My husband is in Korea and has a soldier who’s wife just got put in the hospital. The state came and took his kids into custody since there was no one to care for them. He got a Red Cross message about all this and is going home on Emergency Leave. Red Cross is saying that the Army will pay for his ticket home and the unit is saying that he has to pay for it out of his own pocket.
I remembered that several years ago when my husband was deployed to Saudi that the Army paid for his flight home on Emergency Leave when our daughter was hospitalized.
I’m not sure if things have changed since then or if the unit is being lazy/not wanting to pay, but my husband is trying to find this E3 a way home without having to get a $ 1500 loan for the plane ticket. Anyone have any idea who pays for Emergency Leave tickets? Any regs that cover this?
I had another user email me a good website and after a little digging I found this in Army Regulation 55–46 which deals with Travel Overseas:
Table 7–4
Emergency Leave Travel when the solider is stationed OCONUS and the family members are residing in CONUS
Soldier’s Travel Travel Entitlement
Entitlement Is Is
Funded commercial air or AMC Space Required Travel
From— Int’l Airport from the soldier’s PDS or location at the time
notified of the emergency
TO— Closest Int’l Airport in CONUS to which a scheduled flight
is available from that Int’l Airport the soldier departed. Authority
JFTR, para. U7205. See Note 1.
So in fact the Army will pay for him to get back to the States if they can’t get him on a Mac flight and then someone over here will just pick him up from the airport. This is great for this young soldier but it shows that it pays to dig a little because otherwise he would have been footing the bill himself!
if i fly with redcross on emergency leave do i pay for the ticket? JFTR para U7205 See Note 1 what question do the red cross ask for emergency leave
the command is NOT required to foot the bill. IF they can send him AMC fine, but they do not have to fly him commercial.
he is going to have to find his own way back. there is always AER. or advanced Pay.
No the Army, or his command is not required to pay for his ticket. If he can fly “Space A” that would be great, but it can eat up a lot of time. Have him go to the “relief” Society, they have special loans (no interest), and sometimes “grants” available for just this situation.
http://www.aerhq.org/
Going through the Red Cross is the first step. The soldiers wife being in the hospital would seem to be a legitimate qualifying emergency, at that point the military would spare no expense to get the soldier where they need to be. The soldiers mind should be free to concentrate on his emergency not financing the travel. A soldier with a qualified emergency has the highest priority on a MAC flight. MAC flights are supposed to e free. There is or should be no cost for the soldier to absorb.
The Army or should I say Red Cross will pay for a plane ticket from OCONUS to CONUS.
However, if the soldier is stateside, he will have to pay for the ticket himself. But he can ask that Red Cross give him a “loan” and then the ticket price can be taken out as an allotment over certain pay periods.
When my husband and I were stationed in Germany, my father passed away. Both my husband, me and our 3 girls got tickets to fly from Germany to Arizona, and we did not have to pay it back. Now when husband was in school in Maryland and his father died (the girls and I were still in Germany). Hubby was given a ticket to attend his funeral but did have to pay the price back. The girls and I were given free tickets to fly home for my father in laws funeral.
I have yet seen a soldier pay for his own ticket or pay back a ticket that was stationed overseas for a parents or child’s funeral for a Emergency Leave. This has also only been for deaths and not just someone going into the hospital.
Good luck to this soldier and his family are in my prayers.