At a recent town hall meeting, an active duty service member commented about the Uniformed Services Former Spouses Protection Act (USFSPA) to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and expressed her disappointment over DoD’s lack of support to repeal unfair portions of the law. Rumsfeld replied, “I’ve never heard of it.” This prompted Richard M. Dean, executive director of the Air Force Sergeants Association to send the secretary a letter outlining some of the inequities in the USFSPA, such as.
A military member must serve 20 years to earn retirement pay, whereas a former spouse needs only to have been married to the member for any length of time to have a legal claim to a portion of the pay for the rest of the retiree’s life.
The law has no statute of limitations, so a spouse who was briefly married to a service member can revisit the divorce decree decades later and claim part of the member’s retirement pay.
The former spouse’s portion of the military member’s retirement pay is based on the pay at retirement, rather than the pay (perhaps much less and many years earlier) at the time of divorce.
Although court action is required, courts almost always automatically award the maximum amount to the former spouse — regardless of fault determined in the divorce proceedings.
A former spouse can collect retirement pay from any number of military retirees, turning the law into a “cash cow.”
An award to a former spouse does not terminate if the former spouse remarries — no matter how many times.
Military members lose their retirement pay if they commit a felony, but former spouses continue collecting their portion of the pay even if they commit a felony.