Here we go again...

Back in the day, this was called 'homesteading', allowing people to extend tours, especially overseas or in areas with multiple bases in the same geographic area.

Military members should be moving less frequently for greater stability — and to save taxpayers’ dollars, according to defense officials who have set the process in motion for those reductions.

In a memo announced Wednesday, Pentagon officials ordered the military service branches to cut in half the amount of money they spend on permanent change-of-station, or PCS, 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.

Full article, HERE from Navy Times.

Of course, after a few years, the complaints started coming from folks who 'wanted' to go to these locations from 'less' popular locations...

Or folks that needed one of those locations to put a check in the box for a particular billet that somebody had been camping in for 6, 8, or 10 years, going from E-6 to E-8/9 because those billets got extra rating points.

There are benefits, especially for family members who work and can get promoted, or have school aged kids who want to stay with their friends or graduate from a particular location.

I will admit it will be better than what has happened in the past where ships/squadrons changed homeport or bases while deployed forcing dependents to shoulder the entire responsibility for moving, selling a house, buying a house, moving the kids, getting multiple vehicles across country, etc.

If this succeeds (for now), I expect to start hearing grumbling in 5-6 years about camping on good billets, yada, yada, yada...

I moved 8 times in 20+ years, not counting deployments. I knew folks that were moving every two years on the average, and others who just bounced base to base to base (Mayport, NAS Jax, NAS Cecil) and lived in the same house for their entire careers.