[EvaLuna]

Hi All! I'm finishing my BSN and considering going either Army or Air Force nurse corp. My husband is former Air Force and also did stint in Army. I'm interested in overseas however have one major impediment, my husband is unable to secure a passport due to past child support issues. My question is do they issue special passport to spouse and dependents or is this something that is taken care of at civilian level? I'm really interested only on overseas assaignments so any help from anyone with experience going overseas with family would help greatly.

[The Little Greek]

Hey there,
I'm pretty sure that as your first assignment that they will not send you overseas. I wanted to go to Alaska (considered overseas) and was told that I could put it down but doing so would just increase the chances of getting one of my other choices. That being said, even if by some weird stroke of luck you did get overseas, I doubt that the US Gov't can override your husband's child support issues. I'm not sure how much he has due, but I think that as long as he has less than $2500 in arrears he can get one.

[LeesieBug]

In the Army you get your passport on post, and it is a military passport (unless things have changed in the past 7 years). When I got my military passport, I do not recall a waiting time while they checked me out. I walked into the office with my military ID, plopped my butt in a chair for the photo and they handed me a military passport.


Maybe someone who has gone more recently would be more helpful, but when I went there was nothing to it...no special checks or clearances.

I recall the health clearance being more cumbersome than the passport and did lots of running around in regard to medical appointments and health clearance paperwork for me and the kids.

[The Little Greek]

I think what EvaLuna's problem is not actually applying, but obtaining the passport. If a person has *any* past-due child support that is reported to the Attorney General in any state, the Department of State will find it when they pull up that person's SSN during a passport application. If the arrears is more than $2500 (I think) then that person will not be granted a passport by the USA. The reason being is that they do not want people to skip out on paying child support and if a person is in arrears and they could do just that if they leave the country.

EDIT: If her husband is AD the procedure might be different as military members are easy to keep track of and garnish wages. However, if he isn't AD then I doubt the military could make concessions. I could be very wrong though and I suppose the only people that could answer her specific question would be the Dept of State.

[EvaLuna]

Thanks for the replies everyone! I think most are right about not being able to override the Dept. of State. Unfortunately, the problem is with arrears . I guess that means I'm grounded until we can fix the problem . Thanks for clarifying things. I'll look at things stateside. Appreciate it!