PCS Status: The List

    The List.  I know I've already told you guys that we have been waiting for The List to come out and what that means exactly, but in case you missed it I'll explain it again. 
    But first, there are a lot of lists in the military, the soldier is almost always waiting to hear something that will determine the next step of their career in one way or another, so while our lives have centered around this particular list, you all should know that this will not be the last time we are waiting for some sort of list, and not all lists are the same.

    The List that we have been waiting for is the promotion list.  The promotion list is a list of all Lieutenants that are eligible for promotion to Captain for the upcoming fiscal year (there are other officer ranks are on this same list too, but we're just concerned with the CPT's this time around).  We are supposed to leave Germany in November for Virginia where Eric will attend the Combined Logistics Captain's Career Course.  He can not attend this course if he is not eligible for promotion.  We can not stay in Germany past our DEROS date, and we can not get orders for Virginia until Eric is on The List and eligible for promotion.  

    Our DEROS date is the ride-or-die date that we live by over here- it is until this very specific date that we are allowed to live in a foreign country for longer than the 90 days allowed on a tourist passport.  We are not tourists here, but we are also not German citizens, we fall into a special subcategory only allowed for people either on a visa of some sort, or under military sponsorship.  Isabelle and I are here as a privilege, *not a right,* so while we are in Germany we abide by their laws & regulations, and in return Germany allows us to stay until Eric's very specific DEROS date without the restrictions of a tourist passport.  After this date we are no longer protected by the regulations that brought us here.  After that very specific date we would then be here as a tourist, meaning that the Army is no longer responsible for us, and all of the things that the Army provides, like our housing, medical care, sponsorship, etc..., would no longer be available to us because we are at that point just tourists in a foreign country.

    Without orders we can not get tickets for our flights back to the States, reserve spots for our animals on the flight, ship our household goods or our vehicle.  We can't find housing in Virginia until Eric has orders, and without a new address we can't get Isabelle enrolled into school there.  We can't do anything until we get orders, and we can't get orders until The List comes out and Eric's name is on it.

    So for us, The List.... is everything.

    Usually, it is set to be posted early August, but last year the same list did not come out until October.  This would obviously cause a lot of headaches for us since our DEROS is in November, giving me only 4 weeks to get done what I did in 9 months when we moved here.  But when The List did not post a couple of weeks ago as we hoped it would, we settled on the idea that it likely wasn't going to come out any time soon and we would just have to deal with the headaches whether we liked it or not.  I just told myself that I have a little more experience with the whole PCS thing this time around so I could handle the challenge!  (I think....)




But surprisingly..... 




THE LIST CAME OUT!!!


ERIC IS ELIGIBLE FOR PROMOTION!!!!!!




    It will be a little while yet before Eric actually gets pinned Captain (I will be very sure to blog about that when it happens!), but now that he is officially eligible for promotion and we have unofficial orders (official orders should be coming soon), we can get the ball rolling for going home!

You guys!  HOME!

We're coming home!!!!!