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I am more concerned, as to why one of the mail handlers, is carrying a gun ??????
The Marines started guarding mail long before this one and long after but here are the orders that started it all.
Navy Secretary Edwin Denby, a former Marine, issued one of the most stirring guard orders ever received by U.S. Marines on November 11, 1921. The nation was in the grip of a crime wave, which had been highlighted by armed robberies of the U.S. Mail. Four days before Secretary Denby penned his letter of instruction, the president had directed that the Marine Corps take over the job of safeguarding the mails, and fifty-three officers and twenty-two hundred enlisted Marines were already on watch in post offices, railway mail cars, and postal trucks throughout the country. "To the Men of the Mail Guard," wrote Edwin Denby:
I am proud that my old Corps has been chosen for a duty so honorable as that of protecting the United States mail. I am very anxious that you shall successfully accomplish your mission. It is not going to be easy work. It will always be dangerous and generally tiresome. You know how to do it. Be sure you do it well. I know you will neither fear nor shirk any duty, however hazardous or exacting.
This particular work will lack the excitement and glamour of war duty, but it will be no less important. It has the same element of service to the country.
I look with proud confidence to you to show now the qualities that have made the Corps so well-beloved by our fellow citizens.
You must be brave, as you always are. You must be constantly alert. You must, when on guard duty, keep your weapons in hand, if attacked, shoot and shoot to kill. There is no compromise in this battle with the bandits.
If two Marines, guarding a mail car, are suddenly covered by a robber, neither must hold up his hands, but both must begin shooting at once. One may be killed, but the other will get the robber and save the mail. When our men go in as guards over mail, that mail must be delivered or there must be a Marine dead at the post of duty. To be sure of success, every Marine on this duty must be watchful as a cat, hour after hour, night after night, week after week. No Marine must drink a drop of intoxicating liquor. Every Marine must be most careful with whom he associates and what his occupations are off duty. There may be many tricks tried to get you, and you must not be tricked. Look out for women. Never discuss the details of your duty with outsiders. Never give up to another the trust you are charged with.
Never forget that the honor of the Corps is in your keeping. You have been given a great trust. I am confident you will prove that it has not been misplaced.
I am proud of you and believe in you with all my heart.
– Edwin Denby
Posted 01/19/2009 09:21 am
I had to compress it to upload. Otherwise, you could right click, copy, and then paste to enlarge it on another application.
No...But I did hear of Wild Phil Hiccup 
