Military Families
Army Dwell Time Question
Okay, so I know dwell time for an individual was 12 months after a deployment of 12+ months. Is this still true? The reason I ask is because I know as a whole the Army is working towards longer time at home for our guys, but I'm kind of confused is if it means longer dwell time for the individual, or if its just longer time home for the actual unit.
Does that make sense?
For example my DH is currently deployed. As of right now his unit is expected to have 20months (-ish) home before deploying again once they are home. The 20 months is for the actual unit right? Not the soldier were they to leave the unit and go somewhere is. Correct?
Am I understanding this correctly or is my pregnancy brain kicking in?
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Re: Army Dwell Time Question
I believe it is for the individual. If you were to pcs to a new duty station DH's dwell time still applies.
But as pp said it can always change based on needs.
Anecdotal evidence from my circle of friends says that this isn't true. If you PCS to a new unit that's set to deploy before you've been home for 12 months (I've never heard of 20 being the standard) then you go with your new unit unless extenuating circumstances apply.
20 months is the stabilization that my husbands unit will have after this deployment. Not the new standard of dwell time.
And thanks ladies! I ended up finding what I was looking for that explained how dwell time works with a PCS. It does travel with you, and the standard is 12 months for any combat deployment at least 12 months.The exceptions would be that the unit you went to was authorized to deploy at 10 months and you had 10 months, you would still go. If the unit wasn't authorized to deploy until 12, and you only had 6, in most cases you would be able to stay until you met your 12 months, unless of course you signed a waiver.
Here is the link to the official regulations incase someone else needs them or wants clarification for their own sakes.
https://www.armyg1.army.mil/militarypersonnel/Hyperlinks/Adobe Files/ALARACT 253 2007.pdf
(sorry not clicky, I'm on a Mac.)
The dwell time does travel with you, and it is documented on your ORB/ERB. I can tell you from experience though that even if you have dwell time/stabilization time remaining, if you PCS to a new unit that is deploying, you will deploy with them too. I can't imagine anyone saying "but I haven't been back X-months yet, so I can't go, I need to be assigned to rear-d". It just doesn't happen that way. If you are medical and have a PROFIS assignment, they DO look at dwell time and take it into consideration.
The way that the Army compensates you is in providing free leave- there is a calculation that is used to determine how much time you were deployed within a certain time frame- and if it exceeds a certain amount, you receive extra days of PDMRA leave. Google PDMRA calculator to get more information- it's hard to explain because so many factors are taking into consideration (type of orders- I believe it has to be title 10; location- Qatar and Kuwait don't count, etc). The rules are constantly changing too.
When we got here the unit my husband was assigned to was deployed and scheduled to return in July (got here beginning of March). A few weeks after we got here they had a group of guys that just got here deploy to meet up with the unit. My husband just returned from his last deployment last November. They asked him if he wanted to waive his dwell time or not. He chose not to since he did 15 months, home for 1 year and 1 week and left again for 12 months. During the year home he was gone a total of about 3 months. It was no big deal for his unit.
One of my friends' husbands had the same choice but the unit was not happy about it. Since he didn't want to waive that time to deploy early they made it hell on him. He met up with his unit after his 12 months was up, so he deployed for about 5 months instead of 12 that time.
Yep. This ^^^. My command gave me the choice for the latest Afghan mission because I was still in my dwell time. I did not go but for different reasons(knee surgery and I got married).