haha okay...

i guess ill be the first to VENT! lol.

umm basically its all about Command Sponsership! The process has just begin & I have been given the runaround for the past 3 weeks. Ive got nothing done but my sons physical and i cant get anything else done without the 5888 from my husband which i wont get until next week. and then when i come back from georgia i have to get my physica, schedule an appt to get our EFMP's then that takes 10 days or so im told. and why the heck is it a 8 week wait for passports! thats ridiculous! my husband is in OSUT right now and we've been apart for about 4 months now. the last thing i wanna do is have to stay in california & him be in germany for the next 2 and a half to 3 months.

sorry ladies for the rant! but i hate CS it takes forever & i dont get the hassle on having dependents moved with their husbands. blah! thanks for listening lol

hmmm... idk about the 10 days for the EFMP... the longest part of mine was in the waiting room! I had a PA just sign the forms and check everything as ok before he even saw me, lol. The hardest part for me was my hubby getting all the forms signed and such, then he just faxed them too me. I didn't get the military passport, if you don't get it you just have to get a sofa stamp on your reg. passport when you get here. Basically as soon as my hubby had his CS paperwork signed on his end I hopped on a plane... I was given the run around A LOT as well, the pretty much told me a bunch of BS that didn't really need to get done and such. Good luck though! One other thing... DON'T TRUST GOOGLE, most of the stuff you will find there is outdated! I learned that the hard way! And remember to breathe... it will be over before you know it... oh one more thing I think it took about a week for me to get my passport and I didn't pay any extra to rush it they just tell you that in case they are super busy! ~GL~

Well thank you! You give me some hope on not having to stay stateside for 3 months lol. without DH. When I spoke to the woman who does the no-fee passports she told me that i couldnt go on a tourist passport and couldnt get the sofa stamp and if i did get a tourist then they would STILL have to issue me a Nofee and im still going to have to wait. I had a feeling that was BS but wasnt sure im completly new to this =/ Im going to see my husband on Thursday and he will be able to sign all the forms for me. Im most likely going to get regular tourist passports instead. i thought you had to get the SOFA stamp in the united states! and will they still pay for my flight if i dont have a no-fee. i thought they wont book your flight or send the movers without the no-fee . as you can see ive been give HORRIBLE and WRONG information.

I didn't have any of my stuff shipped, long story but when I went to arrange to have it shipped they never asked me for a no fee... just orders, the Mil. didn't pay for my flight either I did, like I said I jumped around all the hoops and dove right in. I still havent gotten my sofa stamp but you just make an appointment, walk in and it takes like 2 mins, just have to have the orders, I have talked to several ladies about it and that's what they said. I know one of them doesn't have the No Fee passport.

Oh wow i thought they are supposed to pay for your flight? If im not mistaken ive heard several ladies say there flight was paid for. it would cost a good 1400 dollars for my son & I to get out there. I was told if I dont go on a no-fee there not going to let him live with me.

I got my no fee and it took about 6 weeks for them to come back (we had 4 to get done. EFMP was the easiest thing to do, you can get the forms needed for that right off of the internet, otherwise they should have them all right there at the EFMP office. You have to get all of that done before the command sponsorship goes through. The military paid for our flights, Carlson Wagonlit reserved the flights but would not actually book them until we had the orders with command sponsorship on them and our passports. Everything was done within 2 months but it was a LOT of running around. The only thing I paid for were our passport photos because I did not want to work with the army's tiny woindow of time that they did them on our post, I got the no fee passports because at $90 a pop there was no way I was going to pay for 4! The movers have nothing to do with passports, all they need is the orders.

My hubby was already in Germany, we lived quite a distance from an Army base and they were telling me that I had to go to the base he went to AIT at... a 5 hour drive, then some people said I could go to San Antonio, so I went to the closest AF base got my ID and did the rest myself, they do pay for the ticket I chose to pay for it myself and just never got reimbursed, we have had issues with finding hubby's orders here... no one has them and hubby can't find the ones with me on them, even the lady that did my CS can't find his orders, it's like he doesn't exist here, that is why I just did it myself, I'd rather be out a couple grand then without my hubby. I could have gotten the No fee but they told me I didn't have to and since you have to get a reg one anyway seemed like a waste to me. Hopefully it will go smoother for you!

I have been told two things regarding our passports. I have been told we can travel on our passports because they are the blue ones, but if they are red then we would have to get the blue ones to travel, I have also been told because of the SOFA stamp on our blue passports we have to get ANOTHER reg passport without the stamp to travel outside of Germany. Does anyone know what the real true story is?

Laura:

There are 2 passports, one is a no-fee passport the Army issues you. You cannot travel on this and it must have a SOFA stamp in it. This passport is used to live in Germany and is only good until you leave here.

The other passport is the one you need to travel with. If you ever want to go outside of Germany you are going to need this passport. If it has a SOFA stamp in it then it is no good to travel with. This one costs money and can be done on base.

They screwed up my daughter's passport and put a SOFA stamp in her travel passport and we had to send it back in to get fixed! Still waiting on it.

That SUCKS! That will cost us almost $500 to get a passport for everyone in our family! Grrrr.....

So if you have paid for a tourist passport & they put a sofa stamp you still cant travel to france with is??

You can not travel with a SOFA stamp in your travel passport.
The only SOFA stamp that should be in a passport is the one the Army issues you.

If it is in your travel passport you must get it fixed ASAP!

wow that is good to know... I was about to get my SOFA stamp in my blue passport!

So ive been told that if I get a regular Tourist Passport then in order for me to go to Germany with him I need to get the Sofa stamp. BUT that would mean there stamp would be messing up my whole passport so how can I join him with just a regular tourist passport.

a red passport? wow, things have changed from 4 1/2 years ago...hehe I have 2 blue passports. One w/ the sofa, the other my normal paid passport. I have traveled a lot here, and within the past year they have really cracked down on people using their official passport for anything other than official travel. Some places such as crossing into france,wont even ask for ur passport...but we still carry it, because u never know...also if ur driving to places other than germany you really need ur internationl drivers license. it cost 15euro and if u go to the place where u got ur drivers license and get the paper the lady can tell ya which town to get ur license. U will need to have a passport photo ready...you wont have to take any written or driving test for it, and it takes like 10min tops!

The passport thing is so confusing. Ive been told so many different things. I dont know what to beleive anymore lol. I want to just pay for our tourist passports so that we can travel while we are over there. But i dont want that to be our only passport and then they put a SOFA stamp on it and completly defeats the purpose of paying for it. cuz the SOFA dont allow you to travel so IVE heard.

I have the telphone number for the passport office here. I am not sure if it is open on the weekend, but it for sure should be open on Monday. I'll find out from them. Sometimes some of the things our travel office in Ft.Sill told us wasn't quite right,but like housing things get updated and change a lot. What I mean about the housing this is since 2005Aug. it has changed at least 7times wheather or not we could live off post in the baumholder area. Crazy right? I sometimes joke w/ my hubby...its like the flavor of the month, you can live off this month, okay nope not that month..haha

What I was told by housing is E7 and above can live off post, otherwise you have to live on post unless they cannot accomadate you for some reason (handicap, no apartment available, some other EFMP issue). Either way, living on post is not bad either. I would not have minded it at all, they just had nothing available for us and said they would not have anything available for more than a year... the thing I do not understand is, I have 3 kids needing a 4 bedroom, I met spouses with 4 kids or more needing the same and they were placed on post, they were not given the option on living off post while we were never given the option of being able to live ON post. It is ok though, I love my townhouse!

Yeah the housing office makes me laugh )I don't get there system. Your right on post housing isn't bad. I do love living off post though. It has forced me to learn some of the language and meet a lot of really nice people. )

I am slowly learning the language but I already know Spanish so when someone speaks to me in German I freeze and all I can think of is Spanish! I have even responed to Germans in Spanish and then I get funny looks ... then I get embarrassed.

haha, that is too funny. My sister did that at the Mcdonalds and u should have seen the deer in the headlights look that lady gave my sister. After about 3sec. my sister realized why and turned beat red! she was so embarressed ) I just died laughing, because I told her I could order for her and her words and I quote was," I got this."

Cjsmommy07:

The Army will issue you and your son free passports with SOFA stamps in them but you can't use these passports to travel with you can only use them to live in Germany. These are free.

I just dont want to have to WAIT 4-8 weeks for the passports. I guess ill admit im pretty impatient haha. but i know thats something that will cchange being part of the army life! lol but I was going to pay for my son & myselfs tourist passports to be expedited and I would get them in 2 weeks. thats a resonable wait time for me, so can I just get the tourist passports and will they allow me to travel overseas with him with just a tourist or is it mandatory to get a no-fee.

It is mandatory to get a no-fee so you can live here. Like I said that is free through the Military.

If you want to travel around you must get a regular passport.

So can I get the no-fee when I get to germany if i just go on a tourist passport, or do i have to get it stateside. Im a little devastated at the moment, i just spoke to my DH and he said he has to report immediately and has to leave monday which means I have to be miserable here for the next 6-8 weeks howeever long it takes to get me and my son over there.