Married OCC guys moving to TBS?

[SgtUSMC]

Did any guys who did OCC with families have trouble moving their family and all of their stuff to TBS in such a short period of leave between commissioning and starting training?

It seems like it would be hard to get checked into TBS right after commissioning that afternoon and check out on leave, get a travel advance, check in tricare and so on and so forth.

How did you manage doing all that and then relocation everything you own to Quantico? Would you recommend just leaving your family at home until graduation?

Thanks.

 

[bigfish]

Checking in with tricare was a major pain in my tucuss. I got married during TBS, so may not be the ultimate source of info here. But my life got a lot better once I got my wife a general power of attorney. They're really good about letting her do anyting you could do on Quantice once she has that. That being said some guys cautioned me that I really had to trust my wife to give her one of those. In my opinion how could a person have a wife that they couldn't trust.

 

[bennett4362]

at navy ocs there's paperwork the candidates fill out to get their spouses enrolled in tricare the first couple of weeks they're there, since she's entitled to the benefits during your entire ocs experience; i'm not sure if it's the same at marine ocs, but if so, that could help take care of the tricare issue for you...

 

[jamnww]

Just because you check into TBS doesn't mean that you will be starting immediately, more than likely you will wait till mid Sept before starting (summer OCC class), usually about 2 weeks or so...

 

[bigfish]

Jamn has a good point, definitely the case for a lot of guys. I did the winter OCC class had five days at home then started immediately in C co TBS. Semper Gumby.

 

[KBayDog]

Would you recommend just leaving your family at home until graduation?

No. You know better than most that you will have plenty of opportunities to leave your family for six months at a time. Even though the hours at TBS suck, take advantage of the chance to spend time with them while you can.

 

[ZoomByU]

Jamn has a good point, definitely the case for a lot of guys. I did the winter OCC class had five days at home then started immediately in C co TBS. Semper Gumby.

Is that the mostly the case for winter occ or do so some get bumped to delta in June?

 

[bigfish]

Everyone that I went to OCS with except three enlisted commissioning guys that still had college to finish all went into charlie. The way I understand it winter OCC guys have top priority for charlie. That's what my OSO told me and that was certainly the way it played out. Winter OCC is the absolute best way to go if you don't want to be waiting around forever to start TBS.

 

[SgtUSMC]

No. You know better than most that you will have plenty of opportunities to leave your family for six months at a time. Even though the hours at TBS suck, take advantage of the chance to spend time with them while you can.

Thanks, that's what I was thinking.

...my life got a lot better once I got my wife a general power of attorney. They're really good about letting her do anyting you could do on Quantice once she has that...

That's a relief. My wife had some trouble using her general POA while was on deployment for something really trivial and she had to get a little mid-evil on someone's arse. :icon_rage

If you can entertain one last question: did you married OCC gents get travel advances before hand to help the cost of moving all of your shiznit to TBS (I know "advances" implies "before hand," but just wanted to reiterate)? Thanks.

S/F

 

[bigfish]

I wasn't married when I started TBS but since I only got five days of leave between the two I wouldn't have rated travel anyway. If you're not active duty I don't think you'll rate any travel either, because you're not moving duty stations. If you haven's used your home of record move you could use that to get all your stuff to Quantico. Being married though you really should rate a move anyway. I've never been a P.O.G. so I'm not really the best to give advice. I've got a friend down at corpus who was prior enlisted, a pog, married when he went to OCS and is in flight school. PM me and I can give you his phone number or e-mail if your interested.

 

[bennett4362]

My wife had some trouble using her general POA while was on deployment for something really trivial and she had to get a little mid-evil on someone's arse.

companies/orgnaizations aren't required to accept a general poa, and most of them won't. the safest thing to do (and what i've seen/heard a lot of commands highly recommend) is getting a specific poa for anything you know/think might come up while you're away. getting a specific poa for tricare, for example, if you know/think that might be an issue. also a specific poa to rent an apartment, move household goods, whatever needs to happen during that time frame that she might have to handle. the legal office has a 3-4 page document where you just fill in the blanks for a lot of issues.

 

[SgtUSMC]

I wasn't married when I started TBS but since I only got five days of leave between the two I wouldn't have rated travel anyway. If you're not active duty I don't think you'll rate any travel either, because you're not moving duty stations. If you haven's used your home of record move you could use that to get all your stuff to Quantico. Being married though you really should rate a move anyway. I've never been a P.O.G. so I'm not really the best to give advice. I've got a friend down at corpus who was prior enlisted, a pog, married when he went to OCS and is in flight school. PM me and I can give you his phone number or e-mail if your interested.

Thanks a lot for the offer, but I think I am going to just have to suck up the phone call runaround and contact Quantico and get the "official" word because my situation, apparently, is a unique one. I will post the results when I find out for others who might need to know: There must be some other Marine out there who EAS'd and graduated college before he decided he wanted to go to OCS.

companies/orgnaizations aren't required to accept a general poa, and most of them won't. the safest thing to do (and what i've seen/heard a lot of commands highly recommend) is getting a specific poa for anything you know/think might come up while you're away. getting a specific poa for tricare, for example, if you know/think that might be an issue. also a specific poa to rent an apartment, move household goods, whatever needs to happen during that time frame that she might have to handle. the legal office has a 3-4 page document where you just fill in the blanks for a lot of issues.

Thanks for the gouge, I will definately look into that.

 

[SgtUSMC]

Edited.

 

[bigfish]

Good luck with that. It could work but getting a straight answer out of the Admin sections in Quantico makes pulling out your own teeth with rusty pliers while simultaniously being kicked in the nuts by an NFL kicker with barbed wire on his shoes seem pleasent.

 

[E5B]

I wasn't OCC, I'm a prior enlisted PLC guy that got lucky enough to get on ADSW orders to Quantico while waiting for my TBS company to pick up. When I checked into my unit (M&RA)I asked for 10 days leave (yes, in the hole) IOT drive back to Texas and pack up my family (had a 5 week old baby boy at that time) and move them from West Texas to Quantico. Not really the time crunch that you're in, but as mentioned before, you'll more than likely check into TBS and wait several weeks before picking up with a company. Even then, you could ask the Mike Company Commander (or whoever) if they don't mind you waiting in Mike Co while the next Company picks up and pick up with the one after that. If it were me, I would go out of my way to let everyone know I want my family there. There'll be plenty of time away from family when you hit the fleet, take advantage of the time you can spend with them now. JMHO