There has lately been some confusion as to what areas of deployment qualify for OpLove sessions. To aid in clarification, the Board of Directors has established these guidelines based upon the current IRS combat zone definitions:
Combat zones are designated by an Executive Order from the President as areas in which the U.S. Armed Forces are engaging or have engaged in combat. There are currently three such combat zones (including the airspace above each):
1) Arabian Peninsula Areas – the Persian Gulf, Red Sea, Gulf of Oman, the part of the Arabian Sea north of 10° North latitude and west of 68° East longitude, the Gulf of Aden, and the countries of Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
2) Kosovo area – Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro), Albania, the Adriatic Sea and the Ionian Sea north of the 39th Parallel.
3) Afghanistan
In addition, we will also allow three parts of the former Yugoslavia to be treated as if it were a combat zone and therefore covered: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Macedonia.
Please note: an official letter of deployment from the command or official deployment orders are REQUIRED, and must be presented to your photographer, in addition to the Client Agreement form they will provide.
These requirements are in place to protect our organization from abuse, and allow participating photographers to better serve our military. If you have questions, please contact your participating photographer, Regional Coordinator, or OpLove directly by using the contact form at www.oplove.org. Comments to blog posts are not monitored.
