A small opinion on military housing & deployments

This has been eating away at me for a while and I think Dirt Diver is extremely irritated by me constantly having to say something about it. Really wish I could find the remote to turn off the hamster wheel in my head.

I do not think that anyone should be allowed to keep quarters if they are going to be gone the entire deployment.

What’s been eating away at me lately to make this post? Well with our post saying good bye to loved ones the last 2 weeks, I’ve been watching a neighbor behind me. No not all stalkerish like, just more because their house is DIRECTLY behind mine and since I like sunshine vs. artificial light, it’s hard to not see them and have this feeling eat away at me more and more each time I open my blinds.

Our post is at housing crisis right now. We are loosing 1 unit to base move, another unit has been moving in, and housing is tearing down sections to rebuild. No biggie except they tore down over 500 two and three bedroom townhomes to replace with about 273 homes while they are 10 months behind schedule. The wait list is ridiculous at some points.

Then you have the families that pack up their house, shut their windows/doors and leave for months and months at a time if not the whole thing. Back to my neighbor’s; the wife has already left last month and said she won’t be returning till about a month or less before the guys get back. As of right now she’s looking at 11 months of living with her parents while her house sits and collects dust. Another friend is going home as well with no intentions of returning back until Homecoming. And so the scenarios are piling up of wives left and right moving home but keeping their house.

This isn’t like the Navy or Marine Corps where deployments are maybe 6 to 7 months at a time, this is a complete year. I just don’t think that keeping a house during a housing crisis so that you can move home with mommy & daddy is considerate of the next military family.

Like the new families moving on post do not want an opportunity to live on post, they much rather pay bills and have long commutes to work. * sigh *

I really think housing should have a rule about the length of leaving a residence empty before having to give it back.

Yes I know, I’m cold hearted; already got told that by another wife last week but that’s okay. Just like she’s entitled to keep her house empty for a year I’m entitled to bitch about it.

So there you have it. All because I had a small opinion and I like to open my curtains, I now have a blog post. Amazing!