Military spouses negatively affected by the abrupt halt to the Military Spouse Career Advancement Accounts (or MyCAA) on Feb. 16 may get some good news in the coming weeks.

During the question and answer portion of a town hall meeting May 8 at Fort Riley, Kan., Department of Defense Secretary Robert Gates was asked about the current status of the MyCAA program.

After talking a bit about the program, he responded: "So we've been looking at the program. And I would tell you that I'm going to have a couple more meetings on it this week, this coming week. But within the next week or two, I expect we will be able to reopen the program to new applicants," Gates said. "And we are looking at a budget somewhere on the order of $500 million. We're going to have to do some things in terms of some caps and some limits, to be able to help as many people as possible.  But I expect within the next two weeks we'll reopen the program, with a substantial increase in the funding."

As of Tuesday, the Web site MilitaryOneSource.com, which handles the program for the Defense Department, still displayed the following message on the MyCAA login page: "We are currently developing options for the long-term management of the MyCAA program and expect to be able to announce the details soon. Until then, no new accounts can be created. During this time, Military OneSource Spouse Education and Career Consultants will continue to be available to provide education and training, career exploration, assessment, employment readiness and career search assistance."

Since the shutdown in February, military spouses across the country have rallied and expressed their displeasure in the DoD's decision to put the program on hold.

Julia Aten, a Joint Base Lewis-McChord spouse who lives in Puyallup and co-authors the Military Spouses Speak Out blog (http://julia-lauren.blogspot.com/), posted a response recently after getting word of Gates' comments.

"I hope this is true. I think everything we have done and other military spouses all across this country are not taking this situation laying down," Aten wrote. "We are keeping it in the news and this puts pressure on the DOD to not let the program fade away!"

Spouses also created a Take Action Against MyCaa Shutdown page on Facebook. As of Tuesday, the page had 2,757 members.

The page was created to serve as a forum for everyone affected by the shutdown, according to its administrators.

"MyCAA was a great program and the only option for some spouses to complete education needed to make themselves more employable," a paragraph in the basic information page reads. "This country isn't a friendly place to military spouses looking for employment. The loss of MyCAA (for however long it may last) will only be detrimental to a lot of spouses."