GET YOUR SPOUSE A "PASS." I'm retired AF GS Civilian - with retired ID card, which includes privileges at most all DoD MWR facilities, and by implication, installation access. The "new" ID card is "scan-able" at the gate (DBIDS), as is my wife's, and is linked to the DEERS database - anywhere in the world. Absolutely NO issues throughout our 2016 Alaska trip (from Florida), except for JBER, in Anchorage. The kid at the gate declared that my wife was "disbarred," according to his "squirter;" he confiscated her card, and would not allow her on the base - even to get our rig turned around in order to drive the eight miles to the main gate. Needless to say, he ended up getting reamed by the supervisor at Pass and ID, but we ended up finding out that, at JBER, her ID card is pretty much useless. I learned that I SHOULD have been able to bring her on any installation by simply showing her drivers license to the gate guard (with my retired card), but that SOME installations may require a "pass" (and at JBER, the kids on the gate didn't know that either). Upon return home, I inquired at Eglin AFB (where I still work part time) and found out that her card allows her unaccompanied access at three of the local installations, but nowhere else. To be on the safe side, from now on, we will make it a point to stop by Pass & ID and get a formal "pass;" one that will ensure that she can have independent access for the entire time we're there. As it was, I needed to make an emergency trip to PA for a funeral, and had we not had her pass we would have been in a real bind. I don't know what other types of "status" may be treated the same way, but with today's varying "THREATCON's," and arbitrary/ambiguous/inconsistent applications of "procedure" across the Services and respective installations, it might be best to just get a "pass" in every case.
