I'm curious how the Army handles the 30 days of vacation that is promised. I've seen that you are allowed to accumulate 90 days (which I doubt I'd ever do).

1. What is the process for requesting time off? Is it difficult to get your requested dates and plan in advance?

2. How soon after all your training is done are you allowed to put in for time?

3. Are there any restrictions on what you are allowed to do while on vacation? i.e. restrictions on travel to foreign countries?

You earn 2.5 days each month. So you don't start off with 30 days right off the bat, you earn those days monthly. With deployment rotations as they are right now, most units use the block leave method. This means they designate a time when Soldiers can go on leave and at this time ALL Soldiers in the unit are given the opportunity to take time off. Soldiers can choose whether they want to go at this time or not but if they choose not to, they might not have a chance to go on leave for a while. Like anything else there is always room for exception and if time and mission allow it, you can request leave anytime and it's up to the Commanders to approve. They will take into consideration the reason you are requesting leave and what is on the training calendar for the unit.

Usually after completion of AIT, they allow Soldiers to take up to 10 days leave (mind you, most Soldiers haven't even earned this much leave so they advance you leave). And that advancement is up to the commander.

There are no real restrictions when you are on leave, it's your time to do what you want, just be smart about the choices you make.

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Armygirl4ever,
Proudly Serving in the Silent (okay, maybe not always so silent) Ranks

Where you are allowed to go on leave is ultimately up to your company commander. As long as it's not a country dangerous for Americans I doubt you'd be denied.

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US Army Corporal

Many units are going to the blanket leave system where everybody except for a few go on leave at the same time. This is due to training/deployment tempos.

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I was a Soldier. I am a Soldier. I will always be a Soldier.

What about extra earned leave time? My soldier opted to recruit during his time off after BCT before going to Korea, and that earned him an extra 2 weeks of leave time. However, he has tried twice now to take it, but his request keeps being denied. He wanted to take it with his leave that is coming up in June (so that he would have more than the 25 days they are giving him...which leads me to another question, why does he only get 25 and not 30?). Is the reason he can't use it because he isn't technically "deployed" that this is "only a PCS"?

Leave is not based on whether a Soldier is deployed or not. I've never heard of there being two extra weeks of leave for hometown recruiting, what I do know is that it's basically two weeks of extra time at home that is not charged to the Soldier. That is most likely the reason that his extra leave continues to be denied.

I don't know how long your Soldier has been in the Army but he may not have earned 30 days yet. He only gets 2.5 every month so if he hasn't earned 30 days yet then he doesn't have enough days to go in and commander's don't usually encourage Soldiers to go in the hole too much.

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Armygirl4ever,
Proudly Serving in the Silent (okay, maybe not always so silent) Ranks

He wouldn't have put all that time into hometown recruiting if he wasn't getting compensated for it. He only had those 2 weeks before he had to go to Korea, and they gave him the option of hometown recruiting to earn extra time later. I'll talk to him about it more next time he has off...

He's been in the Army since he graduated high school 1 year ago (in June). He has definitely earned 30 days. He has been given the orders that he is allowed to leave on June 1st, and is to be back on base on June 25th (meaning he has to leave June 24th at the absolute latest). Again, I'll ask him for more specifics to see what is going on...Thank you!

He was compensated for it, he got two weeks "home" without being charged leave. That's one of the reasons they use it as an incentive. Soldiers haven't earned much leave by the time they graduate from Basic/AIT, and this is 14 "free" days.

I would definitely talk to him and ask him, sounds to me like there may have been a misunderstanding of this "free" leave.

And one last thing about how many days of leave he gets...it's up to the commander whether to approve that or not, there may be training that is happening that requires him to be back at a certain time, who knows..but ultimately it's up to the commander.

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Armygirl4ever,
Proudly Serving in the Silent (okay, maybe not always so silent) Ranks

We figured it all out! There was a major misunderstanding between him and whoever, which led to him giving me wrong information. You are right (not that i fully doubted you...just really confused between 2 people). He had hrep, and b/c he was doing that, he didn't have to report to Korea immediately after BCT. Of course, now he is "in the hole" 10 days, since he requested the 10 days he thought he earned, they advanced him those days...but he'll be able to make it up later.

Again, thank you so much for helping us understand all of this!

Glad you guys got it all figured out!

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Armygirl4ever,
Proudly Serving in the Silent (okay, maybe not always so silent) Ranks