80 years ago, the 855 members of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, known as the Six Triple Eight, headed to Birmingham, England, to sort an enormous backlog of mail. They were faced with millions of letters and packages addressed to American soldiers and government personnel stationed across Europe, some of whom had received nothing in years. Three months later, the predominantly Black, all-female unit, which had the motto, "no mail, low morale," had done it. In 2022, then-President Joe Biden signed into law an act that would award members of the battalion a Congressional Gold Medal. Today, the two surviving members received theirs. Here's more from @npr about the work the unit did, the campaign to get them their medals, and how the Department of Defense's DEI purge impacted their legacy.
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