Recently it was time for me to give up my geo-bachelorette pad. I have lived in the same little apartment, just me and my fish, since I got home from deployment two years ago. I’d picked it out while I was gone, sent a power of attorney home to my sister to sign the lease for me, furnished it just how I liked it and hung up enough pictures that it didn’t seem quite so plain. However, once my husband decided to separate from the Marines and we knew he was going to be moving up with me it was time to look at renting a new place . No way was my already bursting at the seams closet going to hold all of his clothes too.
If you haven’t reached the point in your military journey where you have the pleasure of PCS-ing, I promise it’s not all bad. Chaotic of course, but if you know the in’s and out’s of how to make the system work for you it can be quite the grand adventure. And at the end of your military career a separating member is given one last PCS move. The military will pack up all your belongings and send you back to your home of record (or to somewhere the same distance) and then they will give you a quick hand shake and say “best of luck as a civilian.” (We have some jobs for veterans from that point!) My husband picked to do his final PCS as a DITY move and rent a U-Haul to bring his stuff from South Carolina to Virginia. He got here less than a week before we were moving into our new place. We never even took his stuff out of boxes because why bother when we’d just be relocating again. Other than a small paperwork hiccup during his out processing the whole thing went super smoothly. Our travel claim was even paid without having to resubmit it multiple times!
But what happens to Sailors like me, or any military family, when their move is not exactly taking you cross country so much as cross town? Did you know the military will still fund that for you? Because believe it or not, you can move all of 10 miles away and they will still pay for it!
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