I guess that must be the case.\u00a0 DoD has decided to play around with R&R leave rules.<\/p>\n
Yeah – again.<\/p>\n
Now, it seems as if anyone who deploys prior to 1 June 2014 to \u201cthe land areas of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan\u201d will be \u201cgrandfathered\u201d for R&R<\/a>.\u00a0 Specifically, it means if you deploy before 1 June 2014, you\u2019ll be authorized non-chargeable R&R leave, complete with paid transportation to\/from the leave location.<\/p>\n Deploy on or after 1 June 2014 to those areas, and you\u2019re SOL.<\/p>\n The reason those 9 areas were losing R&R authorization was that they\u2019re also losing \u201ccombat zone\u201d designation on 1 June 2014 \u2013 and thus most \u201ccombat zone\u201d bennies.\u00a0 They still are.<\/p>\n Personally, I think that\u2019s long overdue.\u00a0 If there have been shots fired in anger in any of those 9 countries during the past decade, I certainly haven\u2019t heard of it.\u00a0 They\u2019ve IMO been nothing but a remote unaccompanied tour for at least that long.<\/p>\n Sheesh.\u00a0 It seems to me that using a little common sense was all that was required vice yet another exception to policy.\u00a0 Specifically:\u00a0 if you had spent enough time to qualify for R&R under the \u201cold rules\u201d as of 1 June 2014 (6+ months, if I recall correctly), then you should get R&R.\u00a0 If not \u2013 well, as JFK said, \u201cLife is not fair.\u201d\u00a0 Maybe that\u2019s just me.<\/p>\n But I do have to wonder how anyone reporting in on 1 June is going to feel now when the guy or gal who got there a week earlier goes on R&R \u2013 and they realize they won\u2019t get to do the same.<\/p>\n Still, it\u2019s nice to see that DoD has a bunch of extra money laying around.\u00a0 They must have in order to pay for things like this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"