If you spend your life in the military, you will do more than your share of moving. In 28 years, we had 17 PCS’s (permanent change of station). That means you load up everything you own and ship it to your next assignment.
In my last three years in the Army, I made three major moves. In 1988, we moved from Charlottesville, Virginia to Washington, DC. Then, in 1989, we sold our house in Springfield, Virginia (never to return) and moved from DC to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Then, nine months later, I retired from the Army and returned to DC (and bought another house in Springfield).
Making a lot of moves at the end of your career is maddening. I can prove this point with a graph. On the left hand side of the graph, you put down the amount of energy you have. Across the bottom of the chart, put in the amount of household goods (HHG) you own. When you are a young officer, you have lots of energy and very few household goods. As you graph the energy and HHG lines, they will cross somewhere around major – energy is dropping and HHG is rising. Of course, the children are at an age where they are a big help. But, our last three moves were at the point where we had very little energy and had accumulated lots of stuff from all over the world. Energy low, HHG high, and the kids are married or off at college. You spend a lot of time looking at boxes.
Three moves is a significant number, because in the household goods claim’s business, they joke that three PCS’s equals one fire!
However, we generally had good moves. We worked at it. First, we explained to our children how exciting it was to move and meet new friends and see a new part of the country or the world. That worked until they were teenagers. Then, they would say, “Knock it off, Dad.”
We tried to be friendly with the packers. They were wrapping some of our cherished possessions and they were, in fact, impacting (no pun intended) on how they arrived on the other end. “Would you like a Coke?” “We are running out for hamburgers. Can we get you something?” Then, there’s the driver of the van. We treated him like a long lost brother. He had some control over what day he would arrive at our new “home.” If we were there to meet him, all our possessions marched right in. If he arrived before us, everything went into storage (which is also know as “lost and found”).
One time we were walking around the house with the driver showing him what was to go. He started ranting about the dirty, filthy things that people ship. When we got to the back yard, he pointed at my old, but quite serviceable grill. He said, “You’re not shipping that, are you?” Both Carole and I said, “No.” One more little expense we hadn’t planned on.
I mentioned our last three moves. The first was planned. The second surprised us and the third almost wiped us out. The first was a routine reassignment. I had been the Commandant at the JAG School for three years and I was assigned to the faculty at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces at Fort McNair in the District. After being there for a year, I contacted my good friend, Bill Suter, and told him that when Fort Leavenworth, Kansas opened up for a new staff judge advocate (SJA) in the Summer of 1990, I would like to be considered. We agreed it would be a good fit, particularly since I would only have two years to retirement and I wanted to retire in the Kansas City area.
I hardly had time to bring my wife up to date on my discussion with Bill, when Bob Murray, the Executive Officer in the Office of The Judge Advocate General called. He told me that the SJA at Fort Leavenworth had just announced his retirement and if I wanted to go to Fort Leavenworth, I had to go now. Well, Carole and I decided to go. We sold our house and arrived at Fort Leavenworth in September, 1989.
During our discussions about leaving, Carole said, “At least I will never have to drive through the Mixing Bowl again.” The Mixing Bowl is the junction where I-95, I-395 and I-495 all meet. To get off on the Springfield exit, you have to fight your way across three lanes of I-495 traffic fighting to get onto I-95 South. In 1999, the State and Federal government started fixing the Mixing Bowl. It took eight years and $676 million. Now that the project is complete, there are no traffic jams at the Mixing Bowl. By expediting traffic through the Mixing Bowl, they have successfully moved the traffic jam three miles South on I-95. Now, they are about to widen I-95 at the cost of many millions. Your tax dollars at work.
About three weeks ago, we had really bad weather, including freezing rain which materialized right at evening rush hour. There were all types of problems, including lots of accidents, on the ramps and flyovers at the Mixing Bowl. The media was all over the State for not anticipating the weather problem. Quite frankly, freezing rain and good old boys in their four-wheel drive pickups are not a good fit. I think you just have to expect a bad day when the sky surprises you with freezing rain.
Four months after we moved to Fort Leavenworth, I received a call from one of my former bosses, Major General Jerry Curry. President Bush had selected him as Administrator for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and he was calling me to see if I wanted to retire and become his chief counsel. He thought I was still in DC. After I explained that I had just moved to Fort Leavenworth, he said to think about it.
On June 1, 1990 (when I should have been getting ready to move to Fort Leavenworth), I had purchased another home in Springfield, Virginia (in the shadow of the Mixing Bowl) and was retiring from the Army and starting to work at NHTSA. After a long day’s work trying to learn about motor vehicle safety, I would come home and cut open some packing boxes. I should have put that skill in my resume.
