Making your marriage military official

Now that you’ve married your military man, you need to enroll in Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System (DEERS). DEERS grants you access to Tricare (the military health care system), the Post Exchange (PX = military Wal-Mart), the Commissary (military grocery store), and qualifies your beloved for dependent’s pay (bigger paychecks), among other things. Talk to most Army wives, and you’ll hear horror stories of waiting in the DEERS office for four hours because they lost their ID card. At Fort Bragg, the DEERS office and finance office are in the Soldier Support Center.

Fortunately, DEERS offices schedule appointments. NO MATTER THE SITUATION, MAKE AN APPOINTMENT!!!! I don’t mean to yell via Caps Lock. This will save you tons of time. That link also lists all the information you will need to bring in order to enroll. Again, make sure you have everything. We made an 8:30 appointment, arrived at 8:00ish, and were seen at just about 8:30.

Since all our ducks (paperwork) were in a row, the enrollment process was quick and painless. Honestly, we spent more time chatting with the gentleman in the office than anything else. I posed for my new ID picture which was, as usual, hideous. Generally speaking, my driver’s license photos are reasonably decent, while my DOD photos are an unpleasant magnification of my large nose and double chin. After you’re done in DEERS, your next stop is the finance office. A few more forms, and you’re officially married (according to the Army)!