Ten Handy Web Sites for Military Families Moving to Germany

It's amazing how fast a year can fly by. A year ago, I was preparing to send my husband off to his first six month deployment in Iraq. Before he left, he gave me the news that we were going to be moving to Germany right after he got home in August. I have to admit, as much as I love Europe, I was actually a little crestfallen at the news that we were headed to Germany. Since he was deployed for the first half of 2007, I knew that I would need to do a lot of planning for our international move by myself and that intimidated me a little bit.

Germany is actually the third country I've lived in besides the United States. As a small child, I lived in England as an Air Force brat. As a young adult, I spent two years as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Armenia. Obviously, I didn't have any part in planning for the move to England, and when I moved to Armenia, I just sent in my paperwork, packed a couple of bags and went. But this move to Germany was different in many ways. This international move was the first one that required me to do some planning on my own. Of course I was nervous about it. Being a firm believer in the old maxim that knowledge is power, I quickly got to work on the Web, researching how to move to Germany.

Military.com's message boards (www.forums.military.com)

My first stop on the research trail was Military.com's message boards, a site that began in 1999 and has now grown to over 10 million members. Military.com's message boards are very extensive and there are forums intended for just about anyone connected to a servicemember, from spouses to parents and friends. I found the Spouse and Family forum very helpful, especially at first, and spent a lot of time reading the posts on the Relocation Discussion board. There, I found a huge thread about moving to Germany, as well as plenty of smaller threads about issues like getting no-fee passports, being screened for the Exceptional Family Member Program (EFMP), and the process of getting command sponsorship. The Spouse and Family forums also have boards for other topics like military marriage, Tricare, and military spouse career development.