After the Move/PCS...What I Wish I Had Known Before

You know how the military does an After Action Review (AAR) after every operation? We civilians should do such things too. I'm always harping on learning from past experiences, in particular learning from the mistakes of others. Well, as you may already know, we moved kit and kaboodle, including two kids, a 100 lb dog, a cat and our belongings from Florida to Germany this past summer. As is typical with such things, I did stress about it. I also did an ungodly amount of planning...just because that's the kind of person I am. But even with all that, there are some lessons learned I can pass on to myself as well as others, so that when you move, it'll be about as smooth sailing as it can get.

As I dutifully unpack our stuff.....alone I might add, as husband has had to work these last few days and then surprisingly had knee surgery on top of that and can't lift a thing around here....these thoughts came to mind:

• Almost immediately after arrival, identify where you and your family will get your health and dental care (especially if you are in a foreign country). We've been here two months and my youngest had a dental emergency, yesterday. Since space is limited at our on post facility (no, they wouldn't see him right away), I went online to the Tricare's dental site, found a host nation provider, called the closest one, and was able to get him taken care of in a two hour window. If I had investigated this ahead of time, I wouldn't have been driving through a driving rainstorm, totally relying on our GPS and trying to keep an eye out for parking garages, in getting to the place. Scope all locations, as well as local procedures for getting help well before you need it. As for medical emergencies, if it's not life, limb or eyesight, you have to call the Military Police # to get connected to a Tricare person who can authorize care on the economy (or you pay for the emergency visit out of pocket after your claim is denied). They also have a nurse hotline that you can call 24 hours, which can have a somewhat calming effect while you feel all alone in the middle of the night with a child who may be in distress. That happened to me the last time we lived over here (of course DH was deployed at the time, which is typical isn't it?).

• Keep your shelf pegs in a baggie and tape them to the inside of your furniture. We have some shelves with no pegs. Thankfully, my husband has a big extra stash in our household goods somewhere...we'll eventually get to them...but, if they had been taped to the furniture, I could've put up the shelves and put more stuff away. Now we have more delays. Also have some of those extra glass pegs, that keep glass fronts in place in your furniture. Ours are well worn in our entertainment center, so we ended up taping the glass on the inside to keep those extra secure.
  

• Keep all flicker flackers (ie remotes) in the electronic items' boxes or tape them close by. We have a TV that only has one channel right now, because you need the remote to cycle through and program all the local channels, including the German ones (it is a dual system TV)....so, no Olympics for us.

• When the movers pack your extension cords, cable TV cables and all that other hardware, label the box exactly as such. I spent half a day looking for an extension cord and a cable TV cord and couldn't find any of them...still haven't found them. Luckily, I knew that one of our six garage boxes in the basement had a bin with a myriad of old cables. I was able to quickly find what I was looking for in there.

• Do realize, that if you are going overseas, you're not going to be able to "run to Walmart" to get whatever. Our AAFES PX has limited choices and worse, they always seem to be out of the exact thing you are looking for. I've been looking for doggie poop bag rolls (I like those on our doggie leash) and a two handset cordless phone, and they've been out of those two things for three weeks! Believe it or not, I also brought a huge stash of Sam's Club toilet paper, papertowels and napkins with us, just because I had them...I probably won't need to buy those things for a few years I now realize. It takes some getting used to...not a lot is sold in bulk over here at the commissary...for God's sakes, the toilet paper comes in a roll of four!

• Much of the on post housing has 110 and 220 voltage. I would've brought my lighted Christmas stuff if I had known there would be multiple outlets in most rooms. We only brought a few appliances, our computers and our stereo equipment with us. We had planned on buying transformers, which you need on the economy, as you will ONLY find 220 voltage there. Research housing options and amenities before hand.
  

• Be very careful unpacking dishpack bins. Good movers rightfully use lots and lots of paper. I had a delicate china cup wrapped in about seven layers of paper....I thought the paper was empty, threw it on the floor...and you can guess what happened next. Don't assume a wad of light-weighted paper is empty!

• Have a system of staging the boxes in the correct spot and carefully check off each box as you eventually empty it. The military gives you about two months to report missing or damaged items, and now you also get replacement coverage, which is a big step up. So, no need to check off each box as it comes in the house if you don't have the people to do that. It was just me and the boys on moving day. The Romanian movers could not speak a lick of English and only spoke some broken German. After some initial confusion, I wrote a number on each room door, told my son what number was what room (I wrote it on his hand), gave him a Sharpie marker and told him to read what was on the box coming out of the truck, and write what room # the box is supposed to go in. It worked splendidly,which brings me to my next point.

• When the movers pack up your stuff when you're getting packed out, have them write generally, what the contents are AND what room the items came from. When I was a greenhorn, many years ago, we had a set of movers that didn't do a good job of this, and we wasted so much time on the receiving end, just carrying boxes back and forth all over the house. If boxes are marked with the right room, it's just a matter of unpacking, putting each item away and trashing the packing materials.

Do you have any tips to share? Be sure to read my other moving articles and learn from my mistakes!