Humanitarian Transfer and PTAD

Start Here If You Are New to Humanitarian Transfer

A humanitarian transfer moves you to a different duty station, or cancels your PCS orders so you stay put, for a family hardship. You start the request. It is for your convenience, not the needs of the Marine Corps, and the rules reflect it.

This page walks you through it from your seat. By the end you will know.

• The 36-month short-term rule and why it decides your path
• The difference between a transfer, retention on station, and permissive TAD
• What counts as immediate family
• What gets favorable consideration and what does not
• The RE-3C reenlistment code and how it comes off
• What goes in your request package

Every fact on this page comes from MCO 1000.6MCO 1000.6 Chapter 1 Section 3 paragraph 2.

The 36-Month Rule Decides Your Path

The Marine Corps designed humanitarian transfer to solve short-term situations. Short term means 36 months or less, the length of a normal CONUS tour, or your date of release from active duty, whichever comes first.

If your problem reasonably runs beyond three years from the date of transfer, the order calls it long term. A long-term problem limits your availability for worldwide assignment, so the appropriate answer shifts to a hardship discharge or transfer to the Fleet Marine Corps Reserve or the Retired List. This is a different request with a different destination.

Approvals for retention on station normally run 12 months.

Three Different Outcomes

• Humanitarian transfer. You move by service record book to a new duty station. There is no entitlement to travel back to your old station to help move your dependents or household goods. Travel and transportation allowances run from where you and your dependents are located to the new duty station.
• Retention on station. Your PCS orders cancel and you stay. Normally approved for 12 months.
• Permissive TAD. When your problem is short and documented, and no billet vacancy exists near the location you need, you attach to the Marine Corps activity closest to the hardship for up to six months. No per diem. No travel expense. Travel time charges as annual leave.

Permissive TAD does not authorize when leave solves the problem. The order expects you to exhaust your current authorized leave first.

What Counts as Immediate Family

For humanitarian transfer, TAD, and retention on station, immediate family means.

• Your spouse
• Your natural or step-children
• Your brothers and sisters
• Your parents, or your spouse's parents
• Anyone standing in loco parentis for you for at least two years before you entered active duty

The Five Criteria

Your situation qualifies for consideration only when all five apply.

1. The situation is more severe than the problems Marines and their families normally meet in the course of military service.
2. The hardship occurred or worsened after you began your initial term of service, or after your last reenlistment.
3. You made every effort to solve it yourself. Taking leave, corresponding with social service agencies where the hardship is, filing dependency applications, registering allotments for financial support, seeking legal assistance, and seeking medical or psychological treatment for family members at your current duty station.
4. The problem resolves or comes under control inside a normal CONUS tour, 36 months.
5. The problem involves your immediate family and your presence is required to fix it.

What Usually Gets Approved

Favorable consideration generally follows when.

• A member of your or your spouse's immediate family has a terminal illness, life expectancy under six months, and your presence is required.
• A member of your or your spouse's immediate family is ill and the attending physician certifies your presence is required for the patient's well-being.
• No other relative is capable of providing the assistance needed.
• You became a single parent through unforeseen circumstances, such as the death of a spouse.
• You are enrolled in the Exceptional Family Member Program and your family member has a medical or educational requirement the current duty station cannot support, documented by qualified providers.

What Does Not Get Approved

The order names these directly. Requests do not receive favorable consideration when the basis is.

• Assisting in farming or mining ventures
• Personal business ventures
• Attending to personal legal matters
• Providing moral support alone

Reenlistment Code RE-3C

When you are the subject of a humanitarian transfer action, you receive reenlistment code RE-3C. Read this correctly. The code is administrative, not punitive. It exists so the Marine Corps reviews whether continued service serves both you and the Corps before you reenlist, and so a valid hardship does not worsen.

• A Page 11 entry assigns the code, filed in your OMPF per the IRAMMCO P1070.12.
• The code normally does not apply to permissive TAD periods under 30 days.
• The code revokes once you notify Headquarters the situation resolved. The notification declares you available for worldwide assignment again.
• A second Page 11 entry documents the removal, also filed in your OMPF.

What Goes in Your Request

Your request originates with you and must contain.

• The area or duty station you want, including the Monitored Command Code
• A description of the problem, complete on its own without reading the enclosures
• How the transfer would fix it, and what you have already tried
• Your estimate of the time needed to resolve it. If six months or less, request permissive TAD instead of transfer
• Whether you would accept transfer to the nearest station with a vacancy if none exists where you asked, and how much it would help
• Names, addresses, and ages of the dependents or relatives who need your help
• Names, addresses, and ages of other relatives, and whether they are able to help
• Any disciplinary action pending
• The attending physician's name, address, and telephone number
• Dates of any previous humanitarian requests
• For illness, a physician's statement in plain terms giving diagnosis, prognosis, and life expectancy if the illness is life threatening
• For single parenthood, a statement from whoever will provide child care
• At least one notarized statement substantiating the circumstances
• Your statement of intent to reenlist
• Whether you want to be considered for hardship discharge if the transfer is denied

If the Situation Comes Up While You Are on Leave

Contact the nearest Marine Corps activity for help preparing the request. Headquarters considers 15 days sufficient for you and the attaching command to build and submit it. Submit inside the 15-day window and you are retained pending the decision.

The TAD period is not free time or extended leave. Use it to obtain your documents and perform military duties. A command terminates the TAD of a Marine failing to submit complete documentation, and orders them to carry out their basic orders or return to the parent command.

Where a Billet Has to Exist

The duty station you request must have a billet vacancy requiring your grade and MOS. As general policy, an approved humanitarian transfer does not send you to a recruiting station, a Marine Corps district headquarters, or a small detachment filling one-for-one billets.

Common Mistakes

1. Requesting a transfer for a problem running past three years. This is a hardship discharge conversation, not a transfer.
2. Submitting without evidence you tried leave, allotments, and social services first. Criterion three fails and the request returns.
3. Describing the problem only in the enclosures. The description must stand complete on its own.
4. Asking for a station with no vacancy in your grade and MOS, without saying whether the nearest station with a vacancy would help.
5. Treating RE-3C as a black mark. It is administrative, and it comes off when you report the situation resolved.