All the military service branches are examining the frequency of moves of service members, at Pentagon direction, to save money and add stability for troops and families facing a issues when they’re uprooted frequently.

There are certain MOSs “that we do have opportunities and we can do a better job of managing them” in order to move them less frequently, Sergeant Major of the Army Michael Weimer told an Oct. 14 family forum with senior leaders at the annual meeting of the Association of the U.S. Army in Washington.

Weimer said there are not enough soldiers in some MOSs to stretch to fill global requirements.

“We can literally go on our touchscreen dashboards in our office right now. We know the strength of every single MOS in the Army,” he said.

“There’s just some that we don’t have enough to go around where we’re currently trying to grow through some of our Army structure changes,” he said, but “we’re not going to be able to figure that out for everybody. That’s the truth. You deserve to hear the truth.”

The senior leaders, including Weimer, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George and Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll, addressed frequency of permanent change of station moves when an audience member asked when the Army would “stop moving our soldiers to another base just to do the job that was the same as the last location, versus allowing them to stay where they are while they become experts?”

The needs of soldiers in the Exceptional Family Member Program, dual military couples and high school stabilization for children are among the factors complicating the issue, Weimer said.

“It’s one of the hardest equations we have,” Weimer said. “But we do care and we are trying to figure out how to implement some things to catch it early, so that maybe if there’s an opportunity, we don’t miss it and we can get you longer time at certain installations.”

George said overall, the Army is looking at time away from home, which includes temporary duty and schools, in addition to rotation length.

“I think there’s a lot of things we can do … as far as updating skills and training, to reduce TDY,” he said.

He also pointed to TDY as a budget issue.

“We can spend that money on other things and we can probably get good quality training. It doesn’t fit for everything,” he said.

Pentagon officials issued a memo in May ordering the military service branches to develop plans to cut in half the amount of money they spend on moves by fiscal 2030. DOD spends about $5 billion a year on these moves, which include the physical moves of household goods as well as allowances and other entitlements related to moving.

There are a number of things that could be done to reduce moves, George said.

“The challenge is going to be we’re still going to need drill sergeants, we’re still going to need recruiters,” and those assignments are often very good for careers, he said.

“So there’s going to be a certain amount of moving, and I think it’s going to depend on the MOS.

“What’s interesting to me, too, is that when I go out there, it depends on what crowd you’re in, but I go into some places, some people say, ‘I’m ready to move.’“

Driscoll assured the audience that the purpose of this working group is not to use the bureaucracy to sidestep the issue.

Weimer and George “care deeply about these topics, and when they say working group, what that means is a bunch of really passionate leaders who want to try to make your lives better and want to try to make families more stable, where soldiers spend time with their spouses and their kids,” Driscoll said.

The offer was announced Oct. 6 to provide financial relief during the government shutdown. There was an immediate spike in the number of families using their Military Star card at commissaries, said Lee Kelley, principal director in the office of military community and family policy, during a family forum Tuesday at the annual meeting of the Association of the United States Army.

When eligible customers use their Military Star card at the commissary through Oct. 31, there is no interest charged and no payments required for three months. The offer applies to commissary purchases made between Oct. 1 and Oct. 31. Existing and new Military Star card holders can take advantage of the offer.

In the eight days after the offer was announced Oct. 6, commissary sales using the Military Star card were up by 13.9%, compared to the same period in the prior year, said Julie Mitchell, spokesman for the Army and Air Force Exchange Service, which manages the credit card.

Here’s how it works

The Military Star card can be used at any of the military exchanges, their online stores and commissaries, as well as morale, welfare and recreation activities and other retail locations and eateries on base.

Troops and families who use the credit card to make other purchases in addition to commissary purchases will still benefit from the offer. According to AAFES, the payment a customer makes on the credit card bill is applied first to the part of the balance with the highest interest rate.

Regardless of whether a customer makes a new purchase at a location besides the commissary, or has a balance from those purchases elsewhere, their minimum payment and any additional payment would be applied first to those purchases with the higher interest rate, not the commissary purchase, for 90 days.

For example, if the customer has a $200 previous balance on their credit card, and then makes a $100 purchase at the commissary before Oct. 31, a payment toward their credit card will be applied to the previous $200 balance.

The current interest rate for the Military Star card is 14.24%. According to a Bankrate.com study, the average retail credit card charges 30.14% in 2025. All Military Star card holders get the same interest rate, regardless of rank or credit score.

Once the 90 days is up, no back interest will be charged, but customers will pay interest on any remaining balances going forward.

Those eligible for the Military Star card are active duty, Guard and Reserve personnel, retirees and their families and survivors, as well as Purple Heart recipients, disabled veterans and certain others.

“We and you and soldiers and families can fix almost everything,” Driscoll said Tuesday during a forum on military families at the annual meeting of the Association of the United States Army.

“We just have to get human stupidity out of the way. You will be the ones to help us do that. You will be the ones on your bases and your communities pushing every single day to improve the foxhole. And we will try to do that, too.”

In a session that lasted over an hour, Driscoll, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George and Sergeant Major of the Army Michael Weimer said they were working to improve quality-of-life measures for soldiers and their families. The improvements could help soldiers and military families focus on their physical and mental wellbeing, as well as help soldiers rest and recover from their primary mission of training to fight, they said.

Driscoll said the Army has let down families, whom he described as “the absolute backbone” of the Army.

“The civilian leadership for a very, very long time has not put the soldier first. They have not put the family first,” he said. “They have done all sorts of sinful acts that have harmed you.”

One example is cost, Driscoll said.

“We spend a lot of money on you and your families and the things we give you, but it just doesn’t go far enough,” he said. “We have incredibly passionate, wonderful people who are civilians and soldiers trying to work and care for you, but the system has for far too long just gotten in their way.”

The cost of building on Army bases is 68.5% more expensive than construction outside the fence line, Driscoll said. And the Army “pays double what everybody else does” for many items bought for bases.

He, George and Weimer “talk about this regularly. It enrages us and we’re doing everything we possibly can to break down this corrupt system,” Driscoll added.

The leaders said the Army is focusing on ways to reduce unnecessary regulations and increase efficiency to improve programs that help soldiers and families.

Changes to child care, dining

Driscoll said he’s optimistic that within 90 to 120 days, the Army will set up a structure where spouses who want to work at child development centers can get approved one time, and then receive a “fast pass” to work at another CDC at their next duty station without having to start the process over. The change would help address the issue of worker shortages in CDCs, and it’s good for spouses and children, he said.

George said they’re rolling out a campus-style dining concept at Army dining facilities to five locations first, adding, “We want to go fast.” But federal legislation and regulations are hampering efforts to expand that concept to improve the Army dining halls, Driscoll said, and he hopes to get a waiver soon.

Most locations “should start to see hybrid versions or something that’s significantly better within the next 24 to 36 months,” he said.

When Driscoll and his family moved to Joint Base Myer — Henderson Hall, Virginia, earlier this year, he was excited about taking his children to the dining facility at Fort Myer for breakfast.

“It was awful,” he said. “It was not healthy, it was all processed.”

The conversation needs to be reversed about the quality-of-life amenities on installations, Weimer said.

“In this day and age, if we can’t train the way we’re going to be required to fight at home station — which includes barracks, because you ought to be able to take care of yourself and rest and recovery — then our home station is failing us,” he said.

“Our posts and installations exist so we can fight to win,” Weimer added. “They don’t exist so that we have a great place to live, awesome [child development centers] and discounted food at commissaries. We need all that stuff so that we can train and be really good at our jobs.”

However, he said, “I think for a long time, we had the conversations reversed.

“When you get the conversation right, now all of a sudden, the barracks make sense. The campus style dining and why we’d want to pay a little extra for quality makes sense.”

How technology can help

The leaders said the Army is looking at ways to use technology to reduce burdens on both soldiers and installations.

For example, Army leaders are considering how to use technology in some areas in order for bases to focus on things that humans must be responsible for, such as welcoming and onboarding people, Weimer said.

He acknowledged there is resistance to change at some locations. For example, he said, while there may be a QR code on permanent change of station (PCS) orders, some installations are still asking for 10 printed copies of those orders.

While Army leaders are working to address many of these issues, Driscoll told the audience, “where we’re still failing you, please let us know.”

“The system isn’t a biblical or divine or ordained system. It can be changed and molded and bent to the will of you and your families,” he said. “Please feel inspired, feel passionate, but just know the system is going to require your energy and effort to help us change it.”

Currently, Army reservists must be on Title 10 orders for more than 30 days to be eligible for financial assistance from the nonprofit. In January 2026, that 30-day requirement will be lifted.

“We’ll start helping Army Reserve full time regardless of how long they’ve been on orders,” said retired Sergeant Major of the Army Michael Grinston, CEO of Army Emergency Relief, at the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual meeting in Washington.

“I’m extremely proud of that,” he said.

Grinston said he recently received approval for the change from the Office of the Chief of Army Reserve and now plans to pursue a similar change for the Army National Guard. Guard members also have to be on Title 10 orders for more than 30 days to be eligible for assistance.

Reserve and Guard members sometimes face immediate financial difficulty when they are activated and leave their civilian jobs.

Grinston said he is also working to find a way to help soldiers’ spouses apply online for assistance. Soldiers can now apply online, but if they’re unable to because they’re deployed, for example, their spouse must have a special power of attorney and physically go to an AER office.

AER, which Grinston describes as “the only organization that is the Army’s nonprofit,” provides emergency financial assistance for eligible active duty and retired soldiers and their families and survivors for a variety of needs, ranging from emergency travel to food.

“If Tricare doesn’t pay for your bill, the first organization you should call is Army Emergency Relief,” Grinston said, as an example. AER provides assistance in the form of zero-interest loans or grants.

In the initial days following the federal government shutdown, troops’ financial anxiety was clear, Grinston said. When AER published information online about how to apply for its shutdown assistance, the organization received 15,000 requests for assistance within four days.

“About 3% of the Army came to us,” he said. “The financial stress is real,” he said.

He urged soldiers and families to seek assistance from AER, either online or through their local AER officer located in Army Community Services centers.

“If anybody tells you no, I want you to contact me,” he said, and provided his email address to the crowd.

“Our own Army career engagement survey shows that most officers leaving the service today are seeking more stability, predictability and a better family life,” Wormuth said in her Monday address.

“I am not suggesting that we telework to war. Don’t misunderstand me,” she said. Nor, she said, is she suggesting the British model of the regimental army, where a soldier stays with one unit for the entire career.

However, Wormuth shared some ideas on what possible changes might look like.

“Should we restructure the force to reduce [permanent change of station] moves to every five years instead of every three years? Should we modify officer career timelines and promotion criteria to give more flexibility for broadening assignments while ensuring we’re still selecting the right officers for command?” she asked.

Other ideas Wormuth floated included increasing the options for military occupational specialty transfers within the Army to make it easier to pursue a new career path without leaving the service and finding ways to better match financial compensation with responsibilities, qualifications and job performance rather than strictly basing it on rank and time in grade.

“Standing here, I don’t have the answers,” Wormuth said, noting many of these changes would be complex and require additional resources and cooperation from Congress. “But if the Army doesn’t seriously explore these questions soon, I worry that in 10 to 15 years, we could see our recruiting challenges deepen and our historically high retention rates start dropping, placing the viability of the all-volunteer force under threat, during a time when our nation can least afford it.”

The lifestyle the Army offers hasn’t changed much since before the invention of the internet, she said.

“We still expect our soldiers to move every two to three years, uprooting children from schools and friends and upending the aspirations of spouses who want careers of their own.

“We continue to rely on our spouses and partners as a de facto, unpaid Army labor force, available to organize PCS moves and lead soldier family readiness groups, but often at the expense of work outside the home and the earnings that come with it,” she said.

For years, some have questioned if it’s necessary for military families to move so much, as a number of problems they face can be traced to moving. While many military families manage to thrive in the moving process, it often brings difficulties in finding affordable housing, affordable and good-quality child care and jobs for spouses.

Pentagon officials have discussed the challenges of frequent military moves, which are costly for both the Defense Department and families, at different times over the years.

The most recent examination of PCS moves was in a June report from the Military Family Advisory Network, in which a 2023 survey found that frequent PCS moves can make families vulnerable to a variety of difficulties.

The organization’s 109-page report questioned whether changing the frequent shuffle between bases — which military officials argue is necessary to meet operational requirements and fill empty jobs — could affect recurring issues related to financial stability, such as military spouse unemployment, and other concerns such as children’s education.

During a health care panel at the AUSA conference, a family member asked about the frequency of moves, inquiring about the best way for families to receive continuity of health care when they move every one to three years. Furthermore, military medical providers are also being transferred every few years.

Lt. Gen. Mary Krueger Izaguirre, the Army surgeon general, said the question is also being raised within the service’s medical workforce about the thought process when making decisions about moving people.

“Does it make sense for you to move, or does it make sense for us to provide you some stability?” she said.

Soldiers should have honest conversations with their leaders about whether there’s a way to make a decision that’s appropriate for both the Army mission and their families, she said.

Izaguirre shared that a few years ago, she had a conversation with the surgeon general at the time about stabilizing her own family because of her oldest son’s health care needs.

She stayed in that job for a few years, she said, and that’s a reason she is where she is today.

Lawmakers are pushing the Air Force and Army to find a solution for Army families in the 7th Special Forces Group at Camp “Bull” Simons and other Navy and Air Force families in the area who have struggled to find child care in the Florida Panhandle. The shortage has pushed some families to drive nearly an hour each way to the closest military child development center — if space is even available there.

“It is incredibly frustrating that a solution for the families that need the [child development center] at Camp Bull Simons continues to be delayed, and that families still don’t have access to a CDC that is within a reasonable commute,” said Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee’s military construction panel, during an April 17 hearing.

“Being expected to drive over an hour each way to drop off your child or pick them up at a child development center is not an acceptable solution,” she said.

Plans to build a CDC in fiscal year 2025 have been pushed to FY26, Wasserman Schultz said, “as it’s not executable in 2025.”

Ravi Chaudhary, assistant secretary of the Air Force for installations, energy and environment, said Army and Air Force officials are nearing an agreement “in the coming weeks” on where a permanent CDC should go.

“Bull” Simons is an Army camp but is technically part of Eglin Air Force Base. As part of base realignment and closures in 2005, the camp was carved out of a remote area of an Eglin bombing range that the Air Force uses for weapons testing. Though about 2,600 military and civilian workers live and work there, the camp has few amenities: barracks, a chapel, a medical clinic and an Army and Air Force Exchange shopette, but no child development center, family housing or commissary.

That lack of local child care has proven a major complication for the 7th Special Forces Group, one of the Army’s most elite units that handles counter-drug, counterinsurgency, foreign military training and other covert missions across Central and South America and the Caribbean. Its soldiers were also heavily deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan throughout the war on terror.

Army officials and 7th SFG families want the child development center on the camp near the chapel, where it would be convenient for soldiers. But Air Force officials have said they are concerned about the children’s safety because the camp is adjacent to Eglin’s active bombing range.

Chaudhary told Wasserman Schultz at the hearing that while the Air Force will consider building a child care center inside the perimeter of Camp “Bull” Simons, “my general sense is that the risk calculation is not favorable.”

“I don’t want to get ahead of our Army secretary and Air Force secretary, because it’s their decision to make,” Chaudhary said. But “the feedback that we’ve received from the test community [is] … that it wouldn’t be an option.”

“We want to make sure we do two things,” he continued. “We want to ensure the safety of our members who are at a CDC, and at the same time accommodate them as expeditiously as possible.”

Many thought the issue had already been decided.

In October 2022, Army Secretary Christine Wormuth announced the service had plans to begin building a new CDC at the camp in FY25. But that work has stalled as the Army and Air Force struggle to hash out the details.

Despite concerns in the Air Force that putting a child care center near a bombing range would be dangerous, Army Special Operations Command officials have said they are confident in the camp’s safety protocols. They argue that adding a new CDC wouldn’t increase that risk.

Wasserman Schultz said she is concerned that the Air Force and Army aren’t properly communicating with local families. Chaudhary said the Army has asked to relay the plan to families once the military services come to an agreement on the path forward.

“The rumors surrounding the CDC are too hard to track,” said Stu Bradin, president and CEO of the Global Special Operations Forces Foundation, who has advocated for Camp “Bull” Simons families. “The optimum solution is to have the facility on an existing military installation where parents work and that is secure. Camp ‘Bull’ Simons would be the best course of action.”

The foundation recommends that a child development center be built to accommodate 500 children; at last count, there were 436 children in the 7th Special Forces Group who were age 4 or younger. The figure doesn’t include children of troops in other units in the area.

Interim solutions

Child care has been a struggle for 7th Special Forces Group families since the organization moved from then-Fort Bragg, N.C., in 2011 to create Camp “Bull” Simons. Their situation illustrates just one example of the difficulties military families around the world often have in finding affordable and safe child care.

Crestview, Florida, where the majority of the group’s families live, is about 20 minutes northeast of “Bull” Simons — which people must pass on the 45-minute-plus drive to reach child care at Eglin. Options in the civilian community are scarce as well.

While studying a permanent solution for child care in the region, Chaudhary said, officials have added spaces for 59 children in family-run day cares, and are renovating one of the child development centers at Eglin. Chaudhary said there are CDC slots available for the “Bull” Simons families at Eglin who want to make the drive.

As another interim solution, the Air Force is renovating a facility to be used for child care in Crestview that’s closer to where more than half of “Bull” Simons families live.

The military is also considering building a new child care facility in Crestview, Chaudhary said. But families like the security that comes with a CDC being on base. Besides security, there are other concerns related to the military lifestyle, Bradin said.

“If they go for the permanent solution in Crestview, it would have to be at the DOD standards,” Bradin said. “The special operations forces at ‘Bull’ Simons and Hurlburt Field are all deployable, and that means the CDCs can have extended hours, should there be a crisis.”

A secure facility in Crestview that can accommodate deployments would be the second-best option, he added.

“What we can’t have is the government investment in a facility that is not secure,” Bradin said. “They have high standards for a reason.”

“In the last year, my rent has gone up and matched every single BAH increase so it’s made no difference to my yearly income,” said the soldier, based at Fort Carson, Colorado.

“Is there anything we’re going to put in place to protect service members so they [don’t have to] live paycheck to paycheck anymore?”

That housing allowance is a key financial component for military families, and over the last few years, service members have gotten boosts in pay and BAH to counter the increases in cost of living. “However, as soon as those pay increases are announced, the surrounding community increases the cost of living and the rent,” said the soldier.

The senior leaders discussed some of their efforts across a myriad of areas to improve the lives of soldiers and families, including some areas where they need to push for change at the national level. Troops and families laid out some of their concerns, like the rent increases, to Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth, Chief of Staff of the Army Gen. Randy George, and Sergeant Major of the Army Michael Weimer.

Information on military pay and BAH rates is public knowledge. The issue of how BAH rates affect the rental market in the local community has been brought up for decades, and has been periodically discussed by lawmakers and service officials, as well as how BAH rates are determined.

“We talk about this all the time,” said George, adding that he, too, has seen the lock-step increases happen in communities near installations. He added that the Army doesn’t control the landlords who provide housing in the civilian community, and “some of this is capitalism,” George said. “They’re facing inflation, too.” Officials have floated some ideas such as giving a tax break to landlords who rent to service members, to alleviate some of the effects.

“This is a little bit of the dark side of capitalism,” said Wormuth. “Landlords are doing what’s in their own interest. We, at our level nationally…need to talk to members of Congress to highlight this issue.” Garrison commanders also need to engage with their local community leaders and congressional representatives about the issue, she said.

When the Army is considering where to put soldiers when they’re increasing force structure, this could be a factor that could be considered. They do an analysis of a variety of factors in determining the best locations, including community support for service members and families. The Army could “put a little pressure on some of the property owners, to work with the business community and local authorities,” she said, “and say, ‘Hey, if you are constantly raising rates every time we raise BAH, that’s not supporting us. And frankly, it’s making it harder for everyone in Colorado Springs to be in an affordable place.”

Senior leaders will also weigh in on another nationwide issue — states’ implementation of a new law that requires them to allow military spouses to transfer professional licenses following a permanent change of station move. “We’ve seen uneven implementation of that,” Wormuth said. “So we need to continue working with governors across the country to get that law implemented.”

The law took effect in January, aimed at easing the strains on military spouses who face bureaucratic and expensive processes to transfer their license to a new location in order to work. It affects a variety of occupations ranging from nursing to cosmetology to teaching, for example.

There’s a limited amount of money to address all quality of life issues immediately, and while leaders are pumping money into barracks and other needs, they’re also looking at some changes that could make a difference without funding, in regulations and policies, for example. Service officials have looked for a long time at what can be done to reduce the number of PCS moves, George said. And they’re looking at ways to get at the shortage of child care, especially trying to deal with the problems of recruiting staff for military child care centers.

A perennial problem is getting information to soldiers and families about the resources that are available.

But navigating those resources can be a problem, too, as one Army Reserve soldier said.

“My wife said she would rather deal with Comcast than try to find information from the Army,” he said. That comment got a reaction from the packed crowd at the popular forum.

George responded by bringing up the new Army app, MyArmyPost, which was introduced at the annual meeting. The information is individually tailored to the person using the app, with local real-time information about their installations, such as which gates are open, and where there are traffic backups, as well as details about resources, programs and services available. He wants feedback on the app, he said.

Information is a two-way street, and the leaders urged soldiers and families to communicate their concerns.

Enlisted leaders need to develop trust, be aware, and know about the problems of their troops, whether it’s conditions in the barracks, issues with family housing, or health care, said Weimer.

“We’re struggling on the health care piece. But the noncommissioned officer should probably be the first to know if someone is struggling with health care,” he said. “That’s being cohesive. That’s being a good team lead.”

When the audience was polled on their opinions of top quality of life issues where the Army should focus its efforts, at the top of the list were: health care, housing and barracks, PCS moves, child care and spouse employment.

“None of these surprise us today. We absolutely know they are important,” Weimer said. “We absolutely know these are priorities, and we’re taking a look at each and every one of them.

“They’re all difficult. They’re wicked hard problems. But I want to be sure you know we care about these things.”

“We do expect an answer in October. If it’s a favorable response, which I do expect, we aren’t going to implement in next year’s peak season,” said Gen. Jacqueline Van Ovost, commander of U.S. Transportation Command, at the Air and Space Forces Association’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference Tuesday. Peak moving season is generally May through September, and officials know from experience it’s not wise to implement a new system all at once during the already-stressed peak season.

If the U.S. Court of Federal Claims rules in TRANSCOM’s favor and allows the contract to go forward, Van Ovost expects to start rolling it out gradually in October 2023, starting with about 25% of the moves. First to transition would be moves in the continental U.S., then Hawaii, Alaska and Guam, before the system would include all international moves. The full-fledged new Global Household Goods contract, which includes economic price adjustments, would be in place by peak moving season 2024.

That’s five years after TRANSCOM began the process of overhauling the system that moves household goods for service members, Coast Guard members, Defense Department personnel, and some other federal employees.

The new contract is the Defense Department’s effort to fix many of the long-standing problems plaguing service members when their household goods are moved, such as delays in pickups and deliveries, lost and broken belongings, difficulties filing claims and other issues. TRANSCOM began the effort in 2018 after a particularly brutal moving season for troops and their families. Labor shortages and supply chain issues have also affected moves.

The Global Household Goods contract would essentially outsource the management of the household goods moving process, although U.S. Transportation Command would oversee the program. The winning bidder will pull together a network of moving companies from across the industry and coordinate military moves and warehouse services, integrating functions that are currently performed by more than 900 commercial movers. The contractor will be fully responsible for these moves, bringing accountability to the program.

In November 2021, TRANSCOM awarded the contract to HomeSafe Alliance LLC, of Houston, a joint venture of KBR Services LLC and Tier One Relocation LLC. The two unsuccessful bidders — Connected Global and American Roll-On Roll-Off Carrier Group Inc. — filed protests with the Government Accountability Office. GAO denied both protests March 3.

Connected Global then filed a protest March 14 in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, the next option for unsuccessful bidders. American Roll-On Roll-Off Carrier Group Inc. also filed a protest with the court.

Oral arguments were heard in August in the combined case.

In the meantime, Van Ovost said, TRANSCOM isn’t waiting for the global household goods contract before making improvements. They’ve been working to ease the claims process, by allowing troops to submit claims through their phone with mobile digital signatures, and to provide more transparency by giving troops more visibility over where their household goods are in transit.

Officials have also sought feedback from military spouses on needed improvements and are getting their feedback on policy changes to make those improvements.

Problems with their household goods moves have plagued service members for decades. More than 10 years ago defense officials “reengineered” the household goods system, but problems persisted.

More information will be available later this year as officials continue to work out details, said Eddy Mentzer, the Defense Department’s associate director of Military Community Support Programs, during a Sept. 19 panel discussion at the Air & Space Forces Association’s Air Space Cyber Conference.

Information was not available about how many spouse fellowships will be funded. The program will be open to employers on the national level, local level and “anybody that wants to play,” he said, noting some employers may bring one military spouse on board, and others may bring dozens. These fellowships will be available for career-ready spouses.

The challenges military spouses face in areas such as spouse employment and child care aren’t new; they’ve existed for a long time, Mentzer said. But it’s a new age.

“We know COVID proved that there are opportunities much more than we ever anticipated for remote work,” he said. “Every one of our leaders understands the challenges.”

He noted that other organizations have conducted military spouse fellowship programs successfully, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation’s Hiring Our Heroes. But now DoD, for the first time, has funding provided by Congress for a spouse fellowship program to build on those efforts.

“We have to find employer partners who will keep them employed,” he said. It doesn’t help, if an employer brings a spouse in for a 12-week fellowship, hires the spouse, and the spouse then has to leave after a year because of a PCS move, he added.

It’s important that the spouse not only transitions into full-time employment, but that the corporation keeps the spouse employed over time as the family makes PCS moves, he said.

Across the board, whether it’s leadership in the Air Force or DoD, “we have a focus on these challenges. There’s so much more to come,” he said. “

Mentzer said officials also want spouses to have more opportunities to share their successes in employment, and how they did it. As spouses continue to advocate and articulate, he said, it helps not only to identify problems, but to identify solutions.

DoD officials are also looking at the many issues spouses have when they move overseas, where employment opportunities are more limited. The issues vary from location to location, and are related to Status of Forces agreements, so it’s also a State Department challenge.

One area where spouses may see greater opportunities is in noncompetitive hiring authority. Some bases overseas are piloting greater use of these hiring authorities, he said.

Another thing officials are keeping tabs on are “digital nomad” laws, which are being picked up in various areas across Europe, he said. These allow nonresidents to work within countries, providing more remote working opportunities.

Mentzer advised spouses who are moving overseas and have questions about continuing to work remotely for their company, operating businesses or other issues, to contact the employment readiness office at the gaining installation, as well as the Judge Advocate General’s Office.

But the battle may not be over.

“We will review the GAO decision and evaluate next steps, including any further legal action,” said American Roll-On Roll-Off Carrier Group Inc., in a statement. That company, along with its subcontracting partners, “are disappointed” with the GAO’s denial of their protest, officials said.

Protests can also be filed in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.

While the GAO hasn’t yet made its public announcement of the decisions, it has reportedly notified all the parties involved, including the other unsuccessful bidder that filed a protest, Connected Global Solutions LLC.

U.S. Transportation Command had no immediate comment.

This process has been in the works since early 2019, when TRANSCOM announced plans to hire one company to manage household goods moves around the world.

U.S. Transportation Command on Nov. 4 awarded the new contract to HomeSafe Alliance, a joint venture of KBR Services LLC and Tier One Relocation LLC. The $6.2 billion contract spans more than three years.

For now, service members will move under the current program, in which more than 900 commercial companies move about 325,000 shipments year at a cost of about $2.2 billion. Service members often have more than one shipment with their moves.

In November, after the contract was awarded and protests were filed, TRANSCOM officials said the likelihood of contract protests had been factored into their estimated timeline for implementation. With the likelihood of protests and the time needed for a smooth transition, moves under the new program weren’t expected to start until late 2022. Information was not available from TRANSCOM officials about changes in the timeline.

Because of the lack of sufficient numbers of quality movers, capacity has long been a problem in the military moving arena, with shortages of truck drivers and labor for packing, loading and unloading. Service members have had trouble getting moves scheduled and having their household goods delivered on time, and the pandemic has exacerbated the delays. Damaged and lost belongings have also been a longstanding problem.

The contract outsources, for the first time, the management of relocation services now being performed by the government. While U.S. Transportation Command will oversee the program, the contractor will pull together a network of moving companies from across the moving industry and coordinate military moves and warehouse services from start to finish, integrating functions that are currently performed by more than 900 commercial movers. The contractor will be fully responsible for these moves, which TRANSCOM officials believe will bring accountability to the program.

ARC was originally awarded the global household goods contract in April 2020, but it was successfully protested by HomeSafe Alliance and Connected Global Solutions. GAO directed TRANSCOM to go back to the drawing board and issue an new solicitation.