On February 6, 2010, I posted an article entitled, “They Fight for America and Upon Return Must Fight for Their Children”. The article addressed the issue of active duty servicemen and servicewomen returning from overseas assignments, often in the Middle East, to find that their former spouses were using the overseas military assignment as a “substantial change in circumstances” to obtain a change in custody of their minor children. At the time of that posting, Michael R. Turner, R-Ohio, was trying to persuade Secretary of Defense, Robert M. Gates, to agree that active duty military parents should receive child custody protection while they were deployed out of the country. The Department of the Defense had opposed this protection and Turner’s proposed legislation.
On February 11, 2011, Secretary of Defense Gates responded to Representative Michael Turner in a brief letter which said that his Department “was/are willing to consider whether appropriate legislation can be crafted that provides Service members with a federal uniform standard of protection in cases where it is established that military service is the sole factor involved in a child custody decision involving a Service member.” Click here to read his letter.
On February 16, 2011, Congressman … Read More... “BREAKING NEWS: Secretary of Defense Gates Changes Position to Protect Custodial Parents Deployed Overseas!”
One of my all time favorite family law blogs is Updates in Michigan Family Law written by Attorney Jeanne M. Hannah. I read her posts every week even though thinking about Michigan gives me a twinge of pain as a “Buckeye”. Nonetheless, her posts are always informative and excellent! She recently posted on a topic that I felt would be of interest to our readers, especially since our law office is only a few miles from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. With Jeanne’s kind permission, I have republished her article below.
Recent articles and news programs have focused upon active duty military members who have returned from overseas tours of duty (often in the Middle East) to find themselves engaged and involved in “custody battles” with former spouses who are arguing it would be in the “best interests” of the minor child/children to remain with the parent who has provided care and custody during the year(s) the military parent was deployed overseas.
The date for your “non-contested” divorce hearing or your dissolution hearing has been set. What is the appropriate attire for Court? First, it is most important to recognize that the two (2) hearings set forth in the first sentence indicate that the case has been “settled” or “resolved”. Basically, this means that neither party will be testifying against one another and that neither party has a large stake or investment in the Court’s impression of either party.
The Pentagon reported the divorce rate among military members increased again in the past year and is now a full percentage point higher than it was around the time of the September 11, 2001, attacks. According to their figures, the divorce rate of about 3.6 percent for fiscal year 2009 increased from the reported 2001 rate of 2.6 percent. Women in uniform continued to have a much higher divorce rate than their male counterparts – 7.7% in 2009 compared with only 3% for men. Air Force Maj. April Cunningham, a Defense Department spokeswoman, said the latest year-to-year change was relatively small because the services have made available programs focused on strengthening and enriching family bonds among couples. “We believe these programs are instrumental in mitigating the stresses deployment places on marriages,” said Cunningham.
In April, one of our Family Blog Articles focused upon the division of military pensions. The focus of this article is upon other benefits available to former spouses of military members. Those potential benefits include the following:
Because our law practice is in close proximity to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (“WPAFB”) and because I am a “former” military spouse (who receives a fifty percent (50%) share of my former spouse’s military pension), a decision was made to add several articles to our Family Law Blog Site related to special considerations which must be made in assisting a military member and/or his/her spouse in the termination of their marriage. This is the first article having special emphasis on the division of military pensions.