Section 903 of the Foreign Service Act of 1980 states in part:
“(a)The Secretary may order a member of the Service who is a citizen of the United States to take a leave of absence under section 6305 of title 5, United States Code, upon completion by that member of 18 months of continuous service abroad.
(b) Leave ordered under this section may be taken in the United States, its territories and possessions, or the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.”
The English translation of that legalese is pretty simple: after a tour of duty abroad, every Foreign Service officer must return to the United States for “home leave.” The length of home leave isn’t specified in the law, but the current policy is that we have to be in the United States for at least 20 days.
The State Department describes the purpose of home leave like this: “Home Leave is provided to employees by order of Congress to ensure that Foreign Service employees maintain close ties to the United States while pursuing careers overseas.” That might seem like an old-fashioned concept. With modern technology, it’s easier to maintain ties than it was in days of old. We have the benefit of the internet, email, social media, and video calls to stay connected and informed with events back home. It’s almost as if we were still in the United States. It’s reasonable to think that technology has largely negated the need to maintain our American identity. A friend once described home leave as: “re-becoming the American that I never wasn’t.” But in my experience, being physically in America is different from watching a YouTube video or Skyping with family. There is value to physically experiencing America.
As much as I like serving overseas, I always look forward to home leave, when I can spend some time back in the United States. After we finished our tour in Bangladesh in June, we planned to take 25 days of home leave, during which time we would apply for visas for our onward tour to China.
It can take a long time to get a China visa.
Home leave is nice if you’re from Michigan. It usually falls during the summertime, and Michigan is lovely in the summer. I dipped my toes in three of the Great Lakes (Erie and Ontario, you’re next, I promise!), and spent a wonderful week on Isle Royale (my happy place).
And of course during home leave, we applied for our China visas. And it took a long time to get the visas.
Instead of 25 working days, we wound up spending 58 working days (83 calendar days) in the United States, almost 12 weeks. During that time we slept in 12 different beds in nine different cities in four different states, and rented three different cars. Home leave is an example of an “unfunded mandate.” We are required to be in the United States, but we have to cover all of our expenses. We have to budget for housing and in-country transportation. Many Foreign Service families spend most of our time serving overseas, and we don’t have a house or a car in the United States. We have to plan for those home leave expenses. This time around, our home leave extended for a lot longer than we planned, and we hemorrhaged a shocking amount of our own money, and imposed on family for a place to sleep at night. So it was a huge relief when we finally got our visas and could travel to Shanghai yesterday.
Although it was sometimes stressful, because we never knew when our visas would come through, home leave was still great. We traveled around, spent some quality time with friends and family, and ate a lot of food that we had been craving (tacos just aren’t a thing in Asia, for some reason).
Home leave is now over, and we’ve arrived at our next post (Shanghai, China). After a long break, I’m ready get back to work.