More than 20 years of military moves taught one Army family to expect frustration, confusion and long waits for their own belongings.
Defense officials are redesignating the Permanent Change of Station Joint Task Force into a new Personal Property Activity based at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois, with plans to convert it into a standalone federal agency overseeing all military household goods moves.
The overhaul centralizes authority over shipping offices, claims processing and business rules for a system that manages about 300,000 moves each year and costs about $2 billion annually. It follows years of complaints from service members, families and moving companies about delays, damage, lost property and accountability gaps.
Command Sgt. Maj. Thomas Henig has moved his household about 10 times in 22 years of service. For most of those moves, he said the system has felt disjointed, slow and exhausting.
That changed during his most recent move in December.
“We had more lead time in the orders process, better communication and real control,” Henig told Military.com. “I had a single person I could reach for any question.”
Defense leaders said that difference is not accidental.
Hegseth Orders Full Reset
Broken furniture, lost heirlooms and months of silence forced Pentagon leaders to confront what military families had endured for years.
“A China cabinet with its mirrors smashed. A dresser missing a leg. A treasured German-made Cuckoo clock, shattered into pieces,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a pre-recorded video announcement, citing real cases that helped drive the decision to overhaul the system. “These are some of the stories about what it’s like to move when you’re serving in the military.”
Hegseth said the new Personal Property Activity is designed to replace a fragmented structure with a single chain of command, modern technology and real accountability for household goods.
“Our service members deserve a moving system that works, not one that adds stress to families already sacrificing for the nation,” he said, adding that the new organization will operate with independent authority, modern business rules and centralized oversight. “This is about dignity, respect and readiness. We owe that to every military family.”
The push for a full reset follows a bruising stretch in which families reported missed pack-outs, delayed deliveries and breakdowns in communication as new systems rolled into the busiest moving seasons.
Defense officials said the directive shifted the reform effort from years of discussion into execution, cutting through internal resistance that had slowed progress.
"This only happens when leadership decides it has to change,” a senior defense official told Military.com.
Henig said he has already felt that shift in his own move. Earlier relocations often felt fragmented and exhausting, but his most recent move delivered something different.
“It seemed more taxing on your time before. Now, it’s streamlined,” he told Military.com, pointing to virtual inspections as one of the clearest improvements. “It was just an app. I walked through my house on my schedule, and they got everything they needed.”
He said the change eased pressure across his entire household.
“It’s not just the stress on me that’s lightened. It’s stress across the entire family," he added.
A System That Could Not Hold
The overhaul represents the first true structural reset in the history of the military moving program, ending decades of fragmented control and temporary fixes that never addressed the system’s core design.
“It’s a total renovation,” a senior defense official told Military.com. “This has never been done before.”
For decades, each military service controlled its own slice of the process—from shipping offices to claims oversight, creating overlapping rules, competing priorities and inconsistent enforcement. Officials said families often received different answers depending on which branch handled their move, while no single organization had the authority to fix problems across the system.
“There wasn’t one chain of command,” the DoD official said. “Everyone owned a piece of the problem, but no one owned the whole solution.”
Maj. Gen. Lance G. Curtis, who leads the PCS Joint Task Force, said that fragmentation made reform nearly impossible, even when leaders agreed change was needed.
“We had decision by consensus,” Curtis told Military.com. “You needed a single decision maker, and you didn’t have it.”
Technology failures compounded those structural flaws. Officials said the Defense Personal Property System that tracks shipments is more than 25 years old, built for a different era of military mobility and now nearing technical failure.
“The Defense Personal Property System is going to time out in the next two-three years,” Curtis said, warning that continued reliance on the platform risked further delays, lost data and claims backlogs.
Curtis said the secretary’s directive required both immediate fixes and a permanent solution, forcing the department to confront the system’s long-term sustainability rather than continue short-term workarounds.
“He wanted a short-term solution and a long-term solution,” Curtis told Military.com. “We were directed to come back with both.”
The collapse of the Global Household Goods Contract removed any remaining doubt inside the department, officials said, exposing how deeply the system depended on fragile stopgap measures.
“That contract failure was the moment leadership accepted the system was broken at its foundation,” a senior defense official told Military.com.
Families Paid the Price
Military families said the failures carried real financial and emotional consequences that stretched far beyond damaged furniture.
“Every year, more than 600,000 military families move and can pay more than $8,000 in out-of-pocket expenses just to settle in,” Blue Star Families told Military.com, noting that delays and lost property often force families to replace essentials while waiting months for reimbursement.
Curtis said those burdens directly affect readiness.
“If service members are focused on household goods, they’re not focused on the mission,” he told Military.com.
“If this doesn’t go effectively, people leave the military,” he added, warning that repeated PCS frustration compounds broader retention challenges.
Henig said that reality matches what he sees across the force, especially among midcareer families balancing deployments, children and housing transitions.
“You recruit the soldier, but you retain the family,” he told Military.com. “One bad PCS can be enough for a family to say they’re done.”
Families often waited months for their belongings while claims remained unresolved, officials said, disrupting school enrollment, medical access and daily stability at new duty stations. Families facing late deliveries also have reimbursement tools available, though navigating them can become another burden during a move.
One Chain of Command
The new structure places all continental U.S. shipping offices under the Personal Property Activity in phased transitions, ending decades of fragmented oversight. Overseas offices will follow on a delayed timeline while remaining under tactical control, allowing commanders to maintain operational flexibility during deployments and contingency moves.
Claims processing has already been centralized, officials said, eliminating a system that once pushed families between service branches, contractors and claims offices with no clear ownership.
Curtis said that shift has changed how families interact with the system.
“Transparency and communication have really made a difference,” he told Military.com, adding that families now know who owns their case and where to turn when problems arise."
The Pentagon also issued nine new business rules in December, including cybersecurity requirements designed to protect service member and family data after repeated complaints about exposure risks.
“This came directly from what spouses asked us,” PCS Joint Task Force adviser Maj. Matt Visser told Military.com, saying family feedback increasingly shapes policy decisions inside the program.
Visser said the complexity of unresolved cases helped drive urgency. For example, one recent household goods dispute required 18 staff members and about 120 hours to resolve, exposing how inefficient the legacy system had become.
“Anytime we hear bad news about a PCS, we consider that good news,” Visser said. “It means families know how to reach us.”
Henig said that visibility alone changes the experience.
“When you have someone accountable, you have confidence,” he said.
The Movers Walked Away
Moving companies said that confusion, inconsistent rules, delayed payments, and unsustainable reimbursement rates steadily pushed many reputable carriers out of the military market, weakening competition and limiting options for families during peak moving seasons.
Industry participation shrank as companies struggled to navigate different service rules, shifting contract expectations and claims systems that often left carriers absorbing losses for damaged or delayed shipments they said they could not control.
“The transportation businesses were not getting a rate that made participation competitive,” a defense official told Military.com. “It was not advantageous for them to stay in the system.”
Officials said that dynamic created a cycle in which experienced movers exited, while less capable providers filled the gap, increasing the risk of damaged property, missed delivery windows and unresolved claims.
Josh Morales, president of International Van Lines, said his company ultimately reduced its military business because the system felt unpredictable and inaccessible.
“We took a backseat to military moves due to the confusion,” Morales told Military.com.
He said transparency was just as damaging as reimbursement.
“It felt like a who you know situation,” he added. “Quality companies were searching for scraps.”
Defense leaders say that loss of reputable carriers hurt families directly by shrinking the pool of trusted providers and increasing strain during high-volume PCS periods.
Curtis said the Pentagon is now deliberately shifting away from a model that rewarded low bids over service performance.
“The intent was never to be the lowest bidder,” he said. “It was intended to be the highest quality.”
The Cost of a Broken System
Defense officials say the overhaul will require upfront investment before long-term savings appear, but they argue the cost of maintaining the status quo had already become unsustainable.
The Pentagon currently spends about $2 billion each year on household goods moves. Officials estimate roughly $225 million annually goes toward manpower and administrative costs tied to managing a system split across multiple services.
Standing up the Personal Property Activity is expected to cost about $26.6 million, primarily for staffing, infrastructure and technology integration.
Officials said those figures do not capture the hidden costs of delays, damaged property, repeated claims reviews and lost productivity when service members spend weeks tracking shipments instead of focusing on their missions.
Leaders say the department expects savings over time through fewer damage claims, faster resolution timelines, reduced duplication across services and more efficient staffing, though formal projections remain under review as the organization continues to mature.
Defense officials also said the human cost has weighed just as heavily as the financial one.
“When families lose confidence in the system, that has a readiness cost you cannot put on a spreadsheet,” one defense official told Military.com.
Restoring trust is now viewed as a strategic investment rather than an administrative expense, officials added.
Replacing a Failing System
Defense leaders say modernizing the technology behind military moves is essential to restoring accountability in a system that had long outgrown its digital foundation.
The Pentagon plans to replace the Defense Personal Property System with a modern platform built on the MilMove framework, ending reliance on software officials say was designed for a different era of military mobility and never intended to manage today’s volume, complexity or expectations. (https://www.military.com/pcs/dod-household-goods.html)
Officials said the new system will provide real-time shipment visibility, faster claims processing and improved coordination between shipping offices, giving families clearer insight into where their belongings are, who is responsible and how problems are being addressed.
Curtis said the old platform no longer matched operational reality.
“You cannot run a 21st century mobility system on 1990s technology,” he told Military.com.
Defense officials said families often lost visibility once shipments entered transit, forcing them to rely on phone calls, emails and contractor updates that sometimes conflicted, stalled or disappeared.
The new platform, officials said, will allow families to track shipments, submit documentation digitally, upload photos, communicate directly with accountable case managers and see claim status updates in real time—replacing a process that once felt opaque and fragmented.
Curtis said the objective is not simply speed, but trust.
"Families should never feel like their property disappeared into a black hole,” he told Military.com.
Defense leaders said technology modernization is critical to rebuilding confidence with industry partners that will now operate inside a system that records performance metrics, response times and outcomes more transparently.
That visibility is designed to reward reliability and service quality, not just low cost, while giving leaders earlier warning when problems begin to emerge.
The Breaking Point
Some cases forced Pentagon leaders to confront how deeply the military moving system had failed.
In one instance, a service member arrived at a new duty station with little more than a backpack while household goods remained locked in storage under disputed paperwork. Leadership intervened and resolved the case the same day, but officials said the fact that it required senior attention exposed how broken routine processes had become.
Another household goods dispute required 18 personnel and about 120 hours to resolve, drawing in shipping offices, contractors, claims managers, and service representatives across multiple commands.
Curtis said those cases were not isolated, but representative of a system that no longer protected families from bureaucratic collapse.
“We want to beat this down to zero,” he said. “Every one of those cases represents a family that lost trust in the system.”
Defense officials said the manpower devoted to crisis resolution illustrated how much time and money were being spent untangling failures instead of preventing them.
Officials said families often felt powerless once a move went wrong, unsure who owned their case, where responsibility shifted or how to push the process forward.
“That lack of ownership is what we are eliminating,” one defense official said.
Curtis said the new structure is designed so that families no longer have to escalate crises to be heard.
“If a case reaches leadership, that means we already failed,” he said. “The system should fix itself before it gets there.”
Defense leaders said those real cases shifted the reform effort from abstract policy discussion into urgent operational necessity.
Pressure From Capitol Hill
Lawmakers from both parties said the overhaul reflects years of pressure from military families who repeatedly told Congress the PCS system lacked accountability.
Several congressional offices told Military.com they routinely handled casework involving lost property, delayed deliveries and unresolved claims, often with no clear path to resolution once a move went wrong.
Defense officials said that steady flow of constituent complaints helped keep the issue on lawmakers’ radar even as previous reform efforts stalled.
Lawmakers have closely monitored the transition to the Personal Property Activity and are expected to maintain oversight as the organization expands its authority and moves toward independent agency status.
Curtis said congressional interest reinforced urgency inside the department.
“When members of Congress start asking why families cannot get answers about their own belongings, it forces accountability,” Curtis said.
Officials said lawmakers were especially focused on how the new structure will measure performance, enforce standards, and prevent another major contract failure like the collapse of the Global Household Goods Contract.
Defense leaders said that scrutiny will intensify as overseas offices transition and the new organization begins operating with broader authority.
One defense official said the message from Capitol Hill has remained consistent.
“They want to see results, not another study,” the official said.
Officials said the department now views congressional oversight as a stabilizing force rather than a pressure point, ensuring the reform remains focused on measurable outcomes families can actually feel.
No Turning Back
The system that once scattered responsibility across multiple services is being replaced with a structure designed to own every move from start to finish.
The creation of the Personal Property Activity marks the end of decades of fragmented oversight and the beginning of permanent accountability for how military families relocate.
Officials said the new organization will continue absorbing authority in phases, with the long-term goal of operating as a standalone federal agency with its own leadership structure, funding oversight and performance metrics.
Curtis said the objective is not simply to reorganize offices, but to change how families experience every move.
This is about making sure no family feels alone in the process again.
Officials said success will not be measured by internal milestones or organizational charts, but by whether families can see, track and trust their moves from start to finish.
For Henig, that difference is already real.
“This time, I felt like someone owned my move,” he said. “That changes everything.”
Officials said that sense of ownership is now the standard the department intends to make permanent.
“This is not a pilot,” a senior defense official said. “This is the future of how we move military families.”
The system will continue evolving, officials said, but its core principle will not.
“No family should ever have to fight the system just to get their own lives back,” the official added.
