The Joys of PCSing...Anywhere.

We made it to Alaska! I still cannot believe we made it in one piece. The drive to Alaska through the US and Canada was amazing. I doubt we will ever drive through Canada again as it is expensive and Americans are not their favorites. I think we will take the ferry next time and fly the pooches. The dogs did great on the drive. It was so nice to see friends and family along the way! We packed a big cooler full of food and ate on that most of the way through Canada because everything was so expensive with the taxes.

Before we left Ft. Gordon the lovely finance department told us that since this was OCONUS that we would only get reimbursed for one vehicle and we could not ship one because it was too late. Awesome. They also told my husband to sell his truck and just buy another one when he gets to Alaska. Luke replied, "why would I sell a vehicle that is already paid off?" My husband will never sell his truck. So we ended up driving both of our cars the 5500 miles. My husbands truck does have 250,000+ miles on it and it did great! When we arrived at Ft. Wainwright and we went in to transportation and finance departments here, they said the Ft. Gordon departments have no idea what they were talking about and we got mileage for both vehicles. Next time we will talk to the departments where we are headed.

Housing...the bane of my existence. When we first got orders for Ft. Wainwright we called the housing office up here and they told us a year based on rank. We kept an eye on http://www.ahrn.com/ for rentals. When we got up here and met with housing we were again told a year and given no hope because we were 35 on the list with nothing scheduled to open. So we went house hunting. Most of the places up here in our BAH were very dirty. We ended up finding a place that was 1000 square feet but it was clean. We put a deposit down. Two weeks after we got here we got a call from housing letting us know that they had a house for us on post and if we wanted it. My husband didn't know what to say. Long story short we accepted the house on post and luckily we got our deposit back. We are still waiting to move into the home. We really have no idea how we moved up on the list or what the deal was. Somethings we will never figure out.

Army Kool-Aid DRINK IT!

For some crazy reason my husband is always saying that I drink the "Army Kool-Aid". It took me a while to catch on. When my husband (Luke) started thinking he wanted to go on this Army adventure he mentioned that it is really hard on the wife and family. Some deal with it better than others. He was very clear with me that things in the Army do not always go as planned. This is true for training commands as well. If you husband is in Basic or OCS that is a training command also called TRADOC. Sometimes it seams that the instructors change things just to change things and that is very frustrating. Your soldier will never come home on time! You will never be able to predict it. Please dont be mad at them or the Army. This is just the way it is so embrace it.

Plans will always change. Example; We had orders to TDY to Ft. Gordon in Augusta, GA for BOLCB with follow-on orders to Ft. Lewis, WA. We were very excited to be PCS'ed to Ft. Lewis. There was another person in the class that originally had PCS orders to Japan but they switched him to Ft. Richardson, AK. He really did not want to go to Alaska and we did. My husband offered to switch with him and it was approved. A week letter my husband gets a call from some lady in Alaska saying that she needed more information to process his diversion paperwork. Luke asked "what diversion"? They were switching us to Ft. Wainwright, AK in Fairbanks. Fairbanks has an hour less light in the winter and is much colder in the winter. They town south of Fairbanks is North Pole, AK. All I am thinking is how small the population is and I can just feel my vitamin D levels plummet. Brrr. I then had to drink two cups of HOOAH and then I was fine.

As family members we are all a part of the Army too. Have some fun with it. I make lots of jokes now that the north pole where Santa lives will be south of us! We did not join the Army to live in the same place and never go anywhere. Georgia and the south has been a great experience for us. It is totally out of our comfort zone and we have grown from it. I typically do not taught the word "change" but enjoy the change while you are in the Army and don't complain because that just makes it harder for the other soldiers and families around you.

Remind me to drink some kool-aid if they change our orders again. They always could!

Key Terms:
BOLCB- Basic Officer Leadership Course and the B stands for the class after your commissioning course
TDY- Temporary Duty Something
PCS- Permanent Change of Station
TRADOC- Training Command
RFO- Request for Orders (this tells you where you are headed but are not the final orders you would take to transportation)

Army OCS Granduation - For the Family

The graduation ceremony is the pinnacle of the long Officer Candidate School road for both the new 2nd Lieutenants and their families. It is such a special event and I was so proud and excited at the same time. We looked at this as a start to an amazing journey together. Of course I was worried about what to wear as I wanted to compliment my husband in his brand new ASU's. He and all the other 2nd Lieutenants looked dashing! I was disturbed by how many people I saw in JEANS! If you husband, wife, son, daughter, or friend has just received a commission from the President of the United States and they are dressed in their finest uniform - DRESS FOR THE OCCASION! DO NOT WEAR JEANS! In my humble fashion opinion it is disrespectful to the candidates and the commission itself. Also if you are going to be in a lot of the pictures wear a color that compliments the blues or greens. I am a big fan of www.shabbyapple.com! They have great dresses with great customer service on returns and exchanges. Shabby Apple has helped me so many times!

Back to the day- The graduation ceremony begins in the early afternoon. Get there as early as you can if you want to have good seats. We arrived at 11:45am for a 1pm ceremony and had great seats. There ended up being lots of people that had to stand for the entire ceremony. The Company Commander will speak first and then the guest speaker. The new 2nd lieutenants will then walk across the stage and finally take the oath. After the ceremony then starts the pinning. My uncle pinned one of Luke's "butter bars" and I pinned the next. If they are wearing the new ASU's there is actually not a pin so make sure to take a pair of fingernail clippers to clip off the covering of the shoulder boards.

Life as a Wife during Army OCS - Part II

My husband (Luke) was told that they would get more privileges during the senior phase but a few factors limited those privileges. The first is the fact that they are in the field for 3 weeks and the second was that my husbands company was in general, very strict. After they get out of the field they have another week of military history. This is a huge test and Luke's class lost 6 people and they had to recycle because they did not pass this test or the retake. They will need plenty of study time. This week kinda seemed that senioritis had really set in and the guys were ready to be over.

The final week is time for the formal and graduation. This week is packed as we had 13 friends and family come in for the week. Preplanning is key to this week and to have it be stress free. I had meals prepped ahead of time for when guests were coming in after a long flight. I bought frozen meatballs and had veggie trays on hand. I am also a big fan of my recipes like Zuppa Tuscana and White Chili. These are easy to prep in the morning and just bowl them up when people arrive. Our guests really wanted to see our new home and relax with us. Schedule one night to go out to eat to take some stress off of yourself. We opted for Fuddruckers off of exit 8. This place had something for everyone and military discounts so it was very affordable for people to pay separately.

Make sure to inform your guests who are not savvy about the military on protocol. Talk to them about how to get a vehicle pass to go on post, always having identification with them, and to never speed on post. If you can take a few preventative measures it can really allow for a smooth week. If you inform them ahead of time you will not have confused guests calling you all the time. I also had post maps ready to hand out so people knew where to go with directions to the Infantry Museum and the Columbus Convention Center.

This may sound like a lot of prep but remember this is a huge accomplishment for your soldier!

Life as a Wife during Army OCS - Part I

Please be prepared as this might be a long post since Army Officer Candidate School is 12 weeks long.

Before my husband left for OCS (he was college op) we rented our house out in western Colorado. He left in early November of 2009 for OCS and I drove out to live in Columbus, GA the beginning of December. We wanted to be together if he had weekends or evenings off. This worked out really well for us. I was also committed to being a part of the Family Readiness Group. I was lucky enough to be pinned by the Battalion commanders' wife at the final social. It was so special to get to talk to her and I learned so many things. I got an apartment off of exit 10 in Columbus. His company got 2 weeks off for Christmas exodus and that was great. Two weeks after that was the branching ceremony. Wives - this is a decision you need to be aware of. How your husband branches determines many things so please ask questions. They get to choose based off of the Order of Merit list (OML).

After that they have the Senior Class Ceremony. This is early in the morning and should not be missed by a spouse if you are in the area. It is worth the drive and there is lots of pomp and circumstance. I was so proud of my husband and all of the other candidates. Bring your camera. They will have a covered awning for spouses and guests. The candidates leave directly after to go into the field so dont plan to hang out with your spouse.

The next two to three weeks are tough for the spouses and the candidates. The candidates are out in the field with limited cell phone access. Looking back the weeks did go by very quickly and they did get one weekend off. I had so much fun hearing about the time they spent in the field.

Army OCS Formal - What to Wear

Ok, so if you are anything like me you stressed and fretted about what you are going to wear as a wife to the Army OCS formal. I have not done anything remotely formal since my wedding so this was a stretch for me. I really searched for a dress and am very pleased with it. It was actually a bridesmaids dress I found at a bridal shop. It was not bridesmaidsy at all. I did have to get it altered since I bought it right off the rack. I saw lots of various dresses the night of the event. The majority were long. The event was held at the National Infantry Museum just outside of Ft. Benning.

My recommendations:
Review receiving line protocol prior to arrival
Do something special like get your make-up and hair done - Unkommen in Columbus is an amazing salon for hair and makeup (Dora is a makeup master!)
Don't fret over your shoes if you are wearing a long dress
Do not get the professional pictures - they turned out cheesy and the ones we did ourselves were much better and it takes a ton of time
Focus on accessories
Be social and take time to talk to the Cadre