Albert John Fern v. Joan Turman and John O. Marsh, Secretary of the Army, Robert Lewis Stirm v. Loretta F. Adams and Verne Orr, Secretary of the Air Force

736 F.2d 1367 Albert John FERN, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Joan TURMAN and John O. Marsh, Secretary of the Army, Defendants-Appellees. Robert Lewis STIRM, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Loretta F. ADAMS and Verne Orr, Secretary of the Air Force, Defendants-Appellees. Nos. 82-4577, 82-4581. United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit. Argued and Submitted May 12, 1983. Decided July 10, 1984. Mattaniah Eytan, Kaplan, Russin, Vecchi, Eytan & Collins, San Francisco, Cal., for plaintiff-appellant. Katherine E. Stoner, Pacific Grove, Cal., for defendants-appellees. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. Before BROWNING, Chief Judge, MERRILL and ALARCON, Circuit Judges. BROWNING, Chief Judge: 1 Appellants are retired military officers. Both were required by divorce decrees to pay a fixed percentage of their military retired pay to their former wives as divisible community property under state law. Both ceased payments after the United States Supreme Court held in McCarty v. McCarty, 453 U.S. 210 , 101 S.Ct. 2728 , 69 L.Ed.2d 589 (1981), that state courts were not free to divide retired military pay under community property laws. 2 The wives…