Honored for their first-class heroism
WASHINGTON — Not even a full month into his new job delivering mail, Scott Gallegos, an Iraq war Army veteran, found himself back in hostile conditions.
On April 27, Gallegos, filling in for a co-worker, was starting his morning route in Carmichael, Calif., when a bloodied woman startled him by banging on the door of his Postal Service vehicle. She had been shot. While Gallegos used his shirt to apply pressure to the woman’s neck and stomach wounds, gunshots rang out. He carried the woman to cover beneath nearby bushes, then drove her to the hospital.
“It was kind of intervention that I got that route that day and it happened at that exact time,” said Gallegos, 43, who celebrated the Fourth of July with the woman. “Everything just kind of fell right into place.”
The country’s largest postal union last week honored letter carriers who went beyond their job requirements. Many of the honorees had served in the military, said Fredric Rolando, president of the National Assn. of Letter Carriers, as one-quarter of letter carriers have.
“Each incident required a level of courage, compassion, creative thought and action,” Rolando said. “Each individual rose to the occasion.”
For example, veteran Denice Howard, a 30-year carrier in Plainfield, N.J., found an elderly person who had fallen on ice. Kizzy Spaulding of Akron, Ohio, and Steve Shipman of Tulsa, Okla., each rescued people from burning homes. Terrence Graves, a Navy combat veteran, and Bryce McLean spotted and detained a suspected thief in Eugene, Ore.
Others, such as James Robledo of Garden Grove, a retired Vietnam veteran who teaches fellow veterans how to play guitar, and John Curtis, a retiree from Maine who wrote a booklet on past labor struggles, were honored with humanitarian and education awards, respectively.
“What I did that day is what I would like anyone to do for my daughter, son or anybody else,” said Alan Symonette, a 29-year carrier who, with a bystander, pulled a driver from a sinking SUV in a Gainesville, Fla., pond. Afterward, the former Marine went back to delivering mail on his route.
Such award ceremonies are meant to not only encourage hardworking postal workers, but also to help brighten a struggling agency. A sharp decline in firstclass mail use and competition from the Internet are among the biggest problems for the Postal Service, mired in significant debt.
Before 1916, letter carriers had to personally hand mail to residents, who weren’t required to have mailboxes, according to the Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum.
Today, many Americans rarely see who delivers their letters and packages. Nevertheless, thousands of carriers not only deliver mail to 153 million homes and businesses, they sometimes risk their lives.
“One of my best acts as postmaster general is signing hero letters,” Megan Brennan said. “As Fred noted, it happens on a regular basis.”