Hello,

I am leaving for BM "A" school in Yorktown in the next coming months (no orders yet, but almost certainly between now and January) and my wife and I have been on the fence about her staying or coming with me. We are currently stationed on the west coast, so it'd be an expensive treck accross country, but we know that going into it. We would put our stuff into storage and she would rent a furnished apartment out in VA while I go to school. I know I'd only be able to see her on weekends and maybe some weeknights and my primary focus is on school, but we'd like to spend the holidays closer and be able to see a little bit of the east coast, if possible.

I know I'd be on my own for getting out of my current lease because I won't have PCS orders, and my BAH would drop when I tell them shes moving out there, but that's fine. Luckily, we will be there over winter and BAH covers most of the summer rental type (furnished places) off-season rates.

Cost aside, as we are prepared for that, what pros and cons do you have for this idea?

You should be able to see her in the evenings. I PCSed with my family to ET A school, and while BM and ET are obviously different schools, I suspect that you will be able to see your wife every evening with the exception of duty. I had duty 1 in 4, then when A school started opening up, we went to 1 in 5 for duty. Beyond that, I was able to spend every evening with my family. I hear the DWO portion of BM school is pretty stressful and time consuming, so that may detract from it, but as long as your wife is understanding you should be good to go.

I don't think your BAH will change, but I'm not an authority on that matter. It just doesn't sound right since you are on TDY orders to your current/old unit until you graduate A school. But if you say so...! Good luck in school!

I personally don't think the cost, stress, and risk of trying to find a furnished rental in the area for such a short period of time is really worth it. If you are there over Christmas/New Year's the school should go on stand-down/holiday routine (we had a 2 week stand-down in Petaluma over the holidays, I assume Yorktown does something similar), why not plan for her to come out and visit then?

If he's getting TDY orders, the BAH won't change. To the OP, I have to echo ebee's thoughts...why are you going to go to the trouble to relocate your wife, only to have to do it again once you get your first set of orders out of A school? You need to get used to the idea that you're going to be apart from each other during your CG career. What's going to happen if you get assigned to a 378 or WMSL out of A school and you're gone for 90+ days at a time?

There is always a lot of discussion about this and I'm typically the one that is dead set against a spouse going, unless of course it is PCS orders. As Chief says, this is the military, there are separations, you have to get used to them. As a personal note of interest, I'll tell you my story, incase you haven't read it on here before. My nonrate husband was stationed on Kodiak Island. We were living off base and all of our family is from New Jersey. So when he went to MST A School, in Yorktown, it would have been real easy for me to pack up and say see ya Island and bail out of there. But going in I knew this was going to happen when he went to A School. So I stayed in Kodiak, continued to work (not a great job but it was my job) and lived my normal day to day. Then when picks came out... Anchorage, Alaska assigned to Marine Safety Detachment Kodiak. We got to move on base and stayed right where we were. Can you imagine if I had packed up, put everything in storage, gave up my job, moved all the way to the east coast only to return to exactly where we were 18 weeks later?????

Go, focus on school, learn to be the best damn BM the CG has ever had and then relocate together after A School. This is my personal opinion, you might get others. But I think there is a reason, other than simply cost, that the CG makes these schools TDY. My daughter-in-law also stayed in Boston while my son was at A School in Petaluma. So many have done it... It is your decision to make though.