I know there is legislation in the Senate that may grant 3 weeks of permissive paternal leave in the future, but how about now?

What is common for leave around a birth? I'm sitting on 60 days and plan to request 30 off to be there for birth and help my wife recover.

It is up to your command. I got 30 days for my first child and 15 days for my second child. Different units, commanders and missions for each child, you should be asking your NCO's there.

Yup, SGT JT is correct, its up to the Chain of Command I got about 20some days right before I went TDY..

The issue I have is that I took 30 days off in September. Because of this, they are like, "you just took leave".

The mid-tour I took was a result of having USE OR LOSE and if it weren't for that I would have waited for the birth.

All in all I should know this week, I've attached a letter to my leave request and an old LES showing the use or lose balance and my situation.

Yeah explain to them it was Use or Lose (I am sure the person that said "you just took leave" was not the Commander, Commander's have this thing about making sure no one, if they can help it, lose leave)....hopefully they approve it and congratulations...

I think the situation just worked itself out, the one objection we had came from a guy who is going on leave Monday.