Careers: Military--Army, Navy, Airforce, Marines, Coast Guard/Early Release to Further Education

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Expert: Rod Powers - 11/20/2007


Question
Hello Mr. Powers,
 I'm a First Class Petty Officer in the US Navy and I'm closely approaching my EAOS. I'm try desperately to finish the last few credit I need to get my Bachelors Degree and I'm finding it more and more difficult to accomplish this task with surge deployments and the regular training cycle. My question specifically is in regards to MILPERSMAN 1910-108 Early Release to Further Education and how it would or could co-inside with terminal leave.  This is complete hypothetical of course, but assuming my CO authorized my early release at 90 days prior to my EAOS. What do I do with all my saved leave? Am I supposed to burn it before just like I would prior to my EAOS? Or do I forfeit may leave because I'm separating earlier then my original EAOS? Again hypothetically we'll say that my EAOS is Nov, my release date then becomes Aug, and we'll say that I have 70 leave days on the books so I would go on terminal leave in June and Separate in Aug? I realize this is all pending the CO approval, assuming he doesn’t say that I’m detrimental to the accomplishment of the commands mission. Thank you for your help in advance.

Very respectfully,
Tom


Answer
Hi Tom,

Under the regulation, you can be released (up to) 90 days early from your normal ETS to attend further education. The regulation also states that this period cannot be expanded due to leave.

If released early due to early separation for education, you can either sell back (up to) 30 days leave, and/or you can take terminal leave for the early separation period.

In other words, the MAXIMUM time you could be released early from your EAOS is 90 days. If you have leave saved, it would have to be taken during that 90 days (you can't use "terminal leave" to extend the 90 days), or the leave would have to be "sold" back (everyone can "sell" up to 30 days of leave during a career...... for every day of leave you "sell," you receive one day's worth of base pay).

For more information about the United States Military, feel free to visit my U.S. Military information site at: http://usmilitary.about.com

Hope this helps!

Rod Powers
http://usmilitary.about.com

Careers: Military--Army, Navy, Airforce, Marines, Coast Guard

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Rod Powers

Expertise

Rod Powers is considered one of the premire experts about U.S. Military career information on the planet. He has more than 30,000 articles about U.S. Military career information on the About.com U.S. Military Careers Information website at: http://usmilitary.about.com. Additionally, he is the author of "ASVAB for Dummies," "ASVAB AFQT for Dummies," (available in Dec 2009), and "Veteran Benefits for Dummies," all published by Wiley Publishing. He is also the author of "Barrons' Guide to Officer Candidate School Tests," published by Barron's Educational Series.

Experience

Rod Powers is a retired Air Force first sergeant, with 23 years of active duty service, 11 of those years as an Air Force First Sergeant. He has helped thousands of military members, recruits, and military applicants since he took over the About.com U.S Military Careers Information site in 1999. He has a reputation for "telling it like it is," so questions may not be answered based on "what you want to hear," but will be answered based of the bast available information, concerning the service/situation.

Education/Credentials
Rod is a distinguished graduate of the Air Force Noncommissioned Officers Academy, the Air Force Senior Noncommissioned Officer Academy, and the Air Force First Sergeant Academy. He also holds an Associates Degree in Personnel Administration from the Community College of the Air Force (CCAF).

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