Welcome back to the final leg of our journey through some “Not So Smooth Moves”. This is the fourth and final installment and I’m sure by now you’re thankful that some of these journeys have come to an end. All I can hope is that I don’t experience any similar situations as I embark on my 10th military move next week.

Donovan L.

“When I PCS’d from Korea to Germany (1997), my household goods had been in storage at Fort Hood while my (now ex-wife had gone to live with her folks in Puerto Rico while I was in Korea.

Due to the delays in getting my orders, we had to travel to Houston to get expedited passports so they could travel with me. We then did the paperwork to have our HHGs sent to Germany and ended up with 16 bags (at least half were duffel bags because they were cheap luggage) to take on our flight. Arrived in Germany in July to 50-degree weather (was 97 when we left Texas) and no heat because it hadn’t been 72 consecutive hours of 50s missed the announcement of where to locate our ride to base from the airport because of trying to handle so many bags and two small children so we took a bus). Get settled, HHGs arrive – washer/dryer are on the inventory list but nowhere to be seen. Report as missing/stolen and heard NOTHING. Fast forward to 2008 (three years after I got out of the Army) and I get a letter from Fort Hood saying my long-term storage is about to expire. WHAT LONG-TERM STORAGE??? The washer and dryer I reported as missing/stolen… I ended up providing them with a copy of my orders sending me from Germany to Fort Meade and they were shipped to me.”

Lindsay L.

“On our first move one of our movers had a peg leg (and the crew called him a pirate nickname I can’t remember) and one of the other guys on that crew had a prison ankle bracelet. When the peg leg guy spotted the ankle bracelet it was a whole thing and they had to get TMO and the moving companies boss to come out and remove the guy. A couple days later our belongings did not show up to our next location on the date or time it was supposed to. No one answered the numbers we were given for the next three days so we and TMO thought our stuff may have been stolen. They showed up 5 or 6 days after they were supposed to and never called or gave a heads up.”

Darcy S.

“My first PCS was from Washington state to Alaska. I was 7 months pregnant and we drove our truck and camper trailer up the ALCAN with a golden retriever. The ALCAN has some of the worst roads. We went through 3 tires on our camper. When our second tire blew, it put a hole in the bottom of our camper and the hole was located where we kept our kitchen items. We had silverware being tossed all over the road. My husband changed the tire and by the time we were able to pop up our camper to check the damage internally we had an inch of mud/dirt all over the floor. 5 years later with a 5-year-old and dog we went back down the ALCAN and we got robbed. We were pulling a trailer of our stuff. We decided to stop in Edmonton to take my daughter to the biggest mall and theme park. That night our truck was broken into and much of our electronics and important paperwork were stolen along with our cell phones (this was when we had dumb phones that only called people. We left them in the truck so we wouldn’t forget them since we were leaving early in the morning). Reported it to the Canadian police and they said they couldn’t do anything even though the hotel had video footage of it!!!!! Not to mention every time we have driven through Canada our credit card information has been stolen. I have a huge distrust now with Canada.”