Posted on Aug 18, 2022
1LT Chaplain Candidate
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At some point, I will be attending CHBOLC as a chaplain candidate. Will my spouse be able to attend with me? I've done as much research as possible but I cannot seem to find an answer. Does anyone have any experience with this? If so, please feel free to share. Any insight would be great! Thank you to everyone in advance! God bless.
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MAJ Military Personnel And Administrative Specialist
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The military does not pay for PCS of family members to school houses shorter than 20 weeks. NG and USAR do not pay for family to attend any training. There is nothing stopping your spouse from 'visiting', but you will be paying out of pocket. Depending on the school house, if you are in local hotels, there is nothing stopping your spouse from staying with you - barracks would be a different story.
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CPT Lawrence Cable
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Edited >1 y ago
Talk to your School House. As National Guard, you won't get paid to move your family and your BAH will be for your home of record. When I went to IOBC many moons ago, the Guard wives were encouraged to attend and had command sponsorship as far as that went. It really meant that they just blessed the fact that they were there and they had the same privileges they would have had with you on Active Duty if they were at home. They did allow those officers to live off post, you just lived on the economy with the BAH from you HOR.
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CPT Staff Officer
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I did just exactly that as a Reservist. However, entirely out of my own pocket. I even had my oldest kid born out there with 1 week left in BOLC (plus a German Shepard in tow). So I used up 8 hours of instruction so I could attend the birth and went back and forth for the remainder of BOLC. I suppose I got very lucky. I had already finished my end of course project

It is very doable if I managed to pull it off.

REMEMBER to have all your needed BAH documentation ON HAND while in processing at BOLC, otherwise you will NOT!!!!!!!!!!! get B-A-H.

BLUF!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If you are the one lining up the logistics of housing as a NG without the backing of Active Duty during your time in BOLC you need to be aware your most sensitive resource is going to be:

T-I-M-E!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Price shopping is going to destroy you. You need to align commuting distance and execute all the actions critical for securing furnished housing in the miniscule window of time you have. So once you find a solution you can execute you need to act upon it, and just eat the costs.

The greater mission is BOLC graduation above all other things.

Anyway.............

The challenge as I found out (and correctly anticipated) was the astronomically limited time you will get laying out the logistics of housing for your spouse. If you can lock in housing BEFORE they get out there and BEFORE BOLC starts then great.

Otherwise you might be in a world of hurt. The starting day of BOLC begins before the rest of the world's business hours, and ends long after the rest of the world's business hours ends. So really, I only had the weekend (and even then only Saturday) to lock in housing, and I had to have ON HAND all documentation that the potential landlord was going to require from me to secure the contract.

***The most critical piece of documentation I got lucky with having on hand was my latest LES statement indicating my length of employment and current income level***

In retrospect........... going Air BNB would have been a better way to go if you can find a place that will fit your timeline and needs.

What I ended up doing was finding an UNFURNISHED apartment, and the property manager was nice enough to let in a furnishing rental vendor to fill the place up, and kind enough to let them clear it out when we left.

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For example.......... there is no regulation preventing your or family from living across the street of the BOLC base if that happens to be your home town.

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It's probably not worth your time to bother trying to get on post housing, you won't have the orders supporting it, and there will be a wait list longer than the duration of BOLC itself.

I did all the heavy planning myself given the state of my spouse with the kid on the way.

If your spouse can help you out there is nothing from stopping them from simply picking up and doing everything needed themselves to move there for 4-5 months while you focus on BOLC.

Air BNB and just eat the cost.
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CPT Lawrence Cable
CPT Lawrence Cable
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I think some of your issues are base dependent. FT Benning has 1000's of people rotating in and out for schools, so the rental companies are used to short leases and in the 80's, there were plenty of units at a reasonable commute distance. There was no Base Housing at the time for enroute families either, so Active, Reserve or NG with family are all on the economy.
We brought our furniture with us, so didn't have to deal with that part. I found that once you had your wife signed in and with all the right ID's, she could do a lot of the misc. running for you.
Sold most of our furniture rather than move it again at the end of IOBC. At an Active Army post, the buyers descend like vultures. The last week about all we had was a TV and Stereo and the baby bed.
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