Housing Crisis

Before I write this entry, I'd like to explain that my purpose is not to bash the housing workers here or the military, but simply give my point of view on an ongoing issue. From everything we've heard, we have not been the first people to have this same experience. My hope is that others coming here can use our situation to help them make their own personal decisions should they end up in the same predicament as us.

For anyone who doesn't know, Greg and I have been living in a hotel for a month now. Compared to a lot of people here, that's nothing. Some in bound families have been stuck in the hotel for many months at this point with little chance of getting out. Let's be honest, living in one room for over a month is horrible and wears on your nerves quickly.

The policy where Greg is stationed is that almost everyone has to live on post unless there is absolutely nothing available. However, the post is broken into separate housing areas that vary greatly in quality. Some are for enlisted, some are for officers and they range from 2 to 5 bedrooms. Since Greg and I are child-free and not of any particular importance, we've been on the housing list for a long time. When the option finally came up last week for us to take a place and get out of the hotel, we were thrilled! We talked about it and decided that no matter what, we would take the first place offered to us. I mean, how bad could on post housing be?

Then, we saw the place offered. I'll make this as short as possible, it was atrocious. The apartment itself was okay, although you could tell nothing inside of it had been updated since the building was built in the 50's. It was worn and old, but I didn't have very high expectations from the beginning. The area around the apartment, though, was about equivalent to a housing project. Many of the building around it were completely empty or only had a few residents. Trash and construction waste was thrown outside and through the stairwell and neighboring playground (which I failed to mention was literally right outside our bedroom window). There were no cars parking around the vicinity of the building. Doors were left wide open and there was evidence of break-ins in the storage area. We decided we did not feel safe there.

We were informed on multiple occasions that we would be given two options of housing. Since this was our first option, we planned to just return to the office, decline it and move on to our next option. Once back to the housing office, it was apparent that declining housing was easier said then done. In my opinion, the housing workers know that many of the quarters offered are less than desirable, but they still have to get them filled. I don't think it's the individual worker's fault, I believe this company just has certain policies that are not in the best interest of the families. They offered us an unsafe place to live, and when we tried to decline it, they attempted to tell us that we were not allowed to do that because the "housing list was too long". During this conversation, the office manager got involved, some yelling happened (from her, not us) and ultimately Greg was able to look up the regulation and prove that we were in fact allowed to decline the housing offered in order to see another location. They were less than happy that we were informed and standing our ground, despite their attempts to guilt and deceive us. Clearly, these tactics had worked on other families who were now living in these run-down areas.

That night, I got online and submitted an ICE complaint about our treatment and the condition of the apartment we saw. Trust me, they read those things. Our next experiences with the same individuals at the office were a complete turn around. I popped back into the building we were shown yesterday and it was obvious an effort had been made to clean up the area and make it appear safer. Here are some pictures after the clean-up started:

Waste all over the stairs being cleaned up 

Piles of dust and trash

Area where the walls were breaking apart under the stair railing

Temporary fix

Water damage from leaking down the ceiling

Greg was called on Monday afternoon and told there was another unit available for us to view today. We were cautiously optimistic. I mean, nothing could be worse than what we were shown first, right? The whole feeling in the office was completely different this time around. They seemed happy to see us , offering fruit and making small talk. Needless to say, our next option was far beyond what we were expecting. It was a top floor stairwell walk-up that was completely renovated with brand new appliances, windows and fixtures. The kitchen was three times the size of the one I had in Colorado and the living area in general was much more spacious. It was in a good location close to where we can easily walk everywhere and you could tell the neighbors were keeping up with maintenance. Plus, it didn't have a giant playground right outside the windows. Obviously, we hurried back to the office and accepted it. We're moving in on Friday.

Seriously, this kitchen looks like the inside of an Ikea.

So, what is the point of me even sharing this story? If there is one thing I've learned the hard way in life, it's that you really have to be your own advocate. We could have easily been pressured into taking a home that we were unhappy with and felt unsafe in, but we (mostly Greg) stood up for ourselves. We decided that we were not okay with being pushed into making a decision we would regret, and were ultimately rewarded for it. Do not let anyone try to take advantage of you or guilt you into something simply because it's easier for them. Always, always, always stick up for yourself because no one else will do it for you. Trust me, it will save you a lot of grief and disappointment in life!

From CO to TX to GA

It's been 16 days now since Greg and I landed in Germany and moved into a hotel. It's not looking like we'll be getting a place to live any time soon, which apparently we should be thrilled about. Supposedly, we're going to end up getting enough cash in TLA (temporary live allowance) to pay for a car and we're spending the hottest months of the year living in the only place in the area with air conditioning. Did I tell you how much I miss our apartment in Colorado?

View of Colorado Springs last night we were there

Anyway, before jumping on a transcontinental flight, Greg and I spent a month visiting our families. This was probably the longest visit either of us has had with our families since Greg joined the Army and since I went away to college. However, this was definitely the longest time we've ever spent with each other's families.

After the mover's packed up our things and we said a tearful goodbye to the place we've spent our whole married life, we set out for Texas where Greg spent most of his childhood. Since Greg still had to drop off his car in Dallas to be shipped, I drove my Jeep and he followed behind in his car. This was my third cross-country trip in my Jeep. The first was right after Greg left for deployment and I drove it back to Georgia. The second was the day after I graduated from college and packed that sucker down with all my belongings (and Augustus, of course) set out to my new home in Colorado. This third trip was not as upsetting as the first, but still not as exciting as the second. I hope to never drive a 2-door Wrangler with a lift kit from one side of the country to the other again.

We spent a little less than 2 weeks in Texas. Since each side of Greg's family lives in a different city in Texas, we went on an extreme road trip crossing all over the state to visit his grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. Because I only met most of his family once at our wedding, it was nice to get to know everyone better and spend some quality time together. It would have been awesome to spend more than a day with each side of the family, but we were pressed for time to see everyone we could.

After visiting his extended family, Greg and I went back to his parent's house to spend the rest of our time in Texas with this mom, dad, two sisters and brother-in-law. In case you all might have forgotten, this was the same period of time that strong storms and tornadoes were consistently ripping through Oklahoma and northern Texas. We narrowly missed hiding in bathrooms as a tornado ripped through an area just a few miles from Greg's parent's home while we were visiting family in Austin. Luckily, everyone was safe!

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of visiting Texas because I took all of them on my Diana which I haven't developed the film from just yet.  While we were there, we visited the Fort Worth stockyards for the first time, ate some famous donuts and bar-b-que and spend a day canoeing on the Brazos. Mostly, we spent quality time with family until it was time to say goodbye and continue our road trip to Georgia.

My immediate family all live in the suburbs of Atlanta relatively close to each other while all of my extended family still live mostly in Pennsylvania. While in Georgia, we stayed very busy with my parents, sisters, brothers-in-law and nephews and nieces. My dad's house is just a short drive to both of my sister's homes so we made the rounds visiting everyone. I can't say there was a single day in which we were at a loss of things to do. We climbed Stone Mountain, had cook-outs, went out downtown, played with my sister's four children under the age of five, ate at every awesome restaurant in the area, went on a guided fishing tour and spent a day at the aquarium. Luckily, we also made time to visit with my best friend from growing up and his new wife.

It was great to get to see and spend time with everyone. Greg had barely met several of my family members until then and even I hadn't had much contact with everyone since moving. Actually, this was the first time I got to meet my 9-month old twin nephews! I was able to be there when my oldest nephew and niece we born, but the twins weren't born until shortly after I moved to Colorado. They've all grown up so much that it reminded me how much I'm going to miss being in Germany for three years. Not just with the kids, but with my whole family. Mind you, even when we lived stateside I didn't visit hardly at all, but that fact of knowing that you can't visit is pretty hard. At least we got to all really enjoy quality time together for about 2 weeks before leaving. And I didn't even cry nearly as much this time as I did before driving out to Colorado.

I'll leave you with some pictures from the Georgia Aquarium, biggest in the world!

You all notice that line to the far right side of all of my pictures? Yep, my Canon is done for. I really had no intention of replacing it any time soon until I noticed all of these pictures were marked with that white line of death.

I'm a horrible blogger thus far. Since we've gotten here, we've gone to two festivals and explored both of the cities we are closest to. We've also passed our driver's tests, eaten way too much fast-food and been super depressed over our endless lack of permanent housing. This upcoming week, Greg will be busy at work so hopefully I'll have some time to update. Once Greg's car gets here, we already have out first day trip planned to Cologne!

First Day.

So, I haven't updated in over a month. In the past month, we packed up our entire apartment, visited all of our family and flew out to Germany. I plan to post all about our move and vacation once I get a chance, but I'll start with something much easier- our first day in Germany.

Greg and I were extremely lucky to be able to fly a commercial airline from Atlanta straight to Frankfurt. Most military families PCS'ing to Germany are required to fly on Patriot Express (a military chartered flight) from Baltimore to Ramstein AFB, but we lucked out. When Greg was completing the paperwork to receive tickets, the man in the travel office accidentally booked him to fly out in May instead of June. Opps. Once they realized their mistake, there was no room left on the Patriot Express to bring Augustus. Instead of making us leave our chihuahua-child behind, a very kind woman at Carson Wagonlit filled out some extra paperwork so we could fly Lufthansa and bring Augustus aboard with us.

Did I mention they give out free wine?

Pretty much everyone who knows me knows that I'm terrified of flying. It doesn't matter how many times I do it, I hate it. This trip was no exception. I'll spare you the details, but I'm extremely happy to have a husband who has learned how to deal with my anxiety. Augustus did much better at flying than me. Mind you, he's flown many times before, but only back and forth from Colorado to Atlanta. That 3 hour flight was nothing compared to the 8 hours he spent confined to his little carrier.

Once we got to Frankfurt, we were both dead tired waiting for our luggage to appear. Every minute felt like an hour. Once we finally got everything loaded onto the trolley, we followed everyone else out the exit. The sign pointing to the customs area was closed, so we didn't even have to go through customs. We went to so many vet appointments with Augustus to get the proper paperwork filled out to get him into Germany and then literally no one looked at it throughout the whole journey. No one working for the airline, no one in Atlanta and not even a single person when we arrived in Frankfurt seemed to care that I had my dog with me. The most eventful moment with him was when the girl sitting next to me on the plane told me that I had "a very well behaved cat."

No one had really specifically said what we were supposed to do once we landed in Germany, so we figured we'd just find the USO office and see if they could call Greg's unit. After walking for all of a minute, suddenly two men appeared behind us yelling "Brickman!? Are you Brickman?" Apparently, Greg's sponsor was on top of it! They picked us up, took us to our hotel and then starting showing us around the area.

Now, I have to say, I don't remember a single thing we learned in our first 24 hours here. Greg's sponsor gave us a lot of wonderful advice, but I can't recall a single word of it right now, I was so exhausted. I felt like a zombie wondering around aimlessly staring into space. The only thing I recall is them telling us over and over again that the wonderful weather we were having was not normal. It was low 70's, sunny and gorgeous, much different than the usually overcast and rainy German weather. I could imagine if we weren't completely dead tired, we would have probably really enjoyed being outdoors yesterday.

At 2 pm, we finally got back to the hotel and crashed. I remember telling Greg, "Don't let me fall asleep, I'll never wake back up" and then waking up at 9:30 in the evening starving. Great. Everything within walking distance closed by 8 and our only option was to call an Italian restaurant that would deliver. Listening to Greg attempting to order was seriously comical. Thankfully, they delivered wine as well. You know that feeling that you get when you're at the Vietnamese owned nail salon and you know everyone in there is talking about you because they know you don't understand them? Imagine having that feeling all the time. All the Germans know you're American and have zero understanding of the German language. They are all very kind so far, but you can't shake that feeling that everyone is talking about what an idiot you are for not understanding them. I don't blame them at all, but learning an entire language when you just found out you were moving to a different country 3 months ago is pretty much impossible.

We ended up staying up until 4 am because we took the world's longest nap. We can't really go anywhere right now, so we get to hang out in the hotel and watch German programming and AFN until we get some understanding of this area. I'm not sure if I even want to venture outside after witnessing my first German cockamouse last night. Once Greg wakes up, maybe we can explore this particular housing area we're isolated to for the time being. 

As of right now, we're both extremely jet lagged, disoriented and in complete culture shock. Not only have we never lived in a foreign country, we've never lived on a military post before. Even the "American" way of life around here is totally different than in Colorado. We have a lot to learn!

The Process, Part 2

So, as quickly as everything became a giant headache, it also suddenly fell together over the course of a week.

Last Tuesday, I had my medical screening with EFMP. Before I went to my appointment, I was completely terrified. Everything you read on the internet about EFMP and the overseas medical screening for dependents is completely terrifying. They pretty much make it sound like it will be hours worth of someone combing through your entire medical record and asking in-dept questions in an attempt to enroll you into a program that may prevent you from going overseas with your spouse. Rest assured, it's no where near as horrifying as everything on the internet tells you. My medical screening took about 5 minutes. I requested all of my medical records from the past 5 years which the nurse glanced over, reviewed my EFMP paperwork and my medical records from the military treatment facility and that was essentially it. The doctor signed my paperwork, forwarded it on to the travel office which passed it on to Germany for approval. Within 24 hours, Greg had my passport in hand and an amendment saying that I was approved for concurrent travel.

What does all of that mean? Basically, Greg and I get to fly to Germany together with Augustus in cabin. Flights are booked, movers are coming in a few days and all that's left to do is wait. Moral of the story: Don't listen to what you read online about how horrible the command sponsorship process can be.

About 2 weeks from now, we'll start our adventure towards Europe! Along the way, we have everything in our house to ship, families to visit, a chihuahua to prepare and when we finally get there, housing to select. So much done, but still plenty of work to go!

The Process, Part 1

So, those of you who have noticed that I am particularly negative recently regarding our move to Germany, you're probably thinking, "How on earth could anyone be upset about spending three years with the opportunity of traveling through Europe?"

Because, well, we ARE dealing with the Army here. There is no such thing as "easy" when attempting any PCS, let alone one on the opposite side of the world.

After Greg accepted his orders several months ago, he was told that when he returned from Afghanistan, he would be sent to a LEVY brief where he would get all of the paperwork needed to start the process of PCS'ing overseas. In December, he arrived home and went on post-deployment leave. At the end of January, everyone began returning back to post from leave and preparing for "PCS season", as they call it. Greg asked week after week if his S1 completed the paperwork required to attend the LEVY brief. Week after week, it was still not finished. February came and went. March started with no word on when he would be able to start clearing Ft. Carson. We applied for tourist passports so we could travel when we arrived in Europe. We made sure Augustus had everything needed and was ready to go. We told our apartment complex that we were not renewing our lease because we would be moving to Germany before it ended. We did everything we could possibly do without the paperwork supplied at the LEVY breif. Finally, on March 19, Greg turned 27 years old... and finally got to attend the brief he had been begging to go to since January. What exactly did he learn from his LEVY brief? That he really needed to attend it about 6 months sooner.

Long story as short as possible, we finally had the paperwork needed for me to apply for a no-cost passport needed to obtain SOFA status. For those that do not know, being in Germany under the SOFA agreement allows spouses to live in the country without having to leave every 3 months and to hold jobs. It's kind of like a visa, but covers for however long your husband is stationed in the country. The morning after my husband's brief, I ran down to the passport office with paperwork in hand to apply for my no-fee passport. We were told it could take 6-8 weeks to get it back and it has now been exactly 4 weeks and 2 days. At least that was one step we were able to complete with no major issues.

"Command sponsorship" is what the Army calls it when family members are approved to go with the service member to an overseas duty station. It's not as simple as just jumping on a flight and arriving in Germany with a big freakin' smile on your face and an apartment all ready for you to move in to. Greg's unit in Germany has to agree that he can bring me, the medical offices in the US and Germany have to agree that I'm healthy enough to live in Wiesbaden and the housing office in Germany has to be sure they can accommodate us accordingly. Since Greg's orders to Wiesbaden did say that he could bring family members if they are cleared through EFMP (Exceptional Family Members Program), we assume that his unit did agree that I am allowed to accompany him. The big hurdle right now is the entire EFMP process. My medical screening appointment with EFMP is scheduled for Tuesday. It was the earliest appointment we could get when I scheduled the first week of April. If everything goes well and I am not identified as having issues requiring enrollment in EFMP, we may very well being on our way to completing the most difficult chunk of the command sponsorship process. If not, there is a good chance that my medical clearance will not be complete by Greg's new report date of June 10.

Oh, did I forget to mention? Since Greg was sent so late to his LEVY brief, they allowed him to request a 30 day extension on his report date. Instead of reporting May 10, which was basically impossible when he's only able to start the paperwork to leave 6 weeks before, he has an extra 30 days to throw all of this together. He found out just today that his extension was approved, 3 weeks before he was supposed to report.

Despite the extra 30 days, we still have to move out of our apartment on May 12 as of right now. We've been begging and pleading for them to allow us to stay past our lease date. They've been extremely kind and working with us on this issue, so hopefully we'll be able to strike a deal on staying here later than expected. If not, we'll be packing our belongings into a storage unit and staying in a hotel until we have some idea what is going on.



Greg still has hope that my medical screening will go well and we'll be out of here and on our way to Germany together on time. However, there is still the chance that he may need to go before me and Augustus and I will join him in a few months. There is also a chance that my medical paperwork will not work out to my advantage and I will not be allowed to join Greg in Germany at all. There is also still a slight chance that maybe his orders will be cancelled entirely and we'll end up somewhere completely different. We have absolutely no idea at this point.

And it is very possible that we will not know until a few days before June 10. Welcome to Army life, right?

This is what PCS'ing makes me want to do. But, without the sash.