September 26, 2016

Dear Mr./Ms. President:

My name is Mollie, and I am a sophomore in high school. This letter is to address the problem of Permanent Change of Station (PCS), the official relocation of an active duty military service member along with his or her family member to a different duty location. As a child of a military father, I have had to move a lot from place to place. Eventually, moving around all the time gets tiring.

In the military, all it takes is for someone superior to tell my father, or anyone else serving in the military, that they are moving and they have no choice but to do as their superior says. I realize that they may be needed elsewhere, but I believe that there should be a way for them to be able to turn down the offer. It is hard on a person, let alone a family, to just pack up and leave when duty calls. Children have to change schools and spouses have to find new jobs. It is a pretty big change that comes very quickly, and it is hard for everyone to adjust to.

The point that is unclear to me about PCS is how there is no choice. This is where you come in. We as a country need to figure out a way to give people serving our nation in the military more choice in decisions that are made about them; such as getting deployed or being relocated. By joining the military, they are already risking everything they have to help protect everyone in our country, so why wouldn’t they get a say in important decisions. It is challenging enough already for them to go to work everyday putting their lives at risk for everyone.

There needs to be some sort of system, including the person who is in the military, to decide if that person is ready to move to another base or not. This system would consider all the factors of what that person's life is like and what their own personal preference is. Then there would be a decision made determining if that person is ready or capable of getting deployed or relocated. This way there are no surprises in going overseas or changing bases.

In conclusion, for all of the hardships that our military people go through, they need to have some type of say in what happens to them and their families. This would make not only our military stronger but it would also make our nation a better place.

Sincerely,

Mollie B.