Comments on: How Divorce Affects Veterans and Members of the Military http://www.veteranstoday.com/2007/03/31/how-divorce-affects-veterans-and-members-of-the-military/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=how-divorce-affects-veterans-and-members-of-the-military Military Veterans and Foreign Affairs Journal - VA - Veterans Administration Sun, 12 Feb 2012 05:14:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Roger D Smart, PO1, USN, Retired http://www.veteranstoday.com/2007/03/31/how-divorce-affects-veterans-and-members-of-the-military/comment-page-1/#comment-59127 Roger D Smart, PO1, USN, Retired Fri, 30 Apr 2010 20:52:31 +0000 http://127.0.0.1/?p=2061#comment-59127 Yes, this is true and our Congress has ignored this FACT, and we are now going to take it to the state level where the playing field will be equal. This is just a hard fact that our government has not done anything about. This is now more true, because more women are now retiring from the military services and having to give up their retainer to a male dependent, just because THEY CAN. This doesn't make any sense! The bottom line is GREED. We are not saying we won't support and take care of our responsibility, but there is no reason whatsoever why a female has to pay a male dependent for the rest of his life. This law became law back in 1982. What the people of this country don't realize is this; Our retainer or retirement is NOT, I repeat once more NOT a qualified pension plan, but rather its a FEDERAL ENTITLEMENT to the service member who completes 20 years of service with an additional 10 years inactive to serve in case of a "national emergency" in which the member can be recalled to active duty in case of an emergency. I have completed my 30 years and can not be recalled to duty whatsoever! The former spouse can even divorce again and still receive the former members retainer pay and do it again and if he or she is lucky enough, the next member could be military retired and he or she could make a living doing this. This is not a gender issue at all, but rather what is fair to the person committed to 20 years of active duty defending his or her country and the dependent doing nothing to deserve this retainer. And to top that off, when a dependent passes away, no one is going to tell the other about the death, so its up to the military member who may not have any communication with the former spouse and that person has to and is tasked to find out when that military dependent passed away. Talk about "jumping through hoops"! Any questions you may have, you can direct them to "www.ulsg.org" Yes, this is true and our Congress has ignored this FACT, and we are now going to take it to the state level where the playing field will be equal. This is just a hard fact that our government has not done anything about. This is now more true, because more women are now retiring from the military services and having to give up their retainer to a male dependent, just because THEY CAN.
This doesn’t make any sense! The bottom line is GREED. We are not saying we won’t support and take care of our responsibility, but there is no reason whatsoever why a female has to pay a male dependent for the rest of his life. This law became law back in 1982. What the people of this country don’t realize is this; Our retainer or retirement is NOT, I repeat once more NOT a qualified pension plan, but rather its a FEDERAL ENTITLEMENT to the service member who completes 20 years of service with an additional 10 years inactive to serve in case of a “national emergency” in which the member can be recalled to active duty in case of an emergency. I have completed my 30 years and can not be recalled to duty whatsoever! The former spouse can even divorce again and still receive the former members retainer pay and do it again and if he or she is lucky enough, the next member could be military retired and he or she could make a living doing this. This is not a gender issue at all, but rather what is fair to the person committed to 20 years of active duty defending his or her country and the dependent doing nothing to deserve this retainer. And to top that off, when a dependent passes away, no one is going to tell the other about the death, so its up to the military member who may not have any communication with the former spouse and that person has to and is tasked to find out when that military dependent passed away. Talk about “jumping through hoops”! Any questions you may have, you can direct them to “www.ulsg.org”

]]>