It always starts with my husband coming home and saying, “Let’s go sit out on the deck for a few minutes.” In the winter he may suggest we sit by the fireplace, the location doesn’t matter. The words give it away. The words pause my heart mid-beat, causing my breath to catch and the questions to build.
Those words mean the military has decided to change our lives yet again. Twenty-five years of Army life have taught me to expect change, but I still physically react like I did the first time we moved.
We were new to the Army, living life in a cavalry unit. He returned from a deployment and I heard those words for the first time. Rachel was five and Dena was six months when the first PCS orders came. It was an OCONUS move. Welcome to the military move system.
I learned from this first PCS to write down my questions. My first question was, “How do you spell that?” Schweinfurt was not easy to spell correctly for most people who needed to know where we were heading. The second was similar, “Where is that?” Maps became my friend so I could see where we were going and what we were near. The third was probably the hardest, “When is your report date?” For our first PCS, we found out October 15 for a January 2 report date.
The rest of that PCS was a blur of moving pieces. I was blessed with friends who were seasoned spouses. They talked about “unaccompanied baggage”, the “main shipment,” “storage,” and of course moving us. Figuring out what to send in “unaccompanied” was hard. It was supposed to consist of those things that would help us live without our main shipment for several months. I overestimated the weight of everything so we only had a partial shipment. Storage…I thought I did a good job, but that is a story for another day. The main shipment went pretty smoothly.
Moving “us” was the hardest part. I was newly pregnant (thanks to the deployment reunion) with a five-year-old and a ten-month-old, plus car seats and luggage. I did not know what questions to ask in this arena. I trusted my husband to know everything, but he was as new to this as I was. I learned to ask about our departure location, how our vehicle was being shipped, who would pick us up, where we would retrieve our vehicle, and how we would get our drivers’ licenses. So many questions I did not know to ask that first time.
Once we arrived in Germany, the questions kept coming. Where will we live? How do I get food, gas, and things? How do I enroll Rachel in school? What about Dena? Can she learn German? What about babysitters? And obstetricians?
Our five years in Germany flew by. Then one day, he came to a soccer game and said, “Let’s sit for a few minutes….” I knew what was coming. What questions do you ask at PCS time?
