She had raised her daughter for six years following the divorce, shuttling to soccer practice and cheerleading,
making sure schoolwork was done. Then Lt. Eva Crouch was mobilized with the Kentucky National Guard, and Sara
went to stay with Dad. A year and a half later, her assignment up, Crouch pulled into her driveway with one thing in
mind — bringing home the little girl who shared her smile and blue eyes. She dialed her ex and said she’d be there
the next day to pick Sara up, but his response sent her reeling. “Not without a court order you won’t.”
Within a month, a judge would decide that Sara should stay with her dad. It was, he said, in “the best interests of the child.”
What happened? Crouch was the legal residential caretaker; this was only supposed to be temporary. What had changed?
She wasn’t a drug addict, or an alcoholic, or an abusive mother. Her only misstep, it seems, was answering the call to
serve her country.
Crouch and an unknown number of others among the 140,000-plus single parents in uniform fight a war on two fronts:
For the nation they are sworn to defend, and for the children they are losing because of that duty. A federal law called
the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act is meant to protect them by staying civil court actions and administrative proceedings
during military activation. They can’t be evicted. Creditors can’t seize their property. Civilian health benefits, if suspended
during deployment, must be reinstated. And yet service members’ children can be — and are being — taken from them
after they are deployed. Some family court judges say that determining what’s best for a child in a custody case is simply
not comparable to deciding civil property disputes and the like; they have ruled that family law trumps the federal law
protecting servicemembers.
Even some supporters of the federal law say it should be changed — that soldiers should be assured that they can regain custody of children.
Military mothers and fathers speak of birthdays missed, bonds weakened, endless hearings.
