Update:
I thought I would be adventurous and setup a local MTA on the AWS server running SMF. I followed the directions here:
hxxp:www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-and-configure-postfix-as-a-send-only-smtp-server-on-ubuntu-14-04 [nonactive]
and I can successfully send email, such as: echo "This is the body of the email" | mail -s "This is the subject line" user@domain.com
Now I cannot figure how to use that in the SMF:Admin:Mail:Setting page when it asks for server, port, username, password.
This MTA does not have a username, nor password, etc.
Perhaps I am going down the wrong rabbit hole. I need the blue pill