Friends and families of Marines deployed to the Middle East can now send letters through MotoMail, which allows Marines to get their letters within 24 hours.

The system is similar to e-mail in that users upload letters to a Marine Corps Web site. Instead of receiving the letter digitally, Marines get a hand-delivered, printed copy.

Users must create an account on the MotoMail Web site, where they write and upload their messages. Then, those letters are forwarded to special postal receiving stations in Iraq, Kuwait and Bahrain, where Marine postal clerks print the letters and hand-deliver them to recipients in the Middle East or put the mail on flights bound for Afghanistan.

The service is free, and delivery usually takes no more than 24 hours, said Chief Warrant Officer 4 Don McCarty, Jr., the MotoMail project manager and postal chief for Marine Corps headquarters.

Conventional mail sent from the United States takes six days or longer to arrive. However, for those sending a letter through MotoMail in the evening, in many cases it will be delivered by the following morning because of the time difference, McCarty said.

Rest assured that the letters won