Emergency Leave

Service members may use emergency leave if they suffer from an unexpected situation that prevents them from working, including family emergencies, medical complications, or a loved one’s death. All such instances require service members to notify their chain of command, but requests are often quickly approved and counted against their leave balance. Emergency travel tends to be expensive and requires arduous planning for service members. Yet Luke’s Wings provides comprehensive travel support and resources for service people and their families. For example, we help transport families to military hospitals if their loved one has suffered an injury in combat or training.

Expanded Parental Leave: Following the birth of a child, many military personnel need time away from work to focus on caring for their newborn. Expanded parental leave is a non-chargeable leave that applies to the mother and their legal partner at the start of a qualifying event like childbirth. Service members can receive 12 weeks of parental leave and request additional time for physical recovery after giving birth. Other qualifying events for expanded parental leave include adoption or long-term foster care of a minor.

Convalescent Leave After an illness or injury, service members can request extra time to ensure recovery. They must seek approval from a doctor and their chain of command to do so, but this type of leave does not count against a leave balance since the military wants its personnel to return to work in good health. That said, the requested convalescent leave must be under 30 days.