DoD Pulls Marital Protection Rule

The Defense Department has scrapped DoD 1400.33, which protected service members from harm to their careers if their spouses refused command requirements to work or volunteer as part of the military members’ duty assignments. The 1988 directive, “Employment and Volunteer Work of Spouses of Military Personnel,” also exempted marital status as a qualification for assignments. The publication was listed for removal from the Code of Federal Regulations in August as being obsolete. The National Military Family Association discovered the directory’s removal when a military wife reported being unable to find it, according to an NMFA official. Although she and her husband wanted her to remain and continue her own career when her husband was being transferred, his chance for a future promotion reportedly was threatened.