Wednesday, February 16, 2005 2:11 AM
ryanseals
R&R
Ahhh, those are two beautiful letters, I must say.
I've got R&R on the brain. Ryan recently was informed that his R&R leave would be in April. I'm beside myself with excitment, but I also found that I'm curious about the whole thing works -- travel from the base to where they fly out of (Kuwait?); how the traveling process works; how often the dates they are given for R&R actually stand, etc.
So I thought this might be a good opportunity to open up a discussion about other soldiers' R&R leave. We could all learn a little more about how it works in the process.
I tend to worry myself to death about things because I want to be home for every single second that Ryan is (I live about four hours from our hometowns) and want him to have the best time possible. Basically, I've learned to be flexible, and I'm blessed to have understanding people in my personal and work life to help me through.
So, what are everyone's experiences with R&R leave? I'll pose a few questions and leave the rest of the talking up to you. (Feel free to add onto them or elaborate as you wish.)
1. What's the basic travel process -- I've heard you get a certain number of days to travel, about 14 days home, and a certain number of days travel back. Where do they fly you to, and how far in advance do you know you'll be arriving -- or do you know at all?
2. I know that this is different in every case and probably hard to answer, but how much is the variation between the dates a soldier is told he'll be home and the dates he's actually home?
3. How are the dates the soldier comes home chosen -- does he give a time frame he'd like, and then the dates are assigned to him based on availability?
4. How long does it take to recover from the jet lag?
5. And out of curiosity, what's the first thing those of you who are in the Armed Forces want (or wanted) to do when you get/got home?
I've probably left out a few things, so feel free to add on. Ryan's R&R leave is something I'm looking forward to so much, as I'm sure everyone does. I'm very grateful he is able to have it -- no matter when it may be or even if it may change 9,000 times (though that would probably be aggravating)! I'll be waiting at the airport waving a flag and ready to squeeze the daylights out of him, either way. :-)
-- Christy