Marines have a year to burn up more of their leave time or risk losing it.
The 75-day carryover troops have had for much of the last decade will drop to 60 days Sept. 30, 2015, when Defense Department leave rules expire. That could leave many with an extra 15 days of leave that will evaporate unless Marines either take it as vacation or cash out.
With high operational deployment during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, troops were allowed to bank an extra 15 days of leave per year. Now that the conflict in Afghanistan is winding down, the max Marines will be allowed to carry over will fall back to 60 days.
Many Marines likely have more than 60 days of carryover accumulated. That could be a burden for units that may find more of their Marines taking more leave than usual in the months to come as they scramble to meet the new regulation before the year is out.
Marines will have another option though and don’t necessarily have to hit the road to benefit from their extra leave. Defense Department personnel can sell extra leave back to the service. For each day of leave, Marines receive a day’s worth of basic pay. But they have to be proactive and trim their carryover down to 60 days before the start of the next fiscal year on Oct. 1, 2015.
There is one important restriction on selling leave back to the service, however. You can only get paid for up to 60 days.
There is help for some Marines and sailors still deploying this fiscal year, though.
Those who serve in dangerous areas may qualify for an exception that will still permit them to carry over leave in excess of 60 days. The full rules can be found in Military Personnel Manual article 1050-070, located on the Navy Personnel Command website, but the exception is intended for those who go into harms way.
While combat operations in Afghanistan are winding down, there are Marines deployed around the globe to places that qualify for hostile fire pay or imminent danger pay of $225 per month. Those are areas where service members could be killed or wounded by hostile actions in countries including Haiti, Liberia, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, among many more.
