Paternity Leave

I know I already posted this evening, but I wanted to share some of my research about the Marine Corp and their policy about paternity leave.

Apparently, before 2008, there was no such thing, or if there was, it was no guarantee. Then, Bush and the senate agreed that all branches of the military must implement a program to give every service member 10 days of non-chargeable paternity leave. But only if he was married or was going to have sole custody of the child being born.

Every branch has their own policy regarding P.Leave, but the USMC is this: You are entitled to 10 days of leave, but you have to request it within 25 days of the childs birth, at the commanders discretion. Of course, there are certain factors that can change that rule, i.e. deployment, but it seems pretty unsual for paternity leave to be denied.

And, if you were like me, and had no idea what "non-chargable" meant, here you go: Every service member is entitled to 30 days of leave every year. So when you get your paternity leave, it is not subtracted from your regular annual leave. It is in addition. So in a year that a child is born, a service member will get 40 days of leave instead of the standard 30.

Here is the link to the page describing paternity leave:
http://usmilitary.about.com/od/marines/a/paternityleave.htm

And here is a Wikipedia article about the types of leave. It seemed pretty decent and informative. Hope it helps:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leave_(U.S._military)