I got this email recently. Those that have or had military experience, could you please let me know if this is a true?
Thanks!

"with the cut back from the military
and govt. 550 cord in the marines is virtually impossible to get, unless you are a member
of Force Recon. "

It was difficult (unless you were in an airborne unit) to get when I was in the US Army years ago. We all bought our own even in some airborne units. Much of that has to do with your supply NCO.

thanks Desperado!

As a follow up for the above question. Does this statement make sense?

"due to Operation Security, my command is only allowed for immedicate family members to have access to our apo addresses."

Nothing in opsec has to make sense all the time.

Could be someone is sending hate or anti-war mail to troops, and they are trying to prevent that.

One thing I learned early in my military career is to befriend your supply sgt. If you had a good one, he was an excellent scrounger. 550 cord in any unit I served in was never in short supply-but, I was in the infantry, and we either tied or taped everything down (amply supplie of 100mph tape too). Most squads had their own rolls of 550 cord, as it served so many uses.
As for the APO addresses-I have never heard someone restrict that, but, it is unit specific. Likely, as Desperado said, to keep the hate mail to a minimum. Sad, but true.

Send to family, then family can send to them?

If 550 cord is not on the Table of Allowances (TA) for a particular unit you will most likely not be able to get it. That is how it was when I was in the Air Force. Case in point: When I worked on the flightline in northern Maine it got kinda cold in the winter. The only gloves we had to work with were the thick leather gloves with the wool inserts. They are not useful when trying to safety wire or manipulate small connectors. Pilot's (flight Nomex) gloves would have solved the problem; but they were not on our TA. Strange SAC mentality. The guys from fighter bases would have plenty of pairs. It just depends how the item is viewed. Justification has to be made to add it to the TA. Red tape, red tape, red tape....

$.02