The Army^[1] is pulling some household goods shipments belonging to its personnel out of the military's new privatized system that manages moves due to "contract performance issues," according to the service and the military command overseeing the system.

A memo from the Army Personal Property Lead Element, dated Feb. 28, told transportation offices to "pull back" some Army shipments from the new system, which has been in the works for years and was meant to solve widespread dissatisfaction among military families over permanent change-of-station^[2] moves.

As of February, at least 1,000 of the 8,900 shipments initiated under the single company contracted to oversee all Department of Defense moves, HomeSafe Alliance, had experienced problems, according to figures released by U.S. Transportation Command and the company.

Read Next: Pentagon Caps Civilians' Government Charge Cards at $1, Limits Travel as Part of Trump Cuts^[3]

In recent months, service members and transportation offices have begun requesting and managing moves through the department's new MilMove app and the corresponding HomeSafe Connect app.

HomeSafe carried out only localized "test moves" during the 2024 peak moving season and began moving military households between U.S. bases in the fall, adding new bases incrementally.

Military families have reported delays and cancellations^[4] of the privately managed household goods shipments, including instances of crews never showing up to pack their belongings, despite receiving confirmation messages, as well as waiting indefinitely to receive their items at their new home, Military.com reported in January.

The PCS^[5] moves are a staple of life for troops, families and civilian defense workers. The regular moves are often a long, drawn-out and stressful process -- even without hiccups and disruptions in the pickup, shipment and delivery of all their household belongings.

Transportation Command, which oversees the HomeSafe contract, and the military services have since "noted contract performance issues," the command told Military.com in a statement in reference to the Army's memo.

The command added that the Army memo "outlines additional control measures to mitigate further impacts^[6] to service members and their families in the near term."

As of late January, Transportation Command estimated that about 1,000 shipments had been affected by problems such as communication, missed pickups and missed deliveries, but couldn't share more specific performance statistics, citing "the nature of the contract."

HomeSafe announced Feb. 19 that it had completed 1,400 shipments. The DoD provides approximately 400,000 household goods moves^[7] each year to service members and their families, amounting to about 15% of all U.S. moves and making the military the industry's largest customer. Most military moves take place in late spring or summer.

The Army's memo said the change affected only its personnel and that the other services had "not made additional determinations on shipment management."

The memo requires transportation offices to book Army moves in the legacy Defense Personal Property System -- the system set to be replaced by the privatized contract -- if the moves don't give HomeSafe at least 21 days of lead time.

The Army offices will also re-book in that old system any moves within the 21-day window that don't already have movers assigned by HomeSafe.

In a statement to Military.com, HomeSafe said it requested a lead time of at least 21 days "in this program's early and developmental stages ... to provide us enough time to book high-quality movers on necessary dates."

The statement said HomeSafe apologized "to every family affected by capacity-related delays, and we are dedicated to providing timely service going forward. HomeSafe is taking all the lessons learned and continually improving our systems and processes, including enhancing our customer care operations, updating our technology platform, reshaping our training program for service providers and hiring additional employees."

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., sent a letter^[8] Feb. 26 to Gen. Randall Reed, head of Transportation Command, requesting a briefing on the issues including HomeSafe Alliance's capacity to provide moves, citing reports by his constituents and in the press of issues with moves.

Related: Military Families Report No-Shows, Delays Amid Rollout of New Household Goods Shipment System^[9]

Amid mass firings, the Pentagon has effectively put a halt on the use of travel and purchasing credit cards by its civilian employees and ordered any workers currently traveling to return as soon as possible, according to a pair of memos issued this week.

One memo puts a $1 limit on the government cards, which renders them mostly useless and will likely bar employees from making a wide range of purchases related to work with the Defense Department. The restrictions come as the Pentagon is firing 5,400 civilian employees -- with plans to reduce its workforce by 5% to 8% as part of the Trump administration's ongoing effort to dramatically remake the government.

Workers at agencies across the federal government have been hit with the government charge card cap at the behest of billionaire Elon Musk^[1], who is also firing tens of thousands of other federal employees and slashing agencies through his so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, with the blessing of President Donald Trump. The president ordered cost-cutting measures for government employees in an executive order^[2] on Feb. 26.

Read Next: Pentagon's No. 2 Spokesperson Has Long History of Antisemitic, Bigoted Social Media Posts^[3]

The Pentagon's acting head of acquisition and sustainment, Steven Morani, issued the memo ordering the virtual halt^[4] in the use of government purchase cards by civilian employees.

In that memo, the Pentagon temporarily reduced the spending limit to $1 on all government purchase cards, which are normally used to streamline purchasing things as basic as office supplies to items as expensive as $10,000^[5].

"The use of government-issued [government purchase card] accounts to fund activities initiated on or before Feb. 26, 2025, will cease as soon as feasible within the bounds of law," the memo read.

It is not immediately clear what impact the cap on charges will have on Pentagon operations.

The purchase card memo does make exemptions for "disaster relief or natural disaster response benefits or operations, or other critical services," or on existing contracts that remain active until April 9.

Another memo -- this time from Darin Selnick, who is performing the duties of under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness -- restricting travel for civilian workers came a day after the restriction on government charge cards.

"Effective immediately, the use of all government-issued travel charge cards by DoD civilian employees is suspended for all travel that is not exempted," Selnick's memos says^[6].

The only exemption, according to that memo, is for "direct support of military operations or a permanent change of station^[7]," known as a PCS^[8] move.

It is not clear what the broader impact of the new travel ban will be or how much money it would save the department. Musk's DOGE has claimed widespread savings as it hacks its way through the federal government, but many of the claims have been inaccurate or unsupported.

On Monday, the Pentagon's top spokesman said that Musk's team of aides, who were recently granted access to the department, had made cuts that "probably" saved $80 million but only provided examples that support $13 million in cuts -- a minuscule fraction of the department's roughly $840 billion annual budget.

Some effects of Musk cuts have already been seen.

Military.com has learned^[9] that civilian workers in at least four agencies -- the Defense Health Agency, Defense Logistics Agency, the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, and the Navy^[10] -- were fired this week.

"Gosh, it was insanely impersonal. We were not allowed the opportunity to ask questions, nothing. It was basically, 'Here it is. You have questions? Ask your supervisors,' who were also in the dark, by the way," said one DHA employee, who requested anonymity out of hope that she may be reinstated.

In another example, Hill Air Force Base^[11] in Utah is scaling back its child development centers due to the Trump and Musk job cuts, meaning Gold Star spouses^[12] and other defense employees were expected to lose child care as soon as this week^[13].

Military.com reported^[14] Tuesday that the Air and Space Forces Association Warfare Symposium in Aurora, Colorado -- one of just two major professional development conferences for the two services -- had noticeably lower attendance than in previous years.

Officials confirmed to Military.com that Trump's order was behind the decreased numbers and that they limited attendance to only people who had a "direct role" in the conference in order to comply with "the spirit of the president's executive order."

Related: Firings Begin at the Pentagon: Veterans, Civil Servants Caught in the Crosshairs^[15]