When you PCS, you choose between a government-arranged move, the military books and pays a contracted carrier, or a Personally Procured Move (PPM, formerly DITY), where you organize it yourself and get reimbursed based on what the government would have paid. A PPM gives you control over dates, crew, and how your belongings are handled, and you can hire a professional company like Gorilla Movers and still come out ahead. The non-negotiables are certified weight tickets and starting the process the day you have orders in hand.
San Diego is a military town, and moving here reflects it
Naval Base San Diego is the largest homeport on the West Coast. Add NAS North Island across the bay, MCAS Miramar up the 15, and Camp Pendleton anchoring the north county, and you get a region where tens of thousands of service members rotate in and out on orders every year. Military moves are a specialty for us, not a sideline, our warehouse sits in Miramar, minutes from the air station, and PCS jobs have been part of our weekly schedule since 2008.
That matters because a PCS move is not a regular move with a flag on it. It runs on paperwork, weight, and deadlines that civilian moves never touch. The families who have the smoothest PCS experiences are the ones who understand the two paths available to them before they pick one.
Government-arranged vs. PPM: the honest comparison
A government-arranged move (the traditional HHG move) means the military's system assigns a contracted carrier, schedules your pack-out, and pays the bill directly. You do the least work, and you also get the least control. Your dates are the carrier's dates, your crew is whoever shows up, and pack-out and delivery windows can shift. Plenty of families have fine experiences; plenty of others have stories.
A Personally Procured Move (PPM, old-timers still say DITY) flips that. You arrange the move yourself, the government reimburses you based on a percentage of what it would have cost them to move your weight, and you keep the difference if you do it for less. Renting a truck maximizes the payout but costs you your last free weekend on station and your lower back. The middle path most people don't realize exists: hire a professional crew under a PPM. You control the dates, real movers do the lifting, your belongings ride in one truck with one crew, and depending on your weight allowance and what we quote, the reimbursement can still cover most or all of it. We'll give you the written quote within one business hour so you can run that math before you commit either direction.
| Factor | Government-arranged (HHG) | PPM with a hired crew |
|---|---|---|
| Who schedules | Assigned carrier, their timeline | You pick the date; we hold it |
| Who handles your stuff | Contracted crew, unknown to you | Uniformed Gorilla employees, never day labor |
| Your effort | Low, mostly waiting | Moderate, paperwork and weight tickets |
| Payment | Government pays carrier directly | You pay, government reimburses per your claim |
| Control if things slip | Limited | High, it's your contract |
Weight tickets: the paperwork that pays you
PPM reimbursement is calculated on the certified weight of your household goods, which means weight tickets are the whole ballgame. You need an empty (tare) weight of the vehicle before loading and a full (gross) weight after, from a certified scale, with the tickets showing date, location, and vehicle ID. Lose them and you're fighting for your reimbursement with one hand tied.
There are certified public scales around San Diego County, and we can point you to ones near our routes. Get more copies than you think you need, photograph every ticket the moment it's printed, and keep receipts for everything move-related, packing materials, rentals, fuel, since some expenses factor into your claim. Your transportation office (and the Defense Personal Property System, where PPMs are initiated) will tell you exactly what your claim requires; follow their checklist, not a forum post from four years ago.
Timing around orders, and around everyone else's orders
The moment you have orders in hand, start. Report dates have a way of feeling far away right up until they don't, and the PCS surge runs May through August, the exact window when carriers, rental trucks, and moving crews across San Diego are at their most booked. Our same-week availability holds better than most because we staff for the surge, but even we'll tell you: a family that calls three weeks out gets their pick of dates, and a family that calls three days out gets what's left.
Two timing tricks from years of PCS work. First, if your household goods can leave before your report date, a mid-week move beats the month-end scramble every time. Second, if you're heading to base housing with a wait-list gap, our Miramar storage vaults can hold everything between homes, a shorter, cheaper bridge than paying for a rushed double move.
Base access: what movers can and can't do
Civilian crews don't just drive onto a base. Access requires advance coordination, sponsor arrangements or visitor passes for the crew, vehicle inspection at the gate, current ID for every mover, and time built in for all of it. Each installation runs its own procedures, and housing areas (on-base and privatized housing alike) may add their own rules on top.
We've been through those gates for years, so we plan for the inspection line instead of being surprised by it, and we tell you exactly what your sponsor coordination needs to cover. If your move is off-base to off-base, common, since so many military families live in Chula Vista, Santee, Oceanside, and Murrieta, none of this applies and it's a standard local move with a very punctual customer.
How we support PCS families
Practically, it looks like this: a written quote within one business hour so your PPM math starts immediately; hourly rates with fuel itemized, because reimbursement claims want clean paperwork; crews of uniformed employees; free wardrobe-box use on local moves; live-tracking texts on move day so you're not guessing where the truck is while juggling a check-in appointment; and storage in Miramar for housing gaps. We've supported thousands of military families among our 25,120+ moves, and the 97.9% repeat-and-referral rate includes a lot of second and third PCS cycles with the same names on the paperwork.