Would a soldier get leave to come home from a short deployment if his wife is having a baby?

Question

My husband and I are trying to get pregnant again, and we're doing everything we can to try and time it for before he leaves, but he will be deploying at some point next year. He told me that because the deployment is less than a year, only nine months, that he won't be getting a midtour leave. Does that mean that they won't let him come home if I'm having a baby?
The last time he deployed five years ago, he was gone for a full year, and we had a baby about 7 months in, and he was able to time his midtour leave to be home for the baby. Would he not be able to do that if the deployment is only nine months?

Answer 1

that is correct. they no longer have R&R because the tours are 9 months or less. this is a huge cost savings for the taxpayers. that also means he will NOT get leave to be there for the birth. women have been having babies for centuries without their husbands being there to witness it, and so it will be for you.



you were very lucky to have him there the first time. R&R usually is scheduled for the half-way point, and he was almost at the end of his tour.



he will not be granted leave from a deployment. *IF he were close (like deployed a few hours away) a commander MIGHT be a humanitarian. but, if he is deployed downrange, he will be there the complete tour.



when i was in afghansitan, we had this very thing happen. best we could do was arrange a skype link so he could 'participate' in that way and give him some privacy. but that was the best we could do. his baby was crawling before he met his daughter

Answer 2

I agree with AD. I have seen instances where people could go home to be with spouses giving birth or having an operation done (I was almost one, but my wife's surgery was rescheduled until after I returned). However, it will all depend on your chain of command. The shorter the deployment, the lower the odds; but back in the day it happened occasionally when the USAF was on four month rotations in Kuwait for OSW.



That being said, do not count on him being home; be prepared for a "No" answer from his chain.

Answer 3

No he will not be able to come home when you have the baby. As last time he was gone longer than 365 days he was given 2 weeks of R&R. So this time it will not be happening as it is 9 months or less. Only way he would come home is if a family emergency and granted by the unit. That means be prepared to have the child on your own just like thousands of other ladies do.

Answer 4

umm NO. not unless you or junior is in imminent danger of dying will he be allowed to leave a deployment area just because you give birth.



Newsflash: during WW2, soldiers never saw their kids at all until they came home at the ned of the war. no piddly little 6 month deployments then. in many cases junior was already potty trained by then.

Answer 5

If the spouse calls in a Red Cross message the other person may get to leave for about two weeks. I got emergency leave while in Iraq. They combined my emergency leave with my vacation and I got to stay home for a month. My Red Cross message was that my mom needed help due to her being ill and my little sister being ill. It was up to my commander and he approved it. A guy I was there with had a baby born and he didn't get to come home. He watched it on skype but I'm not sure if his wife tried calling in a Red Cross message. If there are no medical issues then I'm not sure it'd be approved.



Edit: How can u call me a liar? I’m like five years too late in my response but my mom was ill and my sister had a kidney disease. Think before you speak on what you don’t know. 

Answer 6

Assume that you will be delivering your child alone. You are making that choice, normal policy is Emergency Leave only while deployed and his Command is under NO obligation to even give the issue consideration.



It's your choice, so don't get angry when you are there on your own.

Answer 7

Whether or not he will be allowed to come home depends on his chain of command. Unless he is considered too important to the mission to send back, such as him being a commander or the only person in his unit with a specific MOS that they need, they will probably let him return.



Before the thumbs down start pouring in from people that think that he's going to miss it no matter what, I've seen the brigade commander's driver get sent home from Baghdad two months before everybody else so he would make it back before his wife gave birth. This was before we even started doing R&R.



*I see that five people think that I am a moron that doesn't know what he is talking about. That's alright, keep believing that. As long as my soldiers have the correct information about it being commander's discretion and aren't going off of second hand information coming from military spouses from different branches of the military then I'm fine even if you give me ten thumbs down. I've seen several soldiers sent home early so they could be there for the birth of their child and I've seen one that was sent home for a week from Kuwait less than 30 days before we crossed the border to go into Iraq in 2003 but yet I don't know anything...



Just to put in perspective in real-life ARMY situations (can't speak for Navy), on one situation we had a guy go home for R&R on the first flight back and ended up getting his wife pregnant on leave. His wife was due a month before we got back and he was put on the first flight home so he would make the birth. No complications to her life or the baby were present. He was an E-4 who in the grand scheme of the mission wasn't very important. On the other hand, in Afghanistan our OIC's wife was having a baby. Since he was important to the mission he watched his daughter born on Skype because the chain of command needed him there for the mission. Not all non-emergency requests are going to be denied like some people are thinking here but at the same time I wouldn't guarantee going home either.

Answer 8

unknown and unknowable. circumstances at the time will determine