War's Affect on Children

Many of our young service men and women have been deployed to Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan over the past couple of years to fight the war on terror. Some of these men and women have small children and may have been granted primary residential care of the minor children in a court proceeding. Often times, there are disputes as to who should take care of these minor children in the event of their parent's deployment over seas. Some non-military parents are using the deployment of the other parent as a way to obtain temporary and permanent custody of their children. While I believe that under most circumstances it is in the children's best interest to be with their non-military parent when there is a deployment, I do not believe that there should be a permanent change in custody based on this one fact. Congress is currently attempting to pass legislation in order to close loopholes which may have allowed for permanent changes in custody as a result of the primary residential parent's deployment. This type of legislation is clearly within the best interests of children and should be passed sooner rather than later.

If you would like to read the article on which this blog is based, see: http://www.tcpalm.com/tcp/local_news/article/0,2545,TCP_16736_5417681,00.html