PCSing is one of many military acronyms. It means Permanent Change of Station. Every 3 years, give or take, the military moves you. Sometimes you get a choice, sometimes you don't. Even when you get a choice, sometimes, there could be a good choice, or sometimes, it is the lesser of the three evils. Our first PCS move was interesting, to say the least. While most of the time they happen about every 3 years, that changes if you are closing down the post as what happened in October of 1994. We had been married for just over a year, and had only had housing for a year, when it was time to move.
We were stationed in Brooklyn, NY and our new assignment was going to be at the Presidio of San Francisco. That's roughly 2900 miles across the country. When you make a PCS move, several things have to happen. First you have a moving crew come in like a plague of locusts and pack your household up. On our fist move, they showed up at 7:30 am, and were gone by 5:00 pm. You have to keep an eye on them to make sure they don't pack up garbage cans (with garbage in them). Also, anything you don't want packed needs to be kept in a separate room. Movers have gotten much better over the years, but we have also gotten better about what to expect. I also did not know what to expect, so I was working that day, and left it all to Scott. That's the last time we were not both on hand for a move!
So once the movers leave, you are left with an ugly apartment. Even the best homemakers would be shocked that first time at what it looks like. I was not Suzy Homemaker back then (still aren't), but I have learned what needs to be done to keep it from winding up like that. So the next step is to clean the apartment. I don't mean just sweep and mop. Back then it was white glove inspection. Remember the closet doors that had the wood slots in them? Yep, Scott spent a day cleaning those. Did you know a stove can come apart into 13 pieces? They all have to be cleaned. Oh and that rubber thing-y that goes around the fridge? Yep, inside all those crevices. In the bathroom, lets just say, grout lines are a pain! Oh yeah, and the best part about this, is that it doesn't matter if the place was clean when you got it or not. The housing office had a great racket with local cleaning teams. Most people failed the first time (us included), so then they hire a cleaning team. We didn't. Luckily, we had friends that were willing to help Scott during lunch so he could clear that afternoon.
There is also like 10-15 different places on post that Scott has to go to in order for them to sign a paper saying that he has cleared their office. Some of them are Medical, Dental, Provost Marshall, several in his unit, Commissary, PX (those were to make sure no outstanding checks were there). You get the picture. Last but not least is financial. They give you the money to pay for the trip. So Scott had his final out, and we loaded the cats and dog in the car with what we would need to make it 2900 miles, and said goodbye to Fort Hamilton.
Scott also had a truck, but one of our friends offered to drive it as far as his next duty station of Fort Riley. It made it easier for us to only have one vehicle to drive and he could do a Dity (Do IT Yourself) move, since he was still living in the barracks and only had a little bit of stuff. We drove from NY to Chicago to see family and friends, side tripped it to the U.P. of Michigan to see Scott's parents, and then to Minneapolis to see Scott's Aunt and Uncle. Then is was down I-35 to Kansas City and west to Ft. Riley to pick up the truck. Of course, the truck had problems since it had been sitting there...4 hours and $500 later, it was okay to drive. That truck was like a Timex...took a licking and kept on ticking.
We continued south to Oklahoma City and started west to LA. It was already the middle of October, and I did not want to risk getting caught in a snowstorm in the mountains going through Denver. From LA we headed north to San Francisco. We did take some time along the way for the Grand Canyon, painted desert and petrified forest. I am sure there were other stops along the way, we usually traveled about 400 miles a day. Trying to make reservations where they accepted animals was the main issue. Luckily Chaucer was still a puppy, so he was under the 20-25 lb weight restriction that most hotels had at the time. Since the animals were caged during the car rides, there was nothing funnier then seeing to cats hopping from bed to bed in the hotel room. Except maybe seeing two cats jump from bed to bed followed by a Bulldog jumping from bed to bed! Talk about a dog with an identity crisis!
All in all, we made it to SF without to many issues. It was another one of those introductions to the military.
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