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Sailors and their family members may find themselves coming across a uniquely home-oriented stressor every time they are undergoing a permanent change-of-station, or PCS, which includes the act of moving your household goods overseas. Who do I need to speak to initiate the move? How long will this take? What do I do when I arrive in another country?
These kinds of questions are difficult to definitively answer. Every PCS has its own case-by-case scenario. Company-dependent shipping times for large amounts of items crossing overseas vary.
Louis Juers is the Deputy Director of Japan’s Joint Personal Property Shipping Office. According to Juers, the first step is largely an issue of preparation and recommended Sailors visit any Personal Property Shipping Office. There, Sailors should prepare to have an extensive meeting with counselors to go over PCS entitlements. This should be done before going online to the Military OneSource website to access Defense Personal Property System, or DPPS.
“Unfortunately we do see [situations] where a service member sometimes will try to do everything on their own and then get deployed right before delivery,” Juers said. “Then the spouse is not informed of what is happening, so we have to assist with those situations.”
Juers stressed that when Sailors aren’t talking to professionals at the Personal Property Shipping Offices, information about their entitlements may not reach those Sailors.
“It’s important to know what’s there and available at your new destination,” Juers said. “For somebody that’s coming here to Japan, do your research on what your housing office provides to you. Understand your orders, and go through your house to see what you might not need at the next duty station based on the location, housing issuances and the weather.”
Juers mentioned the importance of distinguishing between the types of personal property shipments and what each of them entails.
“Number one is unaccompanied baggage,” Juers said. “Those are the items you want to make life comfortable while you’re living in a hotel or temporary lodging while you’re waiting for housing to get assigned to you. Your household goods, or HHG shipment, that’s the stuff you’re going to live with for the next two to three years.”
Not only that, in the U.S. there are also government-funded long-term storage options entitled to service members and their families to keep their items safe while they serve an overseas tour: This is called non-temporary storage.
“Anything that you aren’t using for the next two or three years, larger bulky items, your refrigerator, washer, dryer, lawnmower, outside gear, equipment; that’s the stuff you want to keep in non-temporary storage,” Juers said.
It is at this point, when all entitlements and options are understood by the Sailor, that it is recommended to begin the process of logging into DPPS and officially starting the movement of household goods.
Another aspect of the household goods movement process that may seem chaotic or confusing to service members and their families is safely discarding hazardous cleaning items prior to moving.
According to Cmdr. Tyler Scharar, a new initiative directed by the environmental team at CFAY, the Household Hazardous Product Reuse Program, will aim to reduce the amount of cleaning products that are thrown away as Sailors and their families are departing from CFAY. Scharar is the installation’s Public Works Officer.
“We don’t want [harmful cleaning products] to end up in the waste stream,” Scharar said. “So we made this new program where families leaving, or anyone, can drop off clean usable U.S.-made household products. Things like bleaches and household cleaners, oven cleaners, pesticides, isopropyl alcohol and all that stuff can be on the shelf for any family or any base resident that needs to use it. It’s all free.”
For information about the Household Hazardous Product Reuse Program, call 243-4100 or 046-816-4100, or visit the CFAY CNIC website at: https://cnrj.cnic.navy.mil/Installations/CFA-Yokosuka/Departments/Public-Works/Environmental
If you require more information to get started with your PCS move, visit the Military OneSource page related to moving personal property, located at: https://www.militaryonesource.mil/moving-pcs/moving-personal-property/ or contact CFAY’s inbound Personal Property Office at DSN 243-5426 or 011 +81 46-816-5426 if calling internationally.
The information in this article has been taken from subject matter experts during Episode 4 of Season 2 of The Giant Voice Podcast, or TGVP, and is part of our #WelcomeAboardYokosuka campaign. Search the hashtag #WelcomeAboardYokosuka on Facebook, Instagram or your any search engine to find relevant information, landmarks, and maps to help you prepare for your move to Yokosuka.
TGVP is the CFAY command information-centered podcast revolving around the questions that military service members and their families may have about being attached to CFAY and is available to listen to on major podcast streaming platforms. Subscribe to our YouTube channel, https://www.youtube.com/@cfayokosuka, for the most recent TGVP playlists or subscribe to us on the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service, https://www.dvidshub.net/unit/CFA-Y. You can also subscribe to The Giant Voice Podcast through you favorite podcast app.
| Date Taken: | 03.07.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 03.11.2024 02:04 |
| Story ID: | 465677 |
| Location: | YOKOSUKA, KANAGAWA, JP |
| Web Views: | 31 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Welcome Aboard Yokosuka: How to move your household goods overseas, by PO2 Conner Houghtaling, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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