Use it or loose it

Every year hundreds if not thousands of Marines and service members loose accrues leave due to the fact that you can only carry over a leave balance of 60 days from one fiscal year to the next.  So any days of leave over 60 that you had on Sept 30 are lost on Oct 1st.  Prior to the War on Terrorism this policy did not effect many personnel because op tempos were slower.

Higher Op Tempos

Over the past 5 years most service members have realized a much higher op tempo not just deployments but also training for these deployments.  This increased op tempo has led to many service members having lost accrued days of leaves.

Congress comes to our rescue

With the 2008 Defense Authorization Act all troops will be able to carry over 75 days leave from one fiscal year to the next.  These changes will be in effect until Dec 31, 2010.  So if you have more than 60 days come Oct 1, 2011 you will loose those days (As a betting man I will say that gets extended).

Combat Zone

If you are deployed to a combat zone for 120 consecutive days or more you will now have 4 years vice 3 to get your balance back under the 75.

Jarheads Thoughts:

Awesome about damn time.  With Marines, Sailors, & Soldiers* deploying for up to 15 months at a time (not including work-ups) and accruing 42.5 days during one deployment it is nice to see that we will have a better chance to use this leave instead of losing it.  When you are always in the field prepping to go it is hard to take that leave especially if you are a Senior Enlisted when it is hard to take a week off much less a month. 

*Note- I purposely left the AF out because I dont think they deploy for more than 4 months at a time.  I mean they are the AF.

Related posts:

  1. The Money is Running Out