when you are in a different country fighting how long are you away for ?

Hi, there is no real set answer to this.

I have done tours from one week to six months.

For every period of time you are away you get extra pay on top of your normal salary and extra holiday on top of you normal entitlement.

Usually, an operational tour is six months and you usually go with your unit - so with all your buddies and normal chain of command (boss etc).

For a six month tour you will get a mid tour break of about 10 days to go home and see family and friends.

A tour goes really quickly and you get lots of time off afterwards. When I did my tour of Iraq, I had so much holiday to take I spent a month traveling around Italy and also had enough money to put a deposit down on a (small) house which got me on the property ladder.

You also don’t pay any food or accommodation charges when you are deployed and there is nothing really to spend your money on so you save loads!

My husband is serving and he has done three tours of six months in Afghanistan. We have kids and although it was tough at times for all of us, there is a great support network and welfare team that get you through it.

Some of the best friends I have made are the ones from tours and also from being the wife left behind with other partners in the same position.

I have so many great stories from these times and am so proud by what we all achieved on operational tour. It is well worth the separation.

Feel free to ask any further questions in this topic.

Thank you for your question.

As mentioned above, there is no simple answer to this.

There are a lot of variable -
Your trade
Your job role
The country
The exercise / the operation

An overseas exercise will generally be anything from 6 weeks to 4 months

An overseas operation can be anything from 4 - 9 months but as explained above, it will depend on a lot of factors.

I hope this answers your question
J

Hi, is it guaranteed that you would have some time off whilst on a long tour e.g. 6 or 9 months? How likely is this for engineering officers?

Hi Laura,

Yes on a 6 month operational tour you will accumulate 1 days leave for every 9 days served so on average approx 12-14 days R&R (rest & recouperation)

All serving soldiers qualify.

I hope this answers your question

J