Andrea Kaye And Stan Prowse Legal Eagle Radio

Dividing a military pension is a minefield Dividing a military pension is like walking through a minefield. From the perspective of both the service member spouse and the non-service member spouse, unexpected and unwanted results are an ever present risk. Why should it be so hard? One reason is that military pensions are the creation of federal law, but federal law does not tell you how to divide them in the event of a divorce. Another reason is the complexity of the federal statutory scheme. Until 2014, for example, a dollar for dollar trade off existed between retired pay and disability pay. A service member could agree to a division of retired pay in his or her divorce, but later decide to trade retired pay for VA disability pay. VA disability pay is not subject to division in a divorce, so suddenly the former spouse could be surprised by a dramatic reduction in her or his payments from DFAS. Congress fixed this in 2005 by allowing concurrent receipt of disability pay and retired pay ("CDRP"), so that t