How often do military personnel move?

Question

How often do Air Force personnel move? As enlisted? As an officer? Is it different for every branch?

Answer 1

Movement can vary there are trends though.

Only the Marines move families around a date, which is about Jun every year. Not always.

Most tours with a family are 3 years, one year extensions can happen--moreso on overseas tours.

Short one year tours and even tour year tours usually only occure if you go to a difficult assignment without a family, or leave your family. Also short enlistments are tied into short tours.

Typically a traditional military member will move every 3 years (especially with a family member). However, the first year to two years in the service may be frequent moves for training--Boot camp, job training, specialty training, some kind of internship, etc.

Movement requires orders and funding and the US Federal Budget is in Oct, but it is usually approved in Dec. As a result travel money for moves is high from Dec to about July-Aug when money wears thin. Some are unable to get orders and are extened on station from Summer until after Christmas awaiting funding for a move.

Answer 2

The average tour is 3 years. You may be able to extend and stay longer. Extending is actually becoming more the trend in the military. They don't have to spend the money moving people who want to stay.

It really doesn't matter if your enlisted or officer, or what branch your in. Your MOS doesn't have a thing to do with it either.

Answer 3

the air force generally is 3-4 year overseas tours for enlisted if you have family 2 year unacompanied, some stateside bases they dont move you for 6 or more years, ive even heard of guys spending their whole 20 at one base if its a base not alot of other people want to go to. theres also 1 year remote tours (like korea) where you go unaccompanied even if you have a family. officers (and alot of senior enlisted) generally switch bases every 2 years or so. my husband has been in almost 10 (hes enlisted) and we are at our 3rd base (6 at the first, 3 in japan,now back stateside)

Answer 4

Your not gonna wanna hear this,

But it all depends...................

On what rank you are
What AFSC you have
What you volunteer for.

The military tries not to send people from one stateside base to another. Whats the point?

Of course that happens more often, the higher in rank you go.

Most PCS moves are from stateside to overseas or from overseas back to stateside.

Lengths of overseas assignments depend on where you are assigned.

Some are 12 months ( Korea) some are 15 months, some 24 months, some 36 and some 48 months..

Some AFSC's only have stateside bases, so those folk's tend to stay at one base for a long time.

Afsc's that work on Fighters, tend to move around more often.

But overall the average has been around 3 years, but with fewer overseas bases now adays, they are trying to increase the time you are at one base.

Officer do tend to move around more than enlisted members do, but not a whole lot more often, especially in the AF.

Answer 5

My husband is Army E-6 96B and we move about every 2 to 3 years. We are down at MacDill AFB now and will be PCS'ing in a few months to Ft Knox. That make us just shy of hitting our 3 year mark here but I have talked to quite a few Air Force wives that have been here anywhere from 6 to 9 years. I think its all about where they need your MOS the most.

Answer 6

The USAF just changed policy last fall.... EVERYONE is on station at least 4 years. Married, not married, officer , enlisted. Everyone is at 4 years minimum. Now, that said, there can be exceptions, based on the needs of the AF.

There are still locations where it is a 1 year remote.

Answer 7

mainly dependent on your job. when my spouse was enlisted, we only moved once in 5 years. now that he is an Officer, we move approximately every 36 months.

Answer 8

It depends on what your MOS is. MOS is your job in the service. Some people move every two years, some don't move for six.