Couples Policy Stands, Cheney Says

Defense Secretary Dick Cheney said Thursday it would be “a serious mistake” to reverse a Pentagon policy allowing the military to simultaneously assign husbands and wives to the Gulf War.

“We are, and have been, sensitive to the needs of all our military families, including the special needs of our single parents and military couples,” Cheney said in a letter to Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.)

But he said the Defense Department opposes a sense of the Senate resolution that says the Pentagon should take steps to ensure that no military couples or single parents serve in the Gulf.

Sen. John Heinz (R-Pa.) is proposing the resolution as an amendment to the Soldiers and Sailors Relief Act, now under debate in the Senate, which would protect fighting men and women and their dependents against mortgage foreclosures.

“All members of that profession of arms serving today are volunteers,” Cheney said. “They understand that when they volunteered to serve, they freely assumed the duty and obligation to place themselves in harm’s way when called upon to do so.

“That understanding and obligation is held equally by the single parents and military couples serving around the world,” he said.