FRS Holiday Leave for a Wedding

[TnSig]

Ladies and Gents,

Can anyone who has recently been a student in the rotary FRS squadrons comment on whether or not Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years leave was granted and how it was structured? Or how SERE school might play into the mix and get holiday leave denied? I'm classing up for rotary advanced very soon and am trying to plan a wedding. Should be winging in September-October I assume. Planning the ceremony right next to Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Years seemed like the safest bet to get approved leave to make it home, as I have heard leave in FRS even for your own wedding may be hard to get approved. My fiancé and I are pulling our hair just trying to nail down a single weekend to book a venue, but everything about the pipeline is so difficult to predict.

Thanks for your help!

 

[Gatordev]

It's always going to depend on where you are in the Time-to-Train machine, but generally speaking, at least for the HSM side for both coasts...

Over the last few years, studs get the holiday leave period off, or if they don't get the whole period off, they get a large chunk of it off. Assuming you're not a completer, the TtT timeline takes into account the 2 weeks during the Xmas/New Years holidays.

Thanksgiving is generally a 96 (Thursday-Sunday).

 

[Sonog]

I think a two week christmas leave block is pretty much a sure bet at the FRS. At HSC-3 you chose one of two leave blocks in either december or january. Hell, if you're getting married I'm pretty sure you can probably get custom leave that would cross over the blocks if you needed. I'm not stucon so ultimately its up to them to decide, but bring it up with stucon immediately upon check-in.

 

[SynixMan]

In 2012, HSC-2 gave me 10 days to get married in October. I think you'll be good if you let them know ASAP on checking in.

Oh, and buy trip/wedding insurance and negotiate a military clause into your contracts. This was easier in places not close to military hubs when we did it. Always good to have a fallback plan when you're putting out serious cash.

 

[AllYourBass]

HSM-40 may or may not grant you wedding leave. My buddy told the squadron right when he checked in (around Summer 2015) that he was getting married in some months and they were very hesitant to grant him any leave, but at the end of it all, I believe they gave him four or five days. However, the squadron has made a big deal about an increase in production lately, and it isn't unlikely for students to be double-scheduled or scheduled on Saturdays. I'd imagine it's even tougher now to get leave during training periods.

If you tuck your wedding date within the Christmas leave block, your chances will improve markedly. The way holiday leave worked this time was a division into two blocks: One group of classes got something like Dec. 16 - 28 and the next group got something like the Dec. 29 - Jan. 11 (not exact numbers). If your wedding fell in one of those blocks, I'm positive they'd grant you the appropriate leave block.

For anyone still in flight school who reads this thread, "terrain masking" your wedding with holidays is probably your best best in Primary/Advanced/FRS for being able to stretch out the wedding break. During Advanced, I got married within five days of Christmas and I was able to spend a week in Paris afterward (good luck with Paris at the moment, but still).