1. United States
2. Pa.
3. Letter

Investigate the Defense Department's treatment of military spouses stranded overseas during divorce and custody disputes, and force a policy fix. Stars and Stripes has documented cases of spouses in Germany rationing grocery money, relying on food pantries, and accumulating thousands of dollars in debt while trapped in foreign legal proceedings they never anticipated. One spouse reported $6,000 in debt by July 2026. Another was turned down for roughly three dozen jobs despite holding a master's degree. These are not isolated failures. The core problem is structural. When a military family moves abroad and a marriage breaks down, the accompanying spouse can be left without income, without a support network, and without the legal right to bring their children home. The Hague Convention can prevent a parent from crossing an international border with children even when the family was only there temporarily for a military assignment. The Pentagon cannot even say how many couples divorce while stationed overseas because it does not track that data. That gap alone is a failure of oversight. Attorney Michael Hemming, who has handled roughly three dozen such cases in Germany over two decades, argues the military should return the entire family to the United States when a marriage breaks down abroad. That is a reasonable starting point. Congress has the authority to demand answers, require data collection, and mandate policy changes. Use it.