03/26/2026
Our friends Operation Paperbackack sent out an important update today, and I wanted to pass it along since many of you also ship books to loved ones, friends, or units on your own.
As you know, Books for Troops works a little differently — we fundraise and cover all shipping costs for our program, while Operation Paperback asks their volunteers to pay for postage directly. Even though this isn’t part of our process, their update includes information that’s helpful for anyone who mails to military addresses.
They highlighted something many of us have run into before:
postal clerks sometimes enter APO/FPO/DPO addresses incorrectly or assume an address is suspended when it isn’t.
Operation Paperback recommends asking the clerk to enter the full address into their system first to confirm whether the ZIP is active. When we first started, I can’t tell you how many times I made a trip to the post office without asking them to verify — so this reminder is incredibly useful.
They also noted that some Middle East ZIP codes are temporarily suspended due to the current situation overseas, but addresses obtained through their official request system are already filtered and safe to use.
Many thanks to the Operation Paperback team for sharing these tips and helping all of us avoid wasted trips and returned packages.
