Fort Hood?

[lovinmyboys]

Can anyone tell me anything about it? It looks like DH will be there for a year and we are trying to decide if the boys and I should go with him. I'm not even sure what I want to know, so anything would be great.

[Mrs Mungo]

As an army family, we make it a policy to be together whenever possible. We are only separated when the army doesn't give us any other choice. I wouldn't choose to be separated from my husband because he was going to be at Ft. Hood. But, I don't really know your situation. We haven't been stationed at Hood, but we know several people who are there now. What kind of information are you looking for?

[Artichoke]

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Edited March 8, 2017 by Artichoke

[lovinmyboys]

I'm not sure what I want to know. Maybe I should just do an internet search. I have never lived on a post, so I don't know anything about it. My oldest son is really into baseball...do they have little league teams? Are there other extracurriculars for the kids? Anything to do in the surrounding areas? Is the cost of living fairly decent? Is it really as hot as they say?

[Wilma]

Texas IS not in the summer. Where are y'all coming from?

 

I think it's halfway between Austin and Waco, right? Those are both pretty huge and would have a full array of Things To Do as well as homeschooling communities.

 

Would there be any one reason not to go? If you had one, we could look into that issue and see how it pans out.

[lovinmyboys]

DH is a reservist a long way from Texas and his unit is going to be stationed there for a year. Families are not officially invited, but they also can't keep us away, I guess. We have a house here, kids are involved here, etc. It isn't going to be simple for us to pick up and move, but not impossible either. DH civilian employment is here, so we will have to come back in a year. I worry that everyone will have moved on and it will almost be like starting over when we come back. We have only lived here 3 years and I feel like we are just now settled. Also, DH is taking a pretty significant pay cut, so we have to consider the expense of moving there and back.

[Mrs Mungo]

I'm not sure what I want to know. Maybe I should just do an internet search. I have never lived on a post, so I don't know anything about it. My oldest son is really into baseball...do they have little league teams? Are there other extracurriculars for the kids? Anything to do in the surrounding areas? Is the cost of living fairly decent? Is it really as hot as they say?

CYS hosts youth sports on nearly all posts. Killeen is a fairly small town, but you would adjust to doing stuff on post and/or driving to a bigger town. Our first duty station was NTC, which is an almost hour from the nearest small town. ;)

[Mrs Mungo]

Constantly starting over is the way of our life as an active duty family.

 

My main question would be: are you command sponsored? That will decide: can you get on post housing? Can you get into the clinic on post? Can you get tricare prime? I haven't dealt with those types of issues much.

[lovinmyboys]

Constantly starting over is the way of our life as an active duty family.

 

My main question would be: are you command sponsored? That will decide: can you get on post housing? Can you get into the clinic on post? Can you get tricare prime? I haven't dealt with those types of issues much.

Thanks! These are the things I need to know that I don't know. I guess a bunch of people are moving to Austin, but if we are going to move I would like to be actually living with DH. I know guys in his unit were planning to share houses on post. I'll have him ask if we are command sponsored because I am guessing we are not and that is what not officially invited means.

[Slartibartfast]

Texas is indeed as hot as they say in the summer.

[brehon]

Texas is indeed as hot as they say in the summer.

It's probably hotter. ;)

[Mrs Mungo]

Texas isn't as hot as Death Valley. ;)

 

I have known some reservists who came here to Hawaii. They weren't command sponsored. They couldn't get on post housing, but they could get tricare prime, use the on post clinics, sign the kids up for CYS sports, etc.

[WestHoustonMom]

Texas isn't as hot as Death Valley. ;)

 

I have known some reservists who came here to Hawaii. They weren't command sponsored. They couldn't get on post housing, but they could get tricare prime, use the on post clinics, sign the kids up for CYS sports, etc.

True, true, but Death Valley doesn't have 90% humidity, whereas much of Central and East Texas does, and it's usually for most of the summer. Plus, we seem to have 8 to 9 months of summer.

[Freckles]

It's windy! The surrounding areas are Coppereas Cove, Killeen, Temple, Belton, Florence, Georgetown. Austin isn't too far away.

[lovinmyboys]

Love it! But we've never lived on post. We were here from 1992-2005 and moved back for good in 2011. LOTS of homeschooling opportunities here! What else?

What do you love about it? What kind of homeschooling opportunities? Which cities off post are best? What is there to do? I am just imagining DH working gazillions of hours and the kids and I just being there doing, I don't know what (and being hot). Is the cost of living fairly low? I wish we could visit before we decide.

 

Really, if we move it will be to be with DH. As long as it is safe, I am not that picky. I'm just trying to get a feel for the place. DS8 is all about baseball, so if I can find a league for him he will be all in. If I get him on board, his little brothers will follow suit.

[hellen]

It's been a quite some time since we were there but I'll give you my possibly outdated information.

 

First of all Fort Hood is really big. It sounds like you aren't familiar with military bases so that might not mean anything. There are two comissaries so there is never a day when you can't go. I guess it also means the hospital is too small. When we were there some of the clinics were in trailers next to the hospital. For sports go to the Fort Hood page and find the link for MWR or just google MWR. That link should have additional links for recreation, CYS (child youth services) and other things of that sort.

 

The town right outside of base is Killeen. Killeen used to be a little rough. It may still be. The other disadvantage of a large base is the surrounding community. There is a larger percentage of young men around due to the base and the local businesses cater to that crowd.

 

Harker Heights is a popular option. It's grown a lot since we've been there so there are way more stores. When we were there the area further north of the highway was rougher.

 

Belton is the next town east and possible the farthest you would want to go. If you wanted to live in a smaller community or on a lake or closer ton Austin this would be your location.

 

Even if Fort Hood is a terrible place and I personally don't like it, you would only be there for one year. That's enough time to explore a lot of the local area. You could go to the Alamo, Schlitterbahn, see the bats in Austin, the Fort Worth Stockade, and the Dallas Botanical Gardens with their fantastic children's area. You could eat good Mexican food, practice Spanish, tube the Guadalupe, etc. Missing baseball and friends for a year isn't the worst thing in the world. You would make new friends and have new experiences.

 

I also agree about keeping the family together if possible. That is the most important reason. Can you imagine being in your husband's place and not seeing your family much for a year because they didn't want to leave their sports team and friends?

 

Is it hot there? It depends where you're moving from. It's hot compared to Wisconsin but if you're in Alabama right now you'll be fine. They do have air conditioning in Texas which helps tremendously. I don't know what people did anywhere in the South before air conditioning.

 

If you're wondering why I didn't like it I'm not sure. I think it was the size of the base and what that brings. I didn't have kids at the time so maybe I would like it with kids. Austin was nust a much funnier place for a childless couple than the area around Killeen. I wanted nice restaurants and artsy movie theaters. My priorities have changed. Now I want a good library and activities for the kids.

[lovinmyboys]

The real reason I am on the fence about moving is that we will likely have to go into debt to do it and we will either have to sell our house or find a renter for it. Part of me thinks it's just money so who cares, the other part of me wants to be responsible. Honestly, I don't want to move. I want DH to be done with the army. I'm trying to gear up and have a better attitude, but right now the whole thing just seems overwhelming. There is so much to do to get the house ready to rent/sell. Plus, we have lived here for thee years and I just now feel settled. I'm not really looking forward to settling in again.

 

I like hearing the good things about the place. It makes it seem more like an adventure than a nuisance. I have never been to Texas, so exploring it a little sounds intriguing. DH and I have been talking about making traveling more of a priority for our family.

[lifesadream83]

It doesn't sound like you are on his orders, which means you should visit there if you can't afford to go. I have been both active duty and reservist and military spouse. As a rule hubby and I don

T separate stateside. However my husband is a warrant officer and he is about to attend a training course that is 5 months long and has a 75% fail rate. The children and I are not going. We made a joint decision not to so that he can focus without distraction. We will visit I'm at least once a month maybe more after he has had a chance to get set up and establish a rhythum. We have both been deployed away from our oldest and it sucks but at least she was old enough to know that we didn't want to leave her and that he was coming back. Our youngest will be 2 and that concerns us greatly. I suggest that if your kids understand the situation you wait until his unit is set up. If he will have time to spend with you all. Or if it would be better to visit. You will get 250$ per month of family separation pay if you don't go. Not that the money fixes it but it my help the pay cut situation.

[lovinmyboys]

Right, I don't want to go down there and him be so busy that we don't really see him. That's why I was hoping that maybe there were cool things to do there anyway, so it would be a good experience no matter how much we saw DH. I don't know if waiting till he is settled is an option. I am worried that I can't get the house ready to rent/sell on my own. He is much more the handyman, so if it isn't ready when he leaves, I'm not sure I could sell it. DH has deployed twice since our 2nd was born. Our four boys range from age 8-2. I'm not sure how they will handle it. The little ones probably will be fine. It is ds8 I am worried about (whether we move or not). Unfortunately, DH is taking about a 30% pay cut. It is just for the year, though. I know several people who have really gone down in income permanently, do I am trying to stay positive about it.

[Ripley]

We took each duty station on a case-by-case basis; we didn't have a blanket rule.  We joined him on three non-sponsored assignments around Asia, but he was a geographical bachelor at some stateside assignments. It just depended on what else was going on in our lives.  It worked for us. We knew families who never separated and families who settled at one base with the soldier rotating back and forth between "home" and another base. Every family has its own situation, and there's no one right/wrong way to approach this.

 

That said, I did Fort Hood the first time. I hated that place so when he went back, he went without us. In our case we had bought a home the first time, rented it out once we left, and still had it for him to live in when he returned. Two of the guys who transferred with him rented two of the extra rooms, and the fourth room was kept for us to use when visiting. That kept visits affordable and easier on me and the kids. Our property was in Copperas Cove. I preferred it to Harker Heights because we wanted more land, less neighbors.

 

My brother was stationed there much more recently, and it sure had changed a lot since we had last been there. It's more built up now, less need to hit Waco or Austin for something to do. But you still couldn't pay me to go back ;) LOL.

 

A year doesn't feel long to me, but we've had many deployments where accompanying him wasn't even an option.  I worked with a lot of reserve families who weren't used to that kind of separation, and after 9/11 when they were getting called up to AD it was a very hard adjustment for many families to make.  The soldiers I worked with had "regular" jobs, and the spouses were used to a certain level of support at home and with parenting. Soldiers who were coming from non-traditional jobs (e.g., pilots) had an easier time transitioning to AD because their spouses were used to some time apart and going it "alone". You two should discuss which camp you think your family falls into.

 

I think it's easier on kids the ages of yours to move, and that it gets harder as they get older.  Sure kids "at home" move on, but the Fort Hood community is large and active - you'll find a baseball team and most anything else you'd be leaving behind. It could be an adventure.

 

But it doesn't make you an awful wife or mother to think it's better overall for you to stay behind. You're not throwing a fit and refusing to go because you hate Texas, you're taking into account how this move might affect the whole family - from ALL angles, not just the traditional, expected "aren't families supposed to always stay together?" POV. I encourage you both to discuss it off/on over the course of several conversations, together coming up with pros and cons for each option. Resentment is the worst thing for a marriage, and will affect it more than a year spent together or apart.

 

If it were me, I'd stay home - especially given your potential to take on debt. But I have a strong family network and deep roots in the community here. As a homeschooler I have a flexible schedule to time visits as often as needed, as would you. In our case with Fort Hood, my job wasn't transferrable to the area so I took a series of leaves but had four months where I was commuting by plane twice a month (hardly ideal but I wasn't giving up my career for four months in miserable Texas!) You shop airlines for good deals, and take turns visiting - you/kids to him, then him to you/kids. You'll have better luck flying into Austin because it has more carriers. Back in the day it was a 34-seat turbo prop into Fort Hood and the new Joes with their duffle bags always bumped passengers because of weight restrictions.  It was a huge pain LOL!

 

Good luck with your decision, I know it's a tough one.

 

 

[almondbutterandjelly]

Just a plug for Texas... yes, our summers are hot, but our winters are fantastic.  If you assume really hot weather from May through September, you should also assume pretty awesome weather from October through April.  Just sayin'...

[TammyinTN]

Our family has stayed together through all moves except when it was a short schooling move.    My dd and her husband have lived at Fort Hood.  There experience was good.    We lived on the other side of TX for three years in El Paso..it was certainly an experience.   We learned and traveled a great deal.  

 

Texas is hot, but that's to be expected and you just learn to deal with it. 

[lovinmyboys]

I don't have a lot of time right now, and it's hard to explain, anyway. We just love the area. We're from a town of 2000 but feel like we fit right in here. Even though it's a huge population, pretty much everyone has a connection to someone you know. Could be because we know the old timers from living here so long.

There are several homeschool support groups and co ops. Most everywhere has a homeschool class during the day, in addition to their other clases (gymnastics, art, etc). Yours are too young, but there's even a homeschool athletic league, and they play the smaller schools.

The libraries sometimes have homeschool activities.

We prefer Killeen to Harker Heights and Cove, but I don't know why. Nolanville is nice, and we did look for a house there.

Rec center sports have a lot of offerings.

Thanks for taking the time to respond. Prayers for your DH (and you)

[Clear Creek]

The cost of living in the Ft. Hood area is just about the lowest in the entire country. Soldiers have money to spend, so the economy here is growing...there are always new restaurants opening and new houses being built. The combined population of Killeen/Ft. Hood/Harker Heights/Copperas Cove is well over 200,000, and there is an active homeschooling community here. The new (larger) hospital on Ft. Hood is almost complete, so you don't need to worry about being able to be seen for medical care.

 

Whatever you do, do *NOT* live in Killeen. There are three types of people that live in Killeen: those who have had their house broken into, those who will have their house broken into, and those that break into houses. You could not pay me to live in Killeen. Copperas Cove and Harker Heights are much better towns...Copperas Cove has a more rural feel, if you like that sort of thing.

 

Waco and Austin are only an hour away; and Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio are all less than three hours away, so you will not run out of things to do. There are tons of state parks in the area, and even a few lakes. Just for the love of all that is good, put sunscreen on when you go outside for more than a few minutes - even if it is February!

[lovinmyboys]

I would strongly advise you to go with your husband. I've know WAY too many marriages over the years, including our close friends announcing it a few weeks ago, that have broken up at the end of a separation like this. It makes it way too easy to have a separate lifestyle and have your needs fulfilled by other means. ( not sexually but conversation, etc.)

I appreciate the caution and it is something I will keep in mind. However, DH and I have more problems when we are together and stressed than we have had when we are separated. I fully admit that the army irrationally stresses me out. DH has been in our entire 12 yr marriage and I just think of it as his thing he does when he has to. He drills a few hours away, his annual trainings are away, he has been deployed three times. He is currently away at his third "annual training" of the year (I guess the army doesn't know what annual means). The army has never really been a part of *my* life. He is never a soldier while I am around. He goes and does the soldier thing. I have never even lived near an army post. I am more worried about being resentful that we moved there then I am about being apart from him. I know my attitude is in my control, but like I said I get irrational about the army. Also, I have four young children...I am pretty used to not having my needs met. Although, the youngest did just turn 2, so that may all be changing.

 

Having said all that, I really love DH. He is an awesome person, husband, and father and I don't really want to spend another year away from him. Reading the responses is really helping my attitude about the whole thing and I do think we will probably end up going there if it works out. I don't really want to live in a place with lots of home break-ins. That is one of my biggest fears.

[brehon]

Texas isn't as hot as Death Valley. ;)

Ah, but Death Valley is a dry heat.

[Mrs Mungo]

Ah, but Death Valley is a dry heat.

When it is hot enough to melt the Brookstone compass in your truck, it doesn't really matter, lol.

[bella_gitana]

Whatever you do, do *NOT* live in Killeen. There are three types of people that live in Killeen: those who have had their house broken into, those who will have their house broken into, and those that break into houses. You could not pay me to live in Killeen. Copperas Cove and Harker Heights are much better towns...Copperas Cove has a more rural feel, if you like that sort of thing.

 

We've owned a house in Killeen since 2007 and it has never been broken into. In fact our neighborhood is very quiet and safe. I often would leave my car unlocked on the driveway with no problems.

 

There are definitely areas of Killeen I would not live at, but not all of Killeen is bad. The farther away from post the better. Best areas are southern Killeen and closest to Harker Heights.

[Clear Creek]

We've owned a house in Killeen since 2007 and it has never been broken into. In fact our neighborhood is very quiet and safe. I often would leave my car unlocked on the driveway with no problems.

 

There are definitely areas of Killeen I would not live at, but not all of Killeen is bad. The farther away from post the better. Best areas are southern Killeen and closest to Harker Heights.

 

I had a very good friend that lived in Southwest Killeen (Stagecoach Rd/South WS Young area) in a home built in a new subdivision. She purposely bought a house there because it was far from Ft. Hood; her husband deployed frequently and she wanted to be safe. She only lasted two years; her car was broken into once and her home twice - the second time while she and her young daughter were asleep upstairs. Twice the perpetrators were caught; the thefts were unrelated.

 

I am probably jaded; I have known one of the undercover officers in the KPD gang unit for ten years so I know far too much about what goes on there. He may work in Killeen, but he refuses to let his family live there.

 

I am glad you live in a safe neighborhood; you lucked out. I still recommend that newcomers to the area commute the extra five minutes and live in Harker Heights or Cove because chances are they won't know that their neighborhood is unsafe until it is too late.

 

[waa510]

I will say that while we never had any issues in our neighborhood, we knew a whole lot of people who had their cars and homes broken into in Killeen. I personally did not care for Killeen at all. I was always surprised to find how many people retired there. :/ It was nice to be an hour from Austin, though. I'd choose Cove over Killeen any day.