Advice from Military folks who lived overseas...

Hey, I'm moving back to the states in 3 months. Any ideas if I'll be able to ship 110lbs of grain with my household goods? Its sealed in the bag from the manufacturer still. If not, anyone want to buy it? 30 euro each 55lb bag... one wheat, one pils.

When I moved back in '04 I had a couple locked foot lockers and they asked if that was Army equipment, I said yes, and they left it alone.

You would be better off putting it in sealed containers. What they worry mostly about is feeding the rodents on the ship and them ruining your furniture, etc.

When you say "household goods" are you married living in housing or single living in the barracks?

I know when I shipped back in '92 they did not question what I had, they just shipped it. But I was married and therefore had much more stuff.

Married, lotsa stuff.

seefresh said:

Married, lotsa stuff.

Click to expand...

Yeah...18,000 lbs...I know.

My wife tried to use every pound with crystal and Polish pottery THEN had the gall to tell me I had too many German beer racks and bottles, mugs and glasses...HA! Fooled her!!!

Like I said, they packed the beer and cases, but not the mini-kegs. So...after they left for the day I turned a couple boxes upside down, opened them, re-arranged a few things, put the kegs in the boxes UPSIDE DOWN, resealed and turned the boxes upright (now the kegs were upright also) and marked the boxes with the word "TOP" and an arrow.

Not one drop was spilled...:rockin:

When I left Okinawa I shipped 1000 lbs of blonde mahogany (wood). They wanted to call it construction material and not ship it. I called it art supplies and had some PACAF awards to to prove it. Took a bit of wrangling, but they shipped it.

Call the grain art supplies

I shipped back 8 cases of Hefeweizen in a container (though I'm not in the military). If you tell them it is grain, that's a no-no and they will go through everything if it makes it back only to get confiscated at customs.

Household goods, is the way to label it.

You can likely get away with it, but it's not gonna fly if the movers or customs find out what it is.

You could probably mail it back to someone in the states using about 3 separate boxes labeled appropriately for customs (art supplies, memorabilia, etc).

Also, if you can pick your port of entry for your goods, pick a port that is large and busy. Most likely it will sail through unopened.