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Comment by Butterball on December 12, 2017 at 1:00pm

Phoenixmom, I joined a penpal group for people needing encouragement for whatever reason. I was given her snail mail, and I sent her the first note last week. She responded yesterday, I can't wait to meet her. We found each other on Facebook last evening, now I can't wait to meet her.

Comment by Phoenixmom on December 12, 2017 at 12:47pm

LOL! Yea I figured I better just go and do it, my husband wasn't feeling it to much though, he was just there to see how much of his money I was spending LOL! but actually it was both of our money. Re doing my son's room set us back a bit so we had to put it off awhile Christmas shopping that is.

That is so wonderful of you Butterball, do you know this Young Lady or did you just open up your home? I really do appreciate the wonderful People who just give their all to those Sailors whose Families are not near. It was a special relief for me to know that my son was able to share time with a Family he didn't know and have a Home cooked meal for Thanksgiving. He had Great fun. And he even said Grace, he said the family looked amazed when he took it upon himself to do that. So Kudos and much respect! I cant believe it's a week away, My hubby is getting a little ancy now. which is hilarious.

Comment by Butterball on December 12, 2017 at 12:34pm

Wow Phoenixmom, you are way ahead of me. I am planning to start baking goodies this weekend with the girls. BTW, I have a Sailor that will be staying with us for the Christmas Holiday. She is at a different school than my son, planning a road trip to go get her. Think I better kick it in high gear. 

Comment by Phoenixmom on December 12, 2017 at 12:26pm

Well I appreciate your knowledge and info. I will ask tonight. I know he said that they were told any flights before 3pm is pushing it so he had to get a later flight. thank you ladies!

Comment by Allison on December 12, 2017 at 12:01pm

Phoenixmom yes, and there's even a way for you to know too. Ask him how many duty sections he has, then take his last duty day and repeat it every number of days according to the number of duty sections (usually 4). I did this in my phone, so I didn't have to keep counting, I just set an event as recurring every 4 days on my calendar. It will change if he moves or the ship loses a bunch of sailors to a graduation and not a lot have come in to replace them, but they try to always have 4 duty sections if they can manage. If they duty swap, it will only change that one day because they're swapping the day, not the section. So if they swap Saturday to get it off, they'll have to cover the day of whoever they switched with, let's say it was Friday, but they'll still have duty again on Wednesday, not Tuesday, because the whole section is rotating every four days, not him individually. 

For leave, he should be fine because it's an excused absence, so he's already taken off the rotation and they don't expect him to be there. The only hold up would be if he had duty the day before, so he couldn't leave until after turnover, which most students are advised not to leave until afternoon anyway, so it should be fine since turnover is usually at like 6 I think for day students and 12 for night students. 

I think Anti M has a blog on liberty, maybe she can drop some links later. 

Comment by Donnac on December 12, 2017 at 12:01pm

Thank you ladies!!  This was his first time putting in a chit for overnight liberty.  I think he knew he had duty, but thought the approved liberty took care of it and didn't know he had to switch with someone.  Lessons learned!!!  Have a good day!!

Comment by Anti M on December 12, 2017 at 11:49am

Usually leave at A school is going to be solid.  Allison is right, special liberty doesn't get you out of duty and obligations, it is up to the sailor to get the straight before putting in a chit.  Newer sailors might not have a grasp on the details just yet. Leave, on the other hand, cancels out duty days, so no finding swaps needed.

Also, liberty and special liberty can be cancelled at the discretion of the chain of command.  One underage drinker gets busted?  They can decide to cancel everyone's liberty for the weekend.  I have experienced this, it sucks, and the guilty party feels more than a little peer pressure.  

Leave can be cancelled, or someone recalled back from leave early, but that shouldn't happen in A school.  That's ore for when a ship MUST deploy, or a particular sailor is the only one available who can handle a particular job.  If they're likely to be recalled, they know it in most cases.

Comment by Phoenixmom on December 12, 2017 at 11:31am

ok Thank You, I better check with my Son and make sure he is legit. Thank you for this information it is good for all us Mothers to know.

Comment by Allison on December 12, 2017 at 11:24am

To expand on this, duty happens on a rotation depending how many sections there are per ship, usually 4, so every 4 days he will have duty…with very rare exceptions. If he moved ships recently, he might not have known his rotation yet, so he might have found out only right before you got there. Or maybe he knows his rotation and just couldn't find anyone willing to take Saturday duty (it's a hard one because you basically lose the whole weekend). Those are probably the two most likely reasons it happened. No matter what happened on his end though, it's not really his chief or nmti's concern, they probably even thought it was weird while they were approving it that he wanted liberty on a weekend with Saturday duty, but it's the sailor's responsibility to work that part out and/or plan ahead, so they'll just sign away. A sailor will never be automatically exempt from duty just because they have special liberty because liberty is just like free time, and you can only have that free time when you don't have work to do. Leave is like vacation, and that's when they'd get out of duty and class and all that without being in trouble. 

Comment by Phoenixmom on December 12, 2017 at 11:14am

Thank You Allison, now would they know that ahead of time so they could swap if need be?

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