Some Welcome Relief

Cathy McMorris Rodgers has submitted a bill, H.R 5469 that will allow service members to be reimbursed for shipping a second motor vehicle to and from nonforeign areas outside the continental United States--defined as Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Northern Marianas Islands, and any possession of the United States.

With our auto-bound society, moving to these nonforeign areas often required service members to sell, store, or ship a second vehicle at their own expense. A common characteristic of many overseas stations was that the Auto Hobby Shop was almost always booming with business as enterprising mechanically-inclined GIs bought cars from people who were leaving, fixed them up a little and then sold them to people who were arriving. I'm sure many service members will be thankful they can ship a second vehicle when they move to an overseas U.S. state/territory.

The bill is entitled the Service Members Permanent Change of Station Relief Act. As many times as I moved in the service, the relief I wished for the most was that the movers wouldn't break any of my stuff--again.