. Dan F.)
The Postal Service and the Military Postal Service Agency have suspended deliveries as of the beginning of April "due to airspace closures and other logistical impacts from the ongoing conflict," Maj. Travis Shaw, an Army spokesperson, told USA TODAY. Mail already in transit when the suspension took effect is being held in secure Postal Service or military facilities "for future delivery once service resumes," he said.
The suspension is "in effect until further notice," Shaw added. "Resumption of mail service is contingent upon the reopening of airspace by civil authorities, and the area commander’s evaluation of regional transportation and distribution stability."
No mail is being "returned to sender" for those ZIP codes, Shaw said.
David Coleman, a USPS spokesperson, noted in an emailed statement that temporary suspensions to military zip codes can be monitored through the postal service's website.
"No military mailings are being returned to the sender during a suspension. They are held until they can be delivered," he added.
The Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment on the mail stoppage or reports that some U.S. vessels were short on food.
Dan F.'s daughter told him in sporadic messages – when the USS Tripoli reached a pocket of internet service – that members were rationing their food supplies on the ship. Fresh produce was nowhere to be found, she told him.
After his daughter told him the coffee machine on board had broken down, Dan said he stopped drinking coffee in solidarity with what she's going through.
When Dan F.'s daughter said hygiene products were running low on the ship, the family sent a care package with shampoo and conditioner, deodorant, toothpaste and tampons, filling every open space with candy and snacks.
(Photo Included: People pack care packages at a drive in Monson, Massachusetts. Monson Military Care Package Drive)
They filled the second box with Emergen-C vitamin C packets – Dan's daughter said she was feeling a sore throat coming on – and clean socks.
The boxes were sent nearly a month ago, yet neither has reached its destination.
"We have the strongest military in the world. You shouldn’t be running out of food, and you shouldn’t not be able to get mail on the ship," said Dan, 63, who also served in the Marines.
"The one thing we had over our adversaries [was] we fed our people."
A Texas mother whose son, a Navy sailor, is also aboard the Tripoli, said she panicked after hearing he was hungry on the ship. Her family has now spent at least $2,000 on care packages, but none have reached her son. The mother asked to remain anonymous out of fear her son would face retaliation.
In message exchanges with him that she shared with USA TODAY, the sailor said service members on the ship eat when they can, and they divvy up food evenly when one person gets more than the others.
Supplies "are going to get really low," and the crew doesn't anticipate any port visits until the ship returns from its mission, he wrote in a message on March 11.
"Morale is going to be at an all-time low," he wrote.
Karen Erskine-Valentine, pastor of a church in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, said she was alarmed to hear from a community member whose son is in the Middle East aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln about the poor quality of food on the ship. The Abraham Lincoln is one of two aircraft carriers sent to the region, along with the USS Gerald Ford. A third, the USS George H.W. Bush, is on the way.
"The food is tasteless and there’s not nearly enough and they’re hungry all the time," Erskine-Valentine said. "That kind of breaks your heart."
The community packaged and sent 18 boxes to the sailor to share with his shipmates. She sent another four boxes on April 15.
"I put out the announcement that they were in need of love and nourishment," she said. "Within two days, I had 18 boxes of stuff."
Sending the boxes wasn't cheap – at least $540 for shipping alone, she said.
Six of the packages reached Tokyo on April 14, according to Postal Service tracking. They have yet to reach their destination.
The Tripoli has been at sea for more than a month since it left its home port in Japan to join the Iran war. The 3,500 sailors and Marines aboard the Tripoli and its two accompanying warships are now tasked with enforcing the U.S. blockade of ships leaving Iranian ports, according to the U.S. Central Command.
Other warships have been at sea far longer. On April 15, the USS Gerald Ford broke the record for the longest deployment of any aircraft carrier since the Cold War – 295 days. The carrier retreated to Naval Support Activity Souda Bay on the island of Crete for maintenance work March 23. The military said a laundry fire had erupted on the ship, and it was plagued with plumbing problems. 'Extenuating circumstances' affect military mail delivery
It's common for wars and other operations to delay package deliveries to deployed military members, said Lynn Heidelbaugh, a curator at the Smithsonian National Postal Museum. She said she had not come across an all-out suspension of mail delivery to a military ZIP code like those now in place, but the absence of a formal announcement, especially in the pre-internet age, doesn't mean mail hasn't been stalled before.
(Photo Included: Karen Erskine-Valentine, a West Virginia pastor, has shipped 22 boxes to a community member deployed on the USS Abraham Lincoln. Karen Erskine-Valentine.)
"There are always extenuating circumstances," she said. "It's far more complex than domestic mail."
The Military Postal Service provides mail service across 76 countries, according to the Postal Service's Office of the Inspector General. It operates 1,670 Postal Service operations worldwide and moves about 80 million pounds of mail a year, an agency fact sheet says.
Non-expedited shipping of packages to the Middle East usually takes up to 24 days, the Postal Service says. In 2003, mail took an average 11 to 14 days to reach service members deployed to the Iraq war, according to a Government Accountability Office report.
USPS historian Steve Kochersperger said in a statement emailed to USA TODAY: "Interruptions and delays in mail service have been a part of every American conflict since the Revolutionary War. Communications and supply networks that work well during peacetime are invariably disrupted during wartime."
He noted the "tremendous backlog of mail following the D-Day invasion of 1944."
USPS has no internal records about mail delayed to military addresses during more recent conflicts in the Middle East, but "newspaper reports from the time indicate there were numerous disruptions due to the war," he said.
(Photo Included: The American Legion Auxiliary Post 226 bought snacks for care packages, but one for a service member deployed in Bahrain couldn't be sent. American Legion Auxiliary Post 226.)
Packages wait in living rooms, stuck between destinations
Karen Turgeon, organizer of an annual Thanksgiving care package drive for military families in Monson, Massachusetts, rushed to organize an extra drive for the four service members from her community who were sent to the Middle East after the war broke out.
None of the group's packages have reached their destinations. Instead, the drive has redirected its energy toward dropping cards of encouragement and flowers at the homes of service members' families.
Photo Included: Packages sent by Karen Turgeon, the organizer of the Monson Military Care Package Drive, have yet to reach their destination in the Middle East. Monson Military Care Package Drive.
"We’re trying to cheer them up at home," she said. "We give them an envelope filled with things to send so that when they can, they will."
Dawn Penrod, treasurer of an American Legion Auxiliary chapter based in Edgewater, Maryland, said she spent an hour at the post office roughly two weeks ago trying to send a care package to her nephew, an Army Reserve member stationed in Bahrain.
In the package was a grab bag of small pleasures to ease the difficulty of a lengthy deployment – Kind bars, candy, homemade fudge, Girl Scout cookies, puzzle books, pencils, pens, decks of cards and other games. The auxiliary chapter gave Penrod $100 plus postage to spend on the package, and a client of hers gave another $50.
But Penrod said a postal worker told her she couldn't send anything to the military address she had listed.