Custody battles can become a rude ‘welcome home’ for military parents
By Leo Shane III, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Sunday, September 6, 2009
Courtesy of Staff Sgt. Jessica Tolbe
In this 2006 photo, Staff Sgt. Jessica Tolbe (shown with her former husband’s name on her uniform) poses with her sons Jordan (left) and Jackson. Tolbe, who is fighting for custody of the boys with her ex-husband, believes her overseas deployment to Iraq played a factor in her losing custody of the children.
WASHINGTON — When Staff Sgt. Jessica Tolbe returned from Iraq in February, she looked forward to catching up on lost time with her sons.
But when she went to pick them up from her ex-husband, she was blocked from seeing them by a court order issued while she was still overseas.
“You’d think common sense would make a judge ask ‘Has the mother been served; does she know what’s going on?’ before changing the custody rules,” the Hawaii-based soldier said. “But apparently not.”
House lawmakers for the last few years have been fighting unsuccessfully for better protections for military parents who are deployed and again this summer passed legislation to prohibit courts from making custody changes while a servicemember is overseas.
But it’s unlikely to become law, congressional officials said, because of the Defense Department’s continued opposition to the measure.
Meanwhile, family law experts say they continue to see hundreds of cases in which troops finishing combat rotations return home to angry custody battles and unsympathetic judges, who see long tours overseas as an obstacle to providing a stable home for children.
“The court system is still stacked against members of the military who deploy,” said Mathew Tully, whose legal practice specializes in military rights cases. “A little common sense is coming into the system now, but it is still horrible.”
Attorneys for Tolbe’s ex-husband say they’ll argue in court that his petition for custody of their sons — 8-year-old Jackson and 10-year-old Jordan — has nothing to do with her time deployed, instead centering on matters of stability and who can best provide for the children.
But Tolbe believes the courts in Hawaii and Tennessee never would have allowed the moves if she was in country to fight against them.
“I should never have been in this situation,” she said. “I may lose my children, and all because I had to leave them to go to Iraq.”
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