Publication:Chattanooga Times Free Press
Date:Saturday, June 04, 2005
Section:Front Page; Page:1

DISPATCH At Home

By Edward Lee Pitts Military Affairs

Some families of 278th Regimental Combat Team members are expressing concern that their soldiers might not make it home for a two-week break from the war in Iraq.

"The government has never had this many people mad over refusing leave," wrote Myranda Brabston, a 278th soldier’s wife from Blaine, Tenn., in an e-mail. "We, the wives and mothers, are just so sick and tired of being let down."

She said the families "are not pleased with the way our men and women are being treated." But regimental officers say well over half of soldiers eligi ble for leave already have gone home. They said the regiment is on track to let everyone get a break, just not on the exact dates each soldier wants. At issue, according to wives such as Mrs. Brabston and several 278th soldiers who did not want to be identified, is soldiers being given a 15-day leave date and scheduling activities around that time only to have their leave postponed.

"Some of us had planned vacation times at work and had to either go ahead and take them or, as in my case, be told there was no guarantee that I would get (vacation) when my husband gets home," Mrs. Brabston wrote. She wrote that the leave dates had been precise and on time up until those soldiers scheduled for breaks in June. Her husband was told nine days before he was due home that there weren’t enough leave slots, Mrs. Brabston wrote. The men in his unit had to draw from a hat for the available openings, she said.

Officials with the 278th said each unit devises its own system for determining leave. They said that when several soldiers request breaks in the same month a lottery is the fairest way to handle the matter.

SUMMER FAMILY TIME

Lt. Col. Wayne Honeycutt, the regiment’s executive officer, said everyone wants to take leave during the summer months when children are out of school. He said those who requested leave in the early months of February through April got the dates they wanted. But commanders must keep 90 percent of the regiment on the ground at all times, he said.

"It’s impossible to get everybody what they wanted," he said. "But when it is all said and done, we are going to have the leave slots to take care of everybody." Renee Miller, family readiness leader for the Regimental Headquarters Unit, said Mrs. Brabston was planning a protest at the unit’s Knoxville armory last weekend, but it did not happen. She and other wives are concerned that Mrs. Brabston could damage the unit’s reputation, she said.

"The protest really looks bad on all of us," the Powell, Tenn., resident said. "We all have to wait our turn. Eventually they’re going to get their leave."

Mrs. Brabston could not be reached for further comment.

Some soldiers, however, say time may run out before everyone gets a break.

"We keep requesting nine slots and getting three each month," said a unit commander who didn’t want to be named. "You do the math."

Lt. Col. Honeycutt said commanders in the 42nd Infantry Division, which oversees the 278th in Iraq, recently granted more leave spaces to the regiment. The 278th requested the extra leave spots after projections showed the regiment would come up about 39 allocations short, he said.

"Leave is taken very seriously and tracked meticulously," said Capt. Alan Mingledorff, the 278th spokesman. Through May 26, there were 1,245 soldiers out of about 3,000 in the unit who still needed to take leave, records show. Projections show by the end of June that 1,559 of the 278th soldiers will have taken leave, while an additional 131 have gone on emergency leave for reasons such as family deaths.

STAGGERING BREAKS

Some soldiers in the regiment are upset that unit commanders and officers are going home before their enlisted men. But Capt. Mingledorff said 278th unit leaders cannot all be gone at the same time, so leave for such officers is being staggered throughout the deployment. If all officers went last, the regiment would be missing leadership during its final months here when it is preparing to pack up for good, officers said.

In the regiment’s 1st Squadron, 42 percent of the officers and 47 percent of the enlisted men had gone on leave through the end of May, records show.

The staggering of leave applies to all roles, Capt. Mingledorff said. "So any given unit can’t send all of (its) maintenance section at one time," he said.

Regimental commanders say the leave confusion occurred after troops submitted leave request dates. Many soldiers assumed they would get dates they asked for, but regimental officers said they used the requests as a guideline in compiling a master leave list.

The regiment is given a certain amount of leave dates each month. When more people request a given month than the regiment has available space for, some soldiers have to be bumped to another month, officials said. Each unit has its own system to determine which soldiers were given preference on crowded leave dates. Priority was given to events such as weddings, graduations and births, a 278th officer of one unit said.

According to Army policy, no soldier can be refused leave if he or she has been deployed in a combat zone for at least 270 days. The 278th cutoff date is Feb. 1, so those arriving as replacements after that date will not be eligible, officials said.

Emergency leave does not affect the regular leave slots, officers said. The regimental policy states that if someone takes emergency leave, they are taken off the schedule for leave and placed at the end of the leave priority list. If everyone else gets leave and there are some slots still open, those individuals will get to take a regular leave, a 278th spokesman said.

Staff writer Dorie Turner contributed to this story.

E-mail Lee Pitts at lpitts@timesfreepress.com

U.S. Army Photo by Capt. Alan Mingledorff - Capt. G. Lee Wilson, of Chattanooga, waits for his luggage at the Atlanta airport after a long flight from Germany. He is a police officer with and a member of 3rd Squadron, 278th Regimental Combat Team.

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