Temporary Assigned Duty. This is something that a sailor might have to do if they need to attend school, medical, or have some legal issue. Sailors like to be sent TAD, they get paid more for doing so. A person can pretty much be sent TAD for any reason as long as it is for the good of the Navy.

We had a few different people who were TAD to our ship for different periods of time. One sailor was TAD because our MR, machinery repairman, was off on medical hold. So we replaced him with a MR from SIMA Norfolk. He was with us for our MED cruise. It worked out good for him because he needed the sea time as we needed a MR on board.

I was TAD on more than one occasion. It was either for school or for medical while I was on my ship. School in Little Creek for Oil King, Water King, JP5 School, and then for medical after my auto accident in Egypt. The Little Creek schools were too close to my duty station so there was no extra pay, called perdeim. However being sent to Germany for medical treatment did get me extra pay, the good with the rotten so to speak.

Other branches of the military have the same thing, but it is called different things. My step son in the Air Force would always go on TDY assignments. When we did drug ops off Columbia we had several Coast Guard members on board, they were TAD.

Sometimes a sailor will need to go TAD for legal reasons. We had one sailor who was in major legal problems in Norway. He was placed TAD to the US Embassy in Oslo, even thought he was in a jail cell in Bergen. This was done because he was only charged with a crime and not guilty of one. He did not get into all of the extra trouble he could have for being left behind.