You just know it. This PCS, you’re all over it.
You have checklists FOR your checklists and you’re filled with confidence in the days and weeks leading up to the latest PCS Move that this will be the military move that you’ll kill it and wow everyone with your organizing expertise.
You won’t be completely wiped out once it’s all over, and you’re filled with the surety that No, of course our orders couldn’t change!
And then…
Yes, and then…the moving company falls through at the last minute, the whole family is hit with a violent 24-hour bug in the hours before your carefully-planned-out-to-every-last detail-except-for-the-possibility-of-flu move that you’ve decided to handle yourselves (Personally Procured Move or DITY, “Do It Yourself”), or you find your active duty spouse AWOL for the moving process due to a deployment or other pressing military duty.
If you find yourself in a stunningly real illustration of Murphy’s Law in action, never fear—you’re not alone! We’ve all been there. I wonder what you might add to these…
6 PCS Mistakes We’ve All Made!
1) Forgetting we’re not really in charge of anything.
Your checklist is checked, you’ve aced the “final out” from housing, and things are rolling along smoothly. But wait!
Assignment orders changed right as you watched the last truckload of your belongings trundle off.
Think it can’t happen? Just ask a “salty spouse” or two.
Expert milspouse tip: Utilize your TMO office! This happened to us while we were stationed in Germany and my husband was deployed—his PCS orders changed after our HHG were long gone and vehicle shipped. I gathered all the paperwork and walked into the transportation office to beg for help as to what to do next. Bearing homemade cookies and approaching it nicely certainly helped my cause!