There is a lot of material on how military leave operates today, but not much on its historical operation. How long has the current rule of 30 days per year been in effect, and what was it before? How long were leave periods in the past (could you take say all 30 days at once)? What are the differences in leave during wartime, whether one was in combat situations or in domestic service? How common in the past was it for soldiers in European or Asian to get all the way back to the U.S. on leave?
Roman soldiers had leave, maybe in the winter; and according to my source, a tribune had two months off, whilst common soldiers often became hucksters from town to town to make money, which indicates at least a month. ( But just as likely beat up civilians for money as was the tradition… )
They were fairly understanding about late returns, except for commanders such as that governor of Syria who sentenced one chap for the murder of his companion, who then turned up just in time so that the centurion detailed delayed the sentence: Piso then sentenced all three to death for disobeying orders.
Old Rome really was the gold standard for libertarian values.
I presume you mean in standing armies. For most of history armies were raised for campaign s.
Officers in the British Army in the Napoleonic wars did come home on leave. Jane Austen mentioned quite a few in her books. Her brother was serving as an officer so she would know. Do not know about enlisted though.
None of Austen’s brothers were in the Army, but two were in the Navy. Naval officers had long periods of service, interspersed with long periods of leave, but this had more to do with the operational needs of the service than with any understanding of an officer’s entitlement to leave.
Both military and naval officers who were at home because there was no operational need for their services were put on half-pay; consequently they mostly did not welcome long periods of leave. Plus, the more capable officers were more likely to be recalled, and had less leave. Eventually, when an officer was too old or infirm, he was put on half-pay indefinitely; this was the equivalent of retirement on pension.
While soldiers were on operational service, I don’t think they had any fixed entitlement to short-term leave. Presumably, where possible, regular free time was arranged, and if soldiers were serving close to home there might be an effort to arrange it in ways that made it possible actually to go home. I imagine these decisions were made at a fairly low level, by someone in the immediate chain of command. Presumably the attitude to leave varied from commander to commander, to some extent. I don’t know when this was standardised and formalised into a right to a fixed amount of home leave.
The national army museum had a talk on Austen 's military knowledge
The operative part
In Vietnam, no leave was granted other than for an emergency. You could take a week’s R&R (sometimes two R&Rs), but only to certain countries such as Australia and Thailand, and the USA was not one of them. You could also take an in-country R&R. The furthest they relaxed that standard was to allow someone to take R&R to Hawaii, but not to the mainland US. I guess they were worried that you might not come back, or perhaps it was just a time/distance thing.
On peacetime deployments, we were allowed a maximum of two weeks leave. I had two deployments to Japan, but it was too expensive and time-consuming to fly back to the US for a two week leave. Military leave is different from most civilian leave: 15 days is 15 consecutive calendar days, not 15 work days.
Man, I was really confused by your question for a minute, because in my world “military leave” is provided by your employer to facilitate your service in the military. I didn’t know where you came up with 30 days per year. But - you mean leave from active military duty. Gotcha. Carry on.