With Thanks to 12215 Dave “Farley” Mowat

During my military career, I was primarily a finance officer, but after getting posted to Director General Compensation and Benefits (DGCB) in the mid-1980s, I ended up getting recalled to DGCB numerous times after my finance tours. This was partly because are there no CF courses to teach compensation policy development, other than through learning on the job, so once trained you become the obvious choice to be brought back.  During my third such tour in that division, in the midst of a lengthy pay freeze in the early 1990s, a naval colleague from CMR and I were tasked to conduct a comprehensive review of the existing pay models. I was especially interested in the review of the Military Factor, a component of military pay intended to assign a value to the unique aspects of military service, including the requirement to move frequently.  The Factor was only 4% at the time so I was pretty sure we could come up with some really good reasons to justify an increase that would then affect the pay of Officers and Non-Commissioned Members alike.   

The “Frequent Moves” element was going to be a challenge, in part because the non-military folks, even within our own Division, viewed this not necessarily as a negative but rather more of an advantage of military service because we got to go to different places and do new and interesting things.  While that no doubt was partly true, I knew from experience that the “fun” part of always moving did not last long.  During the course of these reviews, I tried to use my personal experiences as an example since I could then speak with some authority when presenting our arguments to the Treasury Board Secretariat (TBS) staff.  So, in preparing for the research paper on this subject, I decided to start by creating a list of the number of times I personally had been required to pack my bags and go somewhere, not only for postings but also for career courses and secondments.  I knew I had moved quite often, but surprised even myself when I saw the final results, obtained partly from memory but also using old letters and other CF documents I had retained.  I had been in the military for only about 17 years at the time, but I had already had to pack up and go somewhere over 30 times!   

While it is true that some "moves" were relatively minor, such as those between dorms at RMC, my experience during a single posting in CFB Summerside was quite disruptive because I was forced to move no less than five times between accommodations during a short three-year tour.  One was the move to CFB Summerside from CFB Moose Jaw; one from a row house after the landlord went bankrupt; one from a Block Lease Housing Unit (BLHU) because as a single person I had give up my unit to a military couple; one from a single home I had to leave because all three of the other guys who agreed to rent together unexpectedly backed out of the agreement; and one because I had to replace the Station Comptroller in CFS Holberg, BC for a couple of months to allow him to attend a career course.  On my return from BC, I was able to stay in the last house, an otherwise empty MQ on the Base, until I was posted to another radar station in BC, CFS Baldy Hughes.  Even there, I had to move four times in that two year posting.  The first time was the posting itself; next because the landlord sold the house out from under me even though he never warned he was planning to sell before he rented to me (I spent the year being forced to clean and then leave the house multiple times so the real estate agent could show the house); one to the officers quarters on the Station and then finally I purchased a mobile home on the Station.   

More recently, I had been telling my wife and some friends about how many times I have had to move, and since they seemed somewhat sceptical about my numbers I thought I would try to reproduce that list, updated to the current day. I also included moves I made with my father because he was a pilot in the RCAF and after all I had to move with him, obviously!  Sure enough, including all the moves, latest count is close to 50 times!  

Later in life, and looking back, I found it amusing to recall how the moving experience itself evolved over time as we acquired more and more stuff. The first few moves were basically accomplished with a duffle bag or a small trunk and maybe a trip or two on foot. Later, the car became the “go to” method to transport our latest collection of “things”, up until the point where you could no longer see out the rear view mirror, or the passenger side window for that matter. After that, and understanding it never dawned on any of us to consider downsizing, it was time to beg a colleague to borrow their pick-up truck, especially since we started acquiring stuff like actual furniture to replace, say, the cardboard box that was used as the TV stand or maybe to get a real bed. Of course, that pick-up truck invariably came with the requirement for a “convincer”, also known as a “two-four”. This is where the first couple of hard won moving lessons were learned, after a variety of scratches and dents, and the occasional complete write-off. Shockingly, turns out your buddies never really cared much about the safety and well-being of your stuff and even less so after consuming several of those wobbly pops, so you quickly figured out firstly don’t bring out the beer until after the move and secondly you should actually “pack” your stuff first.

Of course, for the postings after that, the military paid to hire an actual moving company, but even for those first few type of moves, you were kind of an after thought for them since the weight of your F&E paled in comparison to the 15,000 pounds or so from somebody else that needed to be loaded first. However, being loaded last occasionally had some side benefits because I think I might have acquired an additional garden tool or two after the movers inadvertently off-loaded more than just my stuff and were long gone before I noticed. I also seem to recall at one point the “new” Movement Grant varied depending on weight, so soon some intrepid members started adding a few “essentials” like bricks, ostensibly for a rudimentary book case, or so they claimed.

Those early moves were mostly still during the “fun” phase. Later on, after we became more established and well into our careers, the novelty quickly wore off, especially since the average tours were only two or three years and in some cases, unexpectedly quicker as the exigencies of the service took precedence. I still remember one of our DGCB staff officers getting a very panicked call from a CPO2 who was literally enroute with his family to his new posting He had been pulled over near Belleville by the RCMP who let him know he was being recalled to Ottawa because he had a unique submarine skill set for a special project that was being initiated by the new MND. I likewise was tracked down at a Mess in Vernon, BC in 1996 during our inspection of various Cadet Camps, performed as part of the preparations for the handover of Edmonton from the Air Force to the Army. My old boss from DGCB, Col Finn, was on the other end of the phone and, asking me, albeit rhetorically, if I would like to come back to Ottawa now that the pay freezes were finally off. Notwithstanding that I had only been the Comptroller in Edmonton less than two years and just months away from the official handover of the Base, I diplomatically answered “Well, no, if you asking, but yes, if you are telling me, I would love to come back”.

Obviously the civilian staff at the Secretariat were shocked when I told them that in 17 years I had already moved over 30 times, but even the seemingly minor things surprised them. For example, they knew buying, selling or renting could be a big challenge, but not necessarily how stressful that could be as seldom did these things go smoothly, especially when trying to line up closing dates on both ends of the move or needing do a deep clean of the houses, especially to Base Housing standards if an MQ. They also had not fully appreciated all the other hassles like having to personally sign in and out of the myriad sections on the Base, or having constantly to change banks (back before electronic banking and ATMs) or postal addresses, or, always having to start, stop or change everything from drivers licenses and plates, electricity, utilities, cable, heating oil, home phones and even newspaper subscriptions, made worse because back then all these things usually had to be done in person.

Again, and a seemingly minor thing, but TBS staff had not really realized that finding a good car mechanic or plumber or electrician or even a hairdresser could be a real pain, more often than not because we invariably had to go through a couple of bad experiences before we found the good ones (which usually also meant to expect a posting soon!). In my case, after being posted to CFS Baldy Hughes, I rented a home in Prince George and obviously I was anxious to try to set up my washer and dryer sooner than later and had no idea who I might call to help. This is because the large dryer plug itself had been disconnected from the electrical wires, so I was not sure if the power was still connected and as most of us have learned from experience, the electrical panel as usual was poorly labelled and hence not helpful. In a momentary lapse, and being a little impatient and thinking no one in their right mind would ever leave the power on with those wires still exposed, I grabbed a screw driver and touched the two wires just to double-check. There was a huge popping crackling sound that gave me the shock of my life but fortunately figuratively not literally. Even though the screwdriver metal actually melted where I touched the wires, the handle thankfully was made of some sort of non-conducting material so I was no worse for the wear, other than a racing heart beat. Our military team doctor at RMC was not as fortunate because shortly after he had left RMC in 1977, he was tragically electrocuted while likewise trying to install his washer and dryer on his own.

Finally, and not surprisingly, the TBS staff were much more understanding when it came to spouses and children and the significant disruptions family experienced in their lives caused by the constant uprooting, including major life events like losing jobs and friends or classmates or changing schools. However, they were a little taken aback when I mentioned the unfortunate tendency of some of the new schools to consider the former schools in other provinces to be inferior to theirs. When my Dad was posted from Summerside to Shearwater, and notwithstanding my top marks in PEI, I was placed in the “slow learning” class at the local Junior High and my younger sister forced to repeat a year. I still remember my teacher, after a couple of weeks, coming up to me and asking what the heck I was doing in his class, just before he arranged a transfer to another room. And my sister ended up not only passing but did so well she skipped a grade.

They also understood that finding a family doctor or dentist could be problematic, but they had likewise not really appreciated the fact that provincial heath care plans varied between provinces, some based on provincial tax and some premium-based, which caused no small amount of confusion when signing up or submitting claims. Interestingly, in this regard, one of our MCpl pay clerks in Garrison Edmonton, when checking something else, discovered that a couple of CF members had forgotten to stop their dependents’ health care premiums when posted from Alberta. On a hunch, she decided to pursue the matter further and after requesting printouts of hundreds of old pay records from Director of Pay Services, found that a large number of other posted CF members also had forgotten to cease those premiums and in some cases, were paying premiums in a new province as well. The initial reaction was to wonder how those could have been missed. However, aside from the fact many of those finance clerks were new to the province or new to that job, the truth is that the whole moving experience could be so exhausting that it was easy to overlook such things.

In the end, I “got to go to different places and do new and interesting things”. In addition to two overseas tours, because of military background, I lived at one time or another in every province in Canada except New Brunswick. And, the irony in all of this was that stress and upheaval caused by such moves was such that over the years, the CF ended up bringing in all kinds of new benefits and policies to help address those issues, so much so that once you took your release and had to deal with all those things totally on your own, you started to realize how well you had actually been taken care under the circumstances. That said, and although I enjoyed all my tours and the courses and secondments, I cannot say the same for all the moving, which is why, like many colleagues, I have zero interest in moving again, ever. My Dad was the same way. He retired to Kelowna and told me many times “The only way I am moving from this house is feet first” and that is exactly what happened, after spending his last 30 years in that house.