The Academy Insider Podcast - Your Guide to The Naval Academy Experience

#109 Learn About the Naval Academy Liberty and Leave Policies. What's the Difference?

• GRANT VERMEER • Season 3 • Episode 109

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Why Naval Academy Midshipmen Can't Simply Take Time Off Like Everyone Else

Ever wondered why upperclass midshipmen sprint back to campus at 11:55 PM on Friday nights? In this episode, we break down the crucial distinctions between leave and liberty at the Naval Academy—two terms that sound similar but carry vastly different meanings for midshipmen and their families.

As a Naval Academy graduate, I'm excited to share the insider knowledge about how these policies actually work and why they matter so much. We'll explore the three types of liberty, weekend planning requirements, and how these systems prepare midshipmen for fleet life ahead.

Key Insights on Naval Academy Liberty Policies

  • The fundamental difference between liberty (time off with accountability) and leave (true vacation time)
  • Three distinct types of liberty: yard liberty, town liberty, and overnight liberty
  • How liberty privileges expand dramatically from plebe year through first class year
  • Weekend planning requirements including the "weekend list" and 150-mile radius rules
  • Why uniform requirements differ based on class year and location

What You'll Gain from This Episode

  • Clear understanding of liberty restrictions and privileges for each class year
  • Insight into weekend planning strategies and special request procedures
  • Knowledge of uniform requirements during different liberty periods
  • Perspective on how these policies prepare graduates for military service
  • Practical advice for families planning visits and travel


The Vermeer Group is a residential real company matching military families with trusted real estate teams across the country.  If you have any real estate questions at all, please text Grant at (650) 282-1964 or email grant@thevermeergroup.com

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The mission of Academy Insider is to guide, serve, and support Midshipmen, future Midshipmen, and their families.

Grant Vermeer your host is the person who started it all. He is the founder of Academy Insider and the host of The Academy Insider podcast. He was a recruited athlete which brought him to Annapolis where he was a four year member of the varsity basketball team. He was a cyber operations major and commissioned into the Cryptologic Warfare Community. He was stationed at Fort Meade and supported the Subsurface Direct Support mission.

He separated from the Navy in 2023 and now owns The Vermeer Group, a residential real estate company that matches service academy families with trusted real estate teams all across the country. Text (650) 282-1964 with any real estate questions.

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SPEAKER_00:

Hey and welcome back to the Academy Insider Podcast powered by the Naval Academy Alumni Association and Foundation. And in today's episode, we're gonna be talking all about leave versus liberty. I'm so excited to talk about that distinction. I know I've had questions about that in the past, but I just want to take a quick moment to highlight the Naval Academy Alumni Association and Foundation and what they've been doing in support of Naval Academy families and communities across the country. They just wrapped up their 2025 what they call road shows. And throughout 2025, their engagement team visited 25 chapters and 19 parents clubs all across the country, which has been incredible. They finished up for 2025 and they'll be announcing their 2026 lineup and places that they're gonna be visiting. And if you are a part of a local parents club and you know the Naval Academy Alumni Association is foundation is coming to your area, make sure to go check out that meeting, that roadshow, and engage with them, give them your feedback because they are providing an incredible service to not only the midshipmen, but to the Naval Academy family and parent community. So a big thank you to the Alumni Association for that. But again, for this episode, we're talking Leave versus Liberty. And I think this is a fun conversation because there are distinctions. They are synonymous, they both mean times that like midshipmen are off from military obligation and have an ability to be a little bit more free and normal. But there are clear distinctions that separate what makes leave leave and what makes liberty liberty. And then specifically in the Naval Academy context, there's yard liberty, there's town liberty, there's overnight liberty. What are those means? What are the differences? And how do you even begin to plan and prepare and understand what's going on? If you have any of those questions, check out this episode. Thank you so much, and I hope you enjoy. She is okay. She's totally good. You know, we're a couple weeks separated from the incident now. She's already received her waiver to return flying. There was no pilot air at all. She's incredible. Not only was there pilot air that her and her co-pilot did an unbelievable job of handling an engine failure, controlling the landing into the water, egressing from the helicopter safely, and saving the lives of everyone on board. She's incredible. It's uh it's a weird, it's a weird situation as a spouse, right? Like I talk about all this stuff, Naval Academy related. But when it happens to the person you love most in the world, it's it's it's fear-inducing, it's it's scary at times, but I'm also just tremendously proud and so in love with my wife. She's incredible. And so this was an interesting couple weeks just trying to, you know, gather everything, you know, scary at first, confusing at first. But I sit here today just immensely grateful and so lucky that she's totally okay, you know, considering the circumstances. And so it just, you know, just again, full transparency, all this stuff. And, you know, we talk. I know this episode is gonna be about leave and liberty and all these unique aspects of the Naval Academy, but if you go back to a recent episode I did with Admiral McNeil, you know, we talk about the need for the situations to be tough at the the Naval Academy. We talk about the silliness of rates and chow calls, but it was quite literally her adherence to the emergency procedures, her ability to navigate that extremely stressful moment of when the engine fails, to take all of the emergency procedures, to make everything land safely, right? And that stuff matters. And so, so anyway, no, I don't want to go on too long about this, but I did just want to give you all a quick insight into my life and into the reality, because again, naval aviation is is inherently dangerous. You know, we say it a lot, you assume it's never gonna happen to you, but in this case it did. It happened, you know, to to our immediate family here. And so, you know, I just wanted to give everyone an update on that and apologize for kind of the delay and some of the stuff that's going on. But shout out to her who's who's still out there on deployment, still continuing to do to do the thing. And you know, I'm so immensely proud of her every single day. So so yeah, so that's that's what's been going on. But we're gonna talk a little bit about Leave and Liberty today to kind of transition back into this situation. You know, this idea in the military is really interesting because I think when you're just a civilian workforce member, you just have like time off, right? You have paid time off, but you know, even when you know you're not technically on PTO, but it's a weekend or it's a fad or holiday, or you know, there's time off in general, the company's given time off, like there's zero obligation, zero responsibility. You're able to turn off kind of any phone communication source and be able to separate completely. When we talk about leave versus liberty in the military, there's kind of there, there is a clear distinction actually in these two statuses, and that's what we're gonna talk about it today, and specifically how it relates to the life of midshipmen. But this idea of liberty is really kind of like having no active work responsibilities, right? When we talk about after class, after everything, after, we'll use this term, after your last military obligation, you are now in this kind of liberty status, but you're not fully off, right? And so again, when we talk about liberty versus leave, we're really talking about like no work responsibilities versus full PTO, right? And in the military, when you're when it's the weekend or when it's you know a holiday and the day off, and you don't have to be at work, you still don't have, you're it's not like you're on that full PTO. You are in a liberty status, you are not in the leave status. And there is a distinction, and we're gonna talk through all of this and and how it matters. But again, it's kind of like again, being on weekend versus being on vacation, right? Like these are the distinctions and the two statuses. And so we're gonna jump into it in the context of the Naval Academy, and again, specifically for liberty. Like liberty is gonna be the thing that's kind of I would say most relevant to like a plebe, especially, and especially as you go through the Naval Academy all four years, the amount of liberty you have and the privileges you have with that liberty will continue to increase. And so that'll continue to go on. There are three main types of liberty at the Naval Academy. You have what we call yard liberty, you have town liberty, and then you have overnight liberty. We'll kind of go through all those things and what they mean in each, but we're gonna jump straight into the liberty schedule and how it relates. And this is gonna be in specific to town liberty and overnight liberty. Okay, and those are the things that are like most fun, so that's why we're gonna jump into them first. I'm actually gonna put up a little image here from mid-regs that talks about the the liberty schedule, the town liberty schedule for each semester. So it is a little bit different between first semester and second semester, which is different from my time. In my time, we had a singular liberty schedule that was for the entirety of your first class year, second class year, third class year, fourth class year. Now it's kind of split up into first semester and second semester, and that's a little bit different, right? And so again, when I was a plebe, you had, again, as a fourth class midship, you had liberty, you had town liberty on Saturday from noon until midnight, right? Like that was your town liberty period. That is still the case for first semester now, but in second semester, again, we're gonna continue to kind of put up and highlight some of these things here. Now in second semester, the fourth class, force, fourth class midshipmen will get town liberty on Saturday from noon until midnight, and then again on Sunday from 8 a.m. until 1800, and until kind of the end of Liberty. And so those things have changed. There's a ton more liberty for the first class, second class midshipmen as well, and third class start to get a little bit. They get Friday night liberty into second semester. So again, there has been, again, since my time at the academy, there has been an increase in liberty, which again, there are gonna be a lot of people who are gonna be bitter and complain and say, wow, that wasn't how it was in my day. They have it so easy, this is ridiculous, it's getting so soft. There are a lot of things, and again, a big piece of this from the Naval Academy, it's literally written in a couple of the documentation, is they want midshipmen to start to understand and have personal discipline and responsibility to handle their time off, to not get in trouble, to do the things that they need to do, and be prepared for when they hit the fleet. Because a lot of the biggest transition that happens for Naval Academy graduates is they go from being, again, and I'm gonna say this gently and nicely, but they go from being coddled at the Naval Academy from being in this complete bubble and babied where they're not allowed to go anywhere, not allowed to do anything, they're on constant supervision, you know, they don't have to do their own laundry, they don't have to do their own dry cleaning, they don't do their own grocery shopping, they eat at King Hall every day, and then immediately the day upon graduation, they have to go be an adult, right? And so I think this is an interesting transition to start give giving people a little bit more personal responsibility to use their free time like they would in the fleet, appropriately, productively, and in general good standing, right? So again, a lot of these things are interesting as we talk about the schedule. Again, you'll see like the first class midshipmen. Now, even first semester, they get Tuesday and Thursday weekday liberty, where again they could hypothetically go out and get food, like go get dinner downtown, whatever the case is. And we're gonna talk a little bit about kind of what that all means. So again, for town liberty, town liberty is a again a really interesting one. Uniform is is again, if you're a first class, second class midshipman, when you're on town liberty, you're absolutely allowed to wear your civvies. Like that is no problem whatsoever. Again, it's one of these things where, you know, as a as a third class midshipman and a fourth class midshipman, you're supposed to be in your uniform of the day when you are in, when you're on that town liberty. So again, as a plebe, we see again uniform of the day for that time or the liberty uniform is gonna be your summer dress whites or your service dress blues. That's why you see midshipmen in the, you know, in downtown Annapolis wearing their whites or wearing the service dress blues all the time. That is the Liberty uniform for them. Like they are required to wear that uniform of the day for Liberty at all times, right? Like there is no exception there. Fourth class midshipmen on town liberty, they shall be in the uniform of the day. And so, again, no matter where you go, if you take Saturday noon and you have family in town and you guys decide to go up to Baltimore, you go up to Washington, DC, like you are supposed to be. Again, we talk a lot about you right when you skate. Again, you by rule are supposed to be in your uniform of the day. No exceptions. Where things have changed a little bit since my time as a midshipman is for the third class midshipmen. For third class midshipmen, we again, you were supposed to be in your uniform of the day. Same thing during those entire like periods. Now, third class midshipmen are allowed to change into appropriate civilian attire when two criteria have been met. One, they are outside of the immediate vicinity of the Naval Academy, which is defined as a couple local cities, and we'll put up a map here again that that shows those. But there's kind of a circular radius between Pasadena, Millersville, Crofton, Davidsonville, and Stevensville. Once you're outside of that radius and you are on overnight liberty, which again we'll we'll get to a little bit later, but this those two things have to be true. You're outside of these city limits and you're on overnight liberty, you are now allowed to wear civilian clothes, appropriate civilian clothes. What that really means is if you're on overnight liberty as a youngster and you go to Washington, DC, or you go to Baltimore, you go to a Ravens game, you go to a Washington Nationals game, you're going out in DC, or whatever the case is, like you're allowed to be in civilian clothes. Like you don't have to wear that stuff, which is different from when I was a midship. That was like a hard no. And you would have youngsters going out, going out in DC, having it, but they would still wear their civvies. And this is again fun conversation for us is you would have some upper class midshipmen who are maybe a little bit more strict to the rules, who would like see someone that they know in civilian clothes in Washington, DC, 50 miles away from the Naval Academy campus, and be like, you're not supposed to be in civilian clothes, and like go. That's where this term Joe has come from over the time. People who are maybe a little too adherent or strict to the rules, uh especially in like the the enforcement towards other people, you know, that's kind of where this term would come. And it caused a lot of conflict. It caused a lot of conflict, and so it's really interesting to see kind of this change to where third class midshipmen again on overnight liberty and outside of that immediate vicinity in Washington City and Baltimore, allowed to change into appropriate civilian attire. They are not allowed to, if they're like, I'm going to Washington, D.C., they're still not allowed to leave campus in civis. Like the third class midshipmen must depart and return to the yard in uniform of the day, right? And so they need to be in the uniform when they leave, they need to be in the uniform when they're coming back on campus. But while on overnight liberty, in those places, they're allowed to wear appropriate civilian clothes. All right. Now, with that is, you know, we talk about plebes having to be in that uniform of the day at all times. There is an exception for specific activity attire. So again, if you're going on a boat, you can put on like your regulation PT gear. If you're if you're going on a run or exercising, yes, you don't have to be in SDBs or Summer Whites, you can change into athletic clothes to be able to participate in that activity. But then again, once you're done, you have to change back into those, into your uniform of the day. So that's where all those things kind of differ. Now, when you are on town liberty and you are not on overnight liberty, you have to be back in Bancroft Hall to sign what we call taps. This is where this distinction is gonna lie. So as we start to transition into overnight liberty and what overnight liberty is, if you are on overnight liberty, that means you do not have to be back in Bancroft Hall to sign taps the day of. We've talked about what this term taps is. Again, I have no, I still haven't done the research. I have no idea what it stands for, but taps is basically the accountability sheet that you sign at the end of the night saying that you're back on Bancroft Hall and you are where you're supposed to be. If you are on Town Liberty, again, all the town liberty, if you go back and le look, we'll put we'll put up the map one more time or the map or the the chart here one more time, you'll see that the Liberty always ends at 2359 at the latest, right? Again, for weekday liberty, it goes until 2300. Friday, Saturdays, you know, it goes until 2359. And so you have until 11:50 p.m. to get back like where you're supposed to be and sign taps indicating that you are there. That is not a non-exception unless you're on overnight liberty. What overnight liberty means is you do not have to be back. You do not have to sign taps. You are saying that you are staying out overnight and not going to be returning to Bancroft Hall, right? Like that is the actuality of like the specific definition of kind of what changes for the midshipmen when they are on overnight liberty versus town liberty. What's funny is again, and we'll get to this overnight liberty of like there are a certain allotment of how many overnight weekends you're allowed to take, but a lot of times you'll have midshipmen who are not on overnight, who are going out in town, having fun, going out in downtown Annapolis, having a couple drinks, eating dinner, whatever the case is, and it's Friday night, and you'll see people like sprinting, like sprinting back to campus at like 11.55 p.m. Like there is like the mad dash from the Annapolis bars back to campus at like 11:50 p.m. of people trying to get back on on, you know, on deck to sign taps at the end of the night, which is just kind of like always a hilarious sight. It's like this mass exodus of midshipmen from, you know, the local Annapolis area trying to get back on campus in order to sign taps. So that again, you have town liberty. Again, you're allowed to that's liberty for all intents and purposes, but you have to be back on the yard in order to sign taps. For overnight liberty, again, you have the ability to not return, right? Not return. Now, each class, meaning first class, second class, third class, fourth class, all have an allotment of a base number of overnight weekends they are allowed in a semester. Right. And so, again, as we were talking about, when you start when you're a fourth class, it's barely nothing. By the time you're a first class, it's almost every weekend, right? Like each year you get more liberty and more privilege when it comes to you know your ability to take some liberty and get away from the Naval Academy campus. We're gonna put this up again right here, straight out of mid-regs. You're as a fourth class midship, you have one weekend as a as an allotment, right? Again, we'll we'll talk about there are opportunities with football games and other things that are happening to be granted additional weekends or granted this special additional liberty. But at a baseline, you receive one overnight weekend per semester, right? And so you have to use that pretty, pretty sparingly and pretty smartly. As a third class midshipman, you get five. As a second class midshipman, you get eight. And as a first class midship, you get 12, right? And again, a semester is probably 16, 17 weeks long. So again, if you have 12, that's the vast majority of them. And as we'll get to, you're probably standing watch three or four weekends a semester. And so basically, first you get every weekend that they are not on duty or they are like not traveling for something you know military specific, they're gonna have an overnight weekend basically every weekend, right? And so again, as you go through first class or as a as a plea, fourth class midshipman, not that many overnights, you have to use them very sparingly. Third class, you start to get to kind of like pick your spots and have a couple more weekends. You're probably able to use it over, you know, Columbus, Indigenous Peoples Day weekends. And, you know, again, the long extended weekends are great because we'll kind of talk a little bit about this, but like using it over holiday weekends where you have a Friday off or a Monday off is great because now you're able to take like two full nights without returning to Bancroft instead of just Saturday, right? Like you kind of get Saturday and Sunday, and then you don't have to return to Monday if you're a third-class midshipman or if you're a plebe. But that's kind of how it breaks out in terms of your actual base allotment for weekends. In order to use your overnight liberty, you have to be sat, right? And this term sat, satisfactory, it means like again, physical fitness, academics, and conduct related. You you are not in any kind of hot water, right? Like you have an appropriate appropriate cooper grade point average, you have an appropriate fitness score and standard, you've passed the PRT and you're not in any conduct trouble. Again, in order to actually take an overnight weekend, you have to be sat. Like that is the rule. And so this is why, again, on top of just wanting to do well and pass classes and like you know, do well at the Naval Academy, it is so important to do well academically and to pass your stuff. Because the moment you become unsat, this term unsat, like you lose your overnight weekend privileges, which makes the Naval Academy like way worse. Like way worse. And so, again, this is a a big thing that becomes tough. Now, in the vein of accountability, right? We talked about if you're not on overnight liberty, you need to come sign taps because again, the Naval Academy wants to know like where you're at and what's going on. If you are taking overnight liberty and you're not gonna be back on Bancroft Hall, one thing that's been instituted, and it kind of started around my time, probably 2015, 2016 at the Naval Academy, maybe it was before, but that's kind of when I specifically remember it. They really started what's known as the weekend list, which is if you're taking overnight weekends, you have to fill out by Wednesday at noon. So you need to know your weekend plan by Wednesday at noon and say, I'm going to be staying at X address. Here's a contact number for a person that I'm gonna be with, and here's my battle buddy. Like, here's the person that I'm going with, this is the person that I'm gonna be with. Because you're technically not allowed to go anywhere by yourself, right? It's a safety thing, it's an accountability thing. And so you would kind of list like your contact, their phone number, the address of the place you're going to, so people know where you're gonna be. In case something happens, they know where they can find you, which is gonna go back. We're gonna continue to hit this niche of like the difference between liberty and leave, which if you're in if you're on liberty, it's so important that we know exactly where you are still. And and we'll talk about that later in the episode of why that's so important. But this is an important thing. So, again, for the weekend list, you're gonna be signing that by Wednesday at noon, putting in the fact that, like, again, you would say, Oh, I'm gonna be in Washington, D.C. staying at this hotel. Here's a contact number. I'm gonna be going with, you know, midshipman why, we're gonna be going together, all this stuff. That weekend list gets reviewed by all the company leadership, the midshipman leadership up to the company officer, and that company officer will kind of sign off and approve, say, like, hey, yeah, everyone is good to continue with their weekend planned as they have suggested it to me. Again, this is not something that is like overly like you don't have to, again, if if things adjust or change a little bit, like it's not the end of the world, right? Like, I just like you don't need to like overly stress, but it's the again, the intent of this is to make sure that people have a plan, they know where they're gonna be staying, and that they have people around them who are gonna be able to help them in case things are not ideal. Right. And so this is the idea of the weekend list. You don't have to like overly stress about it, but it is important to again, one, tell the truth, but you know, have a clear plan of what your weekend is gonna look like, right? And so this is the idea of the weekend list. Now, in general, if you're staying within like uh quite little, not kind of, if you're staying within 150 mile radius of the Naval Academy, you just have to put in the address that you're going. This really, again, this kind of covers, you know, all the way into like, you know, mid-Virginia, like central Virginia is gonna kind of be on the border and around. You don't have to like do anything additional. If you're going to be within, or excuse me, outside of 150 mile radius of the Naval Academy on the weekend, then in addition to not only just putting that on the weekend list that you're gonna be outside there, you're gonna have to submit a special request chit, this term special request chit, to request the ability to go outside of that 150 mile liberty radius. So again, the mid the Naval Academy sets a liberty radius of 150 miles, which is like, hey, within 150 miles, no additional permissions need to be requested. You're allowed to go, just tell us where you're going. If you're gonna go outside of that 150 miles, then you need to submit the special request chit so that way we can go through and make you do what is known as an ORM, an operational risk management form. This is just stating if you're gonna go outside a hundred meter, 150-mile radius, that means either you're gonna be on a long drive or you may be flying or whatever the case is, and there are additional risk factors that come with that. So we just want to make sure that you are, again, appropriately taking care of that. And so you'll fit fill out an ORM. The term ORM really is a form of like, okay, here is a risk matrix. Here's like a calculator. It's like how likely is something to go wrong, and how severe is the impact if something does go wrong. If something is not that likely and the impact is low, there is low risk and like totally fine. If you are going something where something is very likely and the impact is low, well, it's like, okay, well, we don't like that something will likely go wrong, but at least it's not the end of the world. And you know, again, we're kind of going through if it's very likely and the impact is like, you know, very severe, well, like now we gotta start really considering whether we're gonna allow you to go do this or not. And so again, midshipmen, if you're going outside the 150 mile radius, you're gonna have to submit an ORM. If you're going on leave, you're gonna have to submit an ORM. Like there's all these things to make sure that midshipmen are appropriately planning, you know, and again, what happens is when people don't appropriately plan, bad things happen. And so all these things that are put in place is just to make sure that midshipmen have an appropriate plan to make sure they're being taken care of and they're gonna be safe and they're gonna return to the Naval Academy in one piece, right? Like these are the purposes of everything that we have going on when it comes to liberty. Banking weekends. This term banking weekend. So if you're on overnight liberty, or I guess if you're just like on town liberty and you're granted additional weekends, like again, football games, the the wins at home, the three Naval Academy football wins at home, the the Commandant has granted an overnight weekend. Now, those weekends are not, again, these weekends, I guess, this this year have not been what we call bankable, which means if the Commandant grants a weekend, you can't be like, oh, I don't want to use it this weekend. I want to save that weekend for another weekend. No. The Commandant says, I'm granting you overnight weekend, like an overnight liberty tonight on Saturday. You just won the game on Saturday. You do not have to return to the Naval Academy campus until Sunday at 1800 at 6 p.m. Right? Like that's what that means. And so, again, because a lot of times, midshipmen, and again, and it's fair, like if the game starts at 3 30 and it doesn't end until 7, you're like, well, I don't want to use my liberty today. I want to use my overnight liberty when I can leave at noon. And so, again, like that's where some of these things come in. But, you know, a lot of times for this purpose, it's really just like, hey, I'm granting you this lit additional overnight liberty period tonight to celebrate the win of the Navy football team or whatever the case is. And so that'll happen. And this year, those weekends haven't been bankable, which means the midshipmen would you need to use that overnight weekend that night in order to have it. Otherwise, you know, they come back. And again, the vast majority of fourth class midshipmen have plebes, like even when they're granted an overnight liberty, it's like, thanks, but I'm still just gonna go back and sleep in Bancroft Hall, or they can go to their sponsor parents, right? Which again, I was always blessed to really have that opportunity to go back, hang out with my sponsor family, and you know, shout out to Pilchers because they they would they would take care of me, they would, they would stay after the games to you know take me back to their place, and then you know, and then they would have to drive me back to the Naval Academy campus on Sunday. Absolute angels of human beings. So that's what we have there. At the end of overnight liberty or a weekend liberty, that town liberty period, the end of Liberty Formation starts at 1800, uh uh, which is 6 p.m. So again, Sunday, 6 p.m., that's when midshipmen have to return to the yard for the end of Liberty Formation. The only changes to that are usually on holidays, right? So both weekday or like weekend liberties, when there is an extension for a holiday, right? There's a Friday that's a holiday, a Monday that's a holiday, you know, things will things will kind of change and in the schedule shifts, right? Like let's say you have a Friday holiday, right? A three-day weekend and Friday is the holiday weekend. Well, then that liberty schedule that I was kind of showing you would just be extended one day to the left, meaning like Thursday would replicate Friday, Friday would replicate Sunday, yeah, Saturday would replicate Sunday, yeah, something like that. But basically, like again, if if you have Friday off, it means you get that Thursday night liberty because it's kind of mimicking a Friday. You get that full Liberty Friday, you get the full liberty Saturday, and then Sunday becomes like your end of Liberty Day. And then same thing if it was Monday, kind of Friday stays the same, but instead of returning Sunday at 1800, that becomes a full Liberty Day, and then your end of Liberty formation is on Monday at 1800. So that's kind of how holidays play in. It just kind of gets extended to generate like one more full day of liberty, and then your holiday day is kind of like either the start or end of the holiday weekend. Sweet. You know, uh also holidays a lot of times can be leave periods again, Thanksgiving, winter break, spring break, etc. Those formations, usually when you're coming back from a holiday weekend, usually kind of get shifted to 8 p.m. 200 just to accommodate like flights. Again, a lot of midshipmen are going home during that period. And so, in order to make it easier, again, especially your West Coast midshipmen who are flying back towards the East Coast with the time difference, even if they leave at 8 a.m., they may not be landing until 5 p.m., right? And so, in order to accommodate travel a little bit easier, the end of leave formations are shifted to 200, which is an 8 p.m. return time. Also, just to touch on that point, just communicate. Right, when it comes to holiday leave travel, and again, we're gonna jump into like leave here now. For all the midshipment parents out there that may be like stressing about leave and getting their midship back on time, yes, it is really important and you need to do everything in your power to get him back on time. Like, this is not like uh uh, oh well, we can just like play it by ear, and if he doesn't get back on time, it's fine. No, like they need to get back on time. But if there's a legitimate issue, you have a flight booked that's supposed to return them at 4 30 p.m. with plenty of appropriate time in order to, you know, get back to the yard, and then something happens, there's a weather delay, there's legitimate issues, all this stuff. As long as your midshipman communicates appropriately about what is happening, they will be okay. Like you don't need to stress that like something terrible is gonna happen or they're gonna get in all this trouble. As long as you did two things. One, you appropriately planned and all your travel was again appropriately timed and executed so that way you would be able to return back to the Naval Academy campus like if everything goes well. If there are issues that are outside of your control, then you just need to communicate. Text, have the again, the midshipmen would just text their squad leader and be like, hey, you know, I'm on the the runway here, we just got delayed an hour and a half, I'll keep you updated if anything like more happens or if I get extended any more, right? Like, as long as you keep them in the loop of everything that's going on, the whole purpose of this is just to make sure the midshipmen are accounted for. They know where they are. The thing, the only thing that will get you like in trouble trouble is if you choose to not communicate. If you do not communicate and people have to guess where you are, that is where you have a problem, right? And so just communicate. Communicate through holiday travel, you will be okay. Again, if you it turns out you're trying to scheme the system and like actually booking original flights that aren't gonna get you back in time and saying you're the all this stuff, like yeah, that's gonna be serious trouble if you get found out, right? Like this is not an opportunity or excuse to play the system. This is the fact that if you do everything right and things happen that are outside of your control, you're gonna be okay as long as you communicate. Okay. And so that's what we have, and we'll get into leave, but the first like last thing I want to talk about on liberty, because we talked about town liberty and overnight liberty, which is great. When we talk about yard liberty, so if you are if you are, again, like plebs, what are they supposed to do on Sunday? They're not allowed to first first semester, they're not allowed to leave on town liberty, you have yard liberty. Every time a midshipman is on the Naval Academy campus and they do not have a specific military obligation, then they fall into what is known as like being in a yard liberty status. So when they're in a yard liberty status, they can work out, they can go eat on the yard, not even in King Hall, they can go to you know, like dry dock or these other places, visit other dining options on the yard. They can go to any sporting event, they can kind of go across the river and go to the sports complex or the golf, you know, the golf course over there, like a lot of opportunities to do things. I thought yard liberty was actually one of the kind of best experiences at the Naval Academy, especially as a plebe. Because again, plebs, no Liberty Friday night, no Liberty Sunday during first semester, and so you are stuck on the yard hanging out with your friends while all of the upper class midshipmen are able to go on liberty. So for the first time, you're so used to having a bunch of upper class midshipmen that are on your case, that are watching everything that you do, that are like constantly in your way. And now you just have Bancroft Hall to yourself. And so you end up like having like super fun game nights, or you know, a lot of times like the SDO or the CDO, excuse me, the company duty officer who's in charge will say, like, hey, you know, plebs, you can rate media in the in the wardroom tonight, like have a movie night, right? Like there were a lot of group activities that happened on Yard Liberty that I really loved, right? And so a lot of those Friday night things turned into incredible, like, again, fun game nights, sitting around having conversations with 10 plus midshipmen in your friend group, discovering someone that uh actually knows how to play music and they have a guitar ukulele. Like we had a guy in my company who like would play the ukulele and we would all sit and like have fun and joke around. Like it was the purest form of like friendship and companionship, and and just like it it was awesome, right? And so yard liberty again, it's just kind of this period where you're stuck on the Naval Academy campus, you don't have town liberty, but you also have no specific military obligations, so you have a little bit more freedom to kind of do what you want, and that was always incredible. And you know, for me, whenever my parents came to visit Annapolis, that's how we would spend the yard liberty period too. Like we would my parents would go and they would pick me up some some wings from Acme, which again, as this is not a sponsored post. I'm just telling you right now, the best wings in all of Annapolis are at Acme, and they have this like Buffalo garlic parmesan that are just chef's kiss, elite. I'm a big wing fanatic, like I love them. So my parents would always go get me Acme wings, and they would get me a dark chocolate sea salt covered caramel apple from Kill Winds. And they would bring it and we would sit down there. My parents and I, we have a couple, I've invited a couple friends, we would like sit in Mitcher, which is that building in between seventh wing and eighth wing, and they would bring me there and we would sit and eat wings and eat a caramel apple and just talk, and it was I it was special, right? Like they're they're funny enough. Again, sometimes in the in the moments that you have like the most restrictions, least amount of freedom, you find kind of some of the most beautiful moments that you'll have. And a lot of the like really great memories I have from the Naval Academy are those plebe yard liberty periods where I was either hanging out with my friends or my parents who would come to visit to watch like a basketball game. We would play on Saturdays, right? So if we had a home game on Saturdays, sometimes they would come out for that game. And on Friday night and Sunday, they would, again, they would come on the yard and deliver me stuff and you know hang out with me on Friday and Sunday. And that was always really special, right? That was always really special. And so, so yeah, so like those are those are the main factors of everything that's going on. Now, your plebe is gonna know more of this than anything. The purpose of this episode is not telling you like how to do this well, but it's important to be smart with your liberty weekends, right? Again, especially as we talk about fourth class and third class year, you don't have that many overnight weekend opportunities. And so if you're gonna plan a trip to like come visit a midshipman, again, sometimes it's great to utilize it over a holiday weekend, a three-day weekend where they can use that one weekend and get two nights of overnight liberty, right? And so, like, that's always a big win. Or again, save that weekend for a time you know you're gonna be able to go visit your midshipmen so they can stay with you and be able to get out off the yard and have fun. And for planning purposes, again, a lot of times home football games are a great time to come visit because if the Navy football team wins, like was the case this year, in most situations, the Commandant will grant an overnight weekend that has to be used that weekend. So if you are there, right, like you'll have the ability to take your plebe with you and like spend the night with them, right? And so, yeah, that's a little bit contextually about like Naval Academy Liberty, which is again super unique and all this stuff. Now, midshipmen also do get the ability to take leave. We're gonna talk a little bit about like being in the fleet and and having leave versus liberty, but leave at the Naval Academy is really interesting because in most cases you're just getting time off when it's like scheduled time off. Thanksgiving, winter break, spring break, summer, like you get these built-in massive leave blocks. Again, if something happens, if someone in your family unfortunately passes away, if there's a big important wedding, if these things happen, you can go through and submit what we call a special request show. We talked a little bit about earlier to potentially give you the opportunity to go travel and go back and do that. In most cases, they'll put you in a leave status, especially if you're like flying to go to these places. So again, it's one of these things that you can request for. I mean, shipmen don't have like a leave counter, right? So when you get to the fleet, like you're gonna be given days of leave. I'm talking too much into the future here, but again, there's no like leave counter, you don't run, quote unquote, run out of leave at the Naval Academy. You get your designated leave blocks that are given to you again for school breaks. And then if there's ever a case where you need to take leave for again a special event or you know, something unfortunate that happens, then you just ask. Like you just have to request it, and you know, the Naval Academy staff and administration will work on making that happen. During leave, you can absolutely travel abroad, but it does require permission, right? We talked about like going outside the Liberty Radius, that requires permission. If you're going outside the country, that requires more permissions, and you have to submit all this documentation that goes through. Again, we're not gonna take the time explaining everything that you have to submit, but just know that one, yes, you are totally allowed to go travel abroad. If you're taking your family likes to take Christmas vacations abroad, your mid can absolutely do that. They just need to know that when they show up at the start of the semester, they should be starting the process to request permission to go do that because it takes time. Because not only are you submitting, again, like this ORM paperwork, you have to submit State Department paperwork and make sure that the area that you're going to, you know, is is a is an approved area to be able to travel to. You know, you're kind of in some cases, you have to receive some like counterintelligence briefings or general security briefings from you know the NCIS or anything like that. So there are steps that have to happen. You absolutely can travel abroad. You just need to request permission and request it early so you can have the time to approve appropriately go through and receive the approval before it becomes an issue, but absolutely able to take it. And here's my thing for midshipment families do it. Like these are your opportunities where you know you're going to have your child for a specific period of time at specific moments. The moment they hit the fleet, that is gone. That is gone. The schedule, again, we we use the term semper gumby in the military because like stuff changes all the time. It's literally impossible to plan things, except for when you're at the Naval Academy. You know you're gonna get winter break. You know you're gonna get spring break. You know pretty multiple months in advance which summer block of leave your midshipman is gonna have. And when you have those opportunities, take advantage of it. If you're in a financial position to do so and your family wants to do that, like use these opportunities to like do this because this is the most leave a the midshipman is ever gonna get in their military career. It's the most time off a person's ever gonna get in their military career, and you know exactly when those dates are gonna be. You know when winter break is gonna be, you know you can take a trip during that time, you know you can do these things. So try and take advantage of it. Because I'm telling you right now, the moment they graduate, the moment they commission, all of that like knowing and being able to plan, it's just gonna go out the window. It's just gonna go out the window. So take advantage of all that time and do that. Now, I promised a little bit here about like why this matters, right? Because this idea of liberty and leave, it doesn't end at the Naval Academy. Liberty and leave extend to the fleet, right? This idea exists in the Navy and Marine Corps as well, being on liberty versus being on leave. And we talked about like this idea of a liberty radius. Like, why does a liberty radius matter? Like if you have time off, why does it matter where you go? Because at the end of the day, we're in the United States military and you could get recalled at any moment. If something happens, right, if you are assigned to a submarine or you are assigned to a Marine Corps infantry battalion, or you are assigned to a ship or an aviation squadron, you are one news headline away, one world event away from potentially getting surged to go support some ongoing conflict in the world, right? And what is important for a unit for a command is that they know where you are and how to get in touch with you to be able to respond in like a 24 to 48 hour window, right? And so if you are on quote unquote liberty, you are still in a duty status, like you are liable to get recalled at any moment. And so you need to be in a position where you can get back and get ready to go in in an instant, right? And so this is this idea of liberty versus leave. When you're on leave, you have requested special permission to be completely off the books, right? Like you are completely free, but the moment you are not on leave and you are in liberty, yeah, like you are liable for like anything to happen that would bring you back and make you work on a Saturday or Sunday, right? Like those liberty days are not like fully time off. Again, at the end of the day, you could be again called back to kind of perform some kind of duty. As a result, again, we talk about like civilian work policies versus military policies. Once you graduate and you're in the fleet, you will get two and a half days of leave per month that get built up, like two and a half days of PTO a month, right? Again, a lot of people are like, oh my gosh, that's that's a lot. That's like, you know, 30 days of of leave every year, of PTO every year. It's like, yes, I hear you. A lot of you know, a lot of companies will do 14 days, 21 days, whatever. Like, military, you get 30? Like, that's so nice. Yes, kind of, right? But again, the point I'm trying to get to is in order to like be on leave, you have to request days off, even on days that are holidays or weekends, right? Like, if you're taking a trip from Friday to Monday, you don't get to just take Friday off and Monday off. You have to take Friday off, Saturday off, Sunday off, and Monday off because something could happen on Saturday or Sunday. And if you're not on a leave status, like that is a that's criminal, right? And so, like, these are the things that that matter because again, in order to fully get away, in order to leave the liberty radius, you really need to be on a leave status once you're in the military. Again, special request shits exist in the fleet as well. You can, you know, if you're going just a little bit outside, you can request to just extend your liberty radius and you know, here's my contact information, etc. But that's why this stuff matters, right? Is there is a difference between liberty and leave. And leave leave gives you the full ability to kind of like turn off your phone and be relaxed and separate from everything. But those time periods you have to include weekends as well, you have to include holidays. Your time off, like Christmas break, like a holiday break in the military, you have to use all of your PTO for that. Like that those you have to use your PTO days to get days off, right? And so again, those two and a half days per month, they seem great, but again, you're using them for days that like normal people just get off anyway. You don't have to like request PTO, right? And so that's kind of where the difference lies. Those are the distinctions. And yeah, I hope that was helpful. Some of this stuff, it's easy to ramble on a little bit, but I hope this provides a little bit of context into Lee versus Liberty, how this works, and some of the distinctions for you know, midshipmen at the Naval Academy. And again, if you ever have any questions, let me know. I appreciate you putting up with all my ramblings. It's a pleasure to always get to do this. And yeah, thank you so much. If you ever have any questions, let me know. Otherwise, I hope you have a great day. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Academy Insider Podcast. I really hope you liked it, enjoyed it, and learned something during this time. If you did, please feel free to like and subscribe or leave a comment about the episode. We really appreciate it to hear your feedback about everything and continue to make Academy Insider an amazing service that guides, serves, and supports midshipmen, future midshipmen, and their families. Thank you.

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Grant Vermeer

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