Air Force Community - Air Force Times

Letters

MAINTENANCE VS. MARRIAGE

In the article “Divorce and your job” [Sept. 21], I noticed that all the career fields listed are among the smallest ones in the Air Force. The smallest career fields would have fewer divorces than larger career fields, because there are fewer airmen in those career fields, but their percentages would still be higher.

The career fields you listed as having the highest divorce percentages also deploy fewer personnel than most in the Air Force. The time between their deployments is far greater than most.

I have been in maintenance for 13 years and I have probably seen 150 divorces in my career field alone. Because my career field is a larger one, the percentage would be lower than the ones listed in your article, but the divorces in my career field alone most likely exceed the total number of divorces in all the high-percentage career fields combined.

This is the same type of news coverage that I am forced to read and watch every day. News outlets will report how many soldiers are killed but never report the small victories or the number of bad guys killed in the same time frame.

The Air Force Times article tells us that the high-deployment maintenance career fields are not the career fields with the highest divorce rates. It almost reads like a paid article by the Air Force to make it seem like it’s fine to have all these deployments, long hours and weekends worked by the maintenance community in the “do more with less” Air Force.

— Tech. Sgt. Thimothy W. Anderson, Valdosta, Ga.

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The tables included with the recent article on divorce listed the career fields with the lowest and highest divorce rates but did not show any of the 2AXXX maintenance career fields.

I am a maintainer and a divorcé myself, and I believe these career fields have some of the highest divorce rates out there. This is a glaring omission, which I hope can be rectified in the future.

— Staff Sgt. Scott T. Hurley, Langley Air Force Base, Va.

Care for Kids with Autism

This week, more than 19,000 military dependents living with autism and their families received a difficult blow from the inaccurate statements made by the Defense Department as recounted in Air Force Times [“DoD: Congress’ autism care plan could jeopardize patients’ safety,” Sept. 28].

As an advocate for families with disabilities, military spouse and a parent of a child with autism, I feel compelled to speak out.

Currently, Tricare segregates applied behavior analysis therapy — an effective intervention for autism and many other disabilities — into a separate arm of the Tricare basic program, called the Extended Care Health Option, as a special education service. ECHO is available only to active-duty family members, denying treatment to dependents of retirees, and places a financial cap on a child’s treatment program of $36,000 per year.

Unfortunately, most military families do not have the resources to pay additional costs out of pocket and are forced to go without.

The Defense Department’s uninformed argument that applied behavior analysis is “special education” flies directly against public policy — 15 states mandate coverage of ABA therapy as medically necessary under their respective state insurance laws — and the consensus among the national medical policy organizations.

The American Academy of Pediatrics, National Academy of Sciences and National Institute of Mental Health all recognize applied behavior analysis therapy as an effective intervention for the treatment of autism. While it is correct that the American Academy of Pediatrics refers to ABA therapy as an “educational intervention,” the AAP goes further to define “educational” as “the fostering of acquisition of skills and knowledge to assist a child to develop independence and personal responsibility.”

In short, applied behavior analysis is educational in the sense that it teaches a child skills to function independently.

The Defense Department’s classification of applied behavior analysis as “special education” is in error, and does our military families a disservice.

Further action is needed and I request the leadership and support of Congress to intervene on behalf of our special kids.

— Karen Driscoll, San Diego