Women Veterans - No Recognition
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| Mon, 12-14-2009 - 6:58am |
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091214/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_female_veterans_finding_a_place
Back from combat, women struggle for acceptance
WASHINGTON – Nobody wants to buy them a beer. Even near military bases, female veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan aren't often offered a drink on the house as a welcome home.
More than 230,000 American women have fought in those recent wars and at least 120 have died doing so, yet the public still doesn't completely understand their contributions on the modern battlefield.
For some, it's a lonely transition as they struggle to find their place.
Aimee Sherrod, an Air Force veteran who did three war tours, said years went by when she didn't tell people she was a veteran. After facing sexual harassment during two tours and mortar attacks in Iraq, the 29-year-old mother of two from Bells, Tenn., was medically discharged in 2005 with post-traumatic stress disorder.
She's haunted by nightmares and wakes up some nights thinking she's under attack. She's moody as a result of PTSD and can't function enough to work or attend college. Like some other veterans, she felt she improperly received a low disability rating by the Department of Veterans Affairs that left her with a token monthly payment. She was frustrated that her paperwork mentioned she was pregnant, a factor she thought was irrelevant.
"I just gave up on it and I didn't tell anyone about ever being in the military because I was so ashamed over everything," Sherrod said.
Then Jo Eason, a Nashville, Tenn., lawyer working pro bono through the Lawyers Serving Warriors program, stepped in a few years later and Sherrod began taking home a heftier monthly disability payment.
"I've never regretted my military service, I'm glad I did it," Sherrod said. "I'm not ashamed of my service. I'm ashamed to try and tell people about it because it's like, well, why'd you get out? All the questions that come with it."
The Defense Department bars women from serving in assignments where the primary mission is to engage in direct ground combat. But the nature of the recent conflicts, with no clear front lines, puts women in the middle of the action, in roles such as military police officers, pilots, drivers and gunners on convoys. In addition to the 120-plus deaths, more than 650 women have been wounded.
Back home, women face many of the same issues as the men, but the personal stakes may be greater.
Female service members have much higher rates of divorce and are more likely to be a single parent. When they do seek help at VA medical centers, they are screening positive at a higher rate for military sexual trauma, meaning they indicated experiencing sexual harassment, assault or rape. Some studies have shown that female veterans are at greater risk for homelessness.
Former Army Sgt. Kayla Williams, an Iraq veteran who has written about her experience, said she was surprised by the response she and other women from the 101st Airborne Division received from people in Clarksville, Tenn., near Fort Campbell, Ky.
She said residents just assumed they were girlfriends or wives of military men.
"People didn't come up to us and thank us for our service in the same way. They didn't give us free beers in bars in the same way when we first got back," said Williams, 34, of Ashburn, Va. "Even if you're vaguely aware it, it still colors how you see yourself in some ways."
Genevieve Chase, 32, of Alexandria, Va., a staff sergeant in the Army Reserves, said the same guys who were her buddies in Afghanistan didn't invite her for drinks later on because their wives or girlfriends wouldn't approve.
"One of the hardest things that I had to deal with was, being a woman, was losing my best friends or my comrades to their families," Chase said.
It was that sense of loss, she said, that led her to get together with some other female veterans for brunch in New York last year. The group has evolved into the American Women Veterans, which now has about 2,000 online supporters, some of whom go on camping trips and advocate for veterans' issues. About a dozen marched in this year's Veteran's Day parade in New York.
"We just want to know that when we come home, America has our back," Chase said. "That's the biggest thing. Women are over there. You want to feel like you're coming home to open arms, rather than to a public that doesn't acknowledge you for what you've just done and what you just sacrificed."
Rachel McNeill, a gunner during hostile convoys in Iraq, said she was so affected by the way people treated her when they learned she fought overseas that she even started to question whether she was a veteran.
She described the attitudes as "Oh, you didn't do anything or you were just on base," said McNeill, who suffers from postconcussive headaches, ringing in her ears, and other health problems related to roadside bomb blasts. The 25-year-old from Hollandale, Wis., was a sergeant in the Army Reserves.
She said she seemingly even got that response when she told the VA staff in Madison, Wis., of her work. She said she was frustrated to see in her VA paperwork how what she told them had been interpreted.
"It would say like, 'the patient rode along on convoys,' like I was just a passenger in the back seat," McNeill said.
Other women have had similar complaints. The VA leadership has said it recognizes it needs to do more to improve care for these veterans, and as part of changes in the works, female coordinators are in place at each medical center to give women an advocate. The agency is also reviewing comments on a proposal to make it easier for those who served in noninfantry roles — including women — to qualify for disability benefits for PTSD.
Sen. Patty Murray, a member of the Senate Veterans' Affairs committee, recently asked VA Secretary Eric Shinseki and Defense Secretary Robert Gates to ensure that service members' combat experience is included on their military discharge papers, so later they can get benefits they are entitled to.
Research has shown that a lack of validation of a soldier's service can make their homecoming more difficult.
"What worries me is that women themselves still don't see themselves as veterans, so they don't get the care they need for post-traumatic stress syndrome or traumatic brain injury or even sexual assault, which obviously is more unique to women, so we still have a long ways to go," said Murray, D-Wash.
Chase said one challenge is getting female veterans to ask for changes.
"Most of us, because we were women service members, are so used to not complaining and not voicing our issues, because in the military that's considered weak. Nobody wants to hear the girl whine," Chase said.
McNeill said that when she's been out at restaurants and bars with the guys in her unit, they make sure she gets some recognition when the free beers go around.
"They'll make a point ... usually to say, 'She was over there with us, she was right next to us,'" McNeill said.
I only know one female veteran, and that is only vaguely through my son. She was blown up by an IED, and very seriously injured. Spent months recovering.
This attitude toward female war veterans is very saddening to me.


On Veterans Day our Reverand asked the Vets to stand for recognition. This very tiny woman stood up amongst all the strapping men. I was just in awe of her. I never would have known. I read this article this AM and thought of her again.
To me, not only the fact that they don't get recognized, but that they face harassment by their compatriots, while they are serving, is just awful. Then to lose the brothers they do gain,
I'm sad that this treatment is still occurring in the Armed Forces.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091215/ap_on_re_us/us_female_veterans_the_homeless
Female vets face homelessness, dearth of services
By the time she found her way to a program run by the nonprofit U.S. Vets for homeless female veterans in this Southern California city, she'd slept in San Diego on the beach or anywhere she could find after a night of partying. One morning, she woke up behind a trash bin, her pants torn, with no memory of what happened.
Instead of helping her forget her six months in Iraq, where she said she faced attacks on her compound and sexual harassment from fellow soldiers, the alcohol and drugs brought flashbacks and raging blackouts. She said she tried to kill herself.
"You knew something was wrong with you, but you didn't know what was wrong with you," said Ortiz, 27, from atop her twin bed in a plain dorm-style room, a black 4th Infantry Division ball cap on her head. "Nobody knew, and so you couldn't really handle it."
Ortiz is one of the new faces among America's homeless veterans.
They're younger than homeless male veterans and more likely to bring children. Their number has doubled in the past decade, and there are an estimated 6,500 homeless female veterans on any given night — about 5 percent of the total homeless veterans population.
But women-only programs such as the one Ortiz participates in are few.
"It is always hard to find a place or resources or help when you are homeless," said Sen. Patty Murray, a member of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee. "It is almost impossible if you are a woman. Most of the VA facilities cater to men, and you can't take a mom with two little kids and put her in the middle of a homeless center with 30 or 40 male veterans," said Murray, D-Wash.
The distressed economy only made things worse.
"People think we're just coming out of the military and we should have our stuff together," said Tiffany Belle, 33, a former Navy sailor who served in the Philippines after the Sept. 11 attacks and lives with Ortiz at the U.S. Vets program. "It gets really hard. Some people don't know where to go, what to do."
Like male veterans, many homeless female veterans face substance abuse and mental health problems. Many also struggle with sexual trauma that occurred in their childhood, in the military, or elsewhere.
Ortiz said she was the victim of childhood sexual trauma. In Iraq, she said she dealt with harassment from male soldiers who talked to her like she was a prostitute. She was a driver and her convoys regularly were attacked, she said.
She said she's particularly bothered by an incident in which she was 40 feet from a building destroyed by a mortar where she was living in Tikrit.
A few months after she returned to the U.S., she was back in California, with plans to go to college, living with her parents and burning through her money on drugs and alcohol.
She eventually ended up in a psychiatric hospital after attempting suicide, and later in in-treatment programs for drugs and sexual trauma.
"I didn't know how to process it and I didn't know what to process because there was so much of it," she said.
During difficult economic times, even those who haven't yet cut ties from the military can face homelessness.
Sgt. Alta Jackson, 58, joined the Army nearly 30 years ago, and remains in the Reserves while she lives at the U.S Vets site. Before she deployed to Iraq in 2005, she said she lost her job as a custodian. Stationed south of Baghdad, she said her camp endured almost nightly attacks that destroyed structures near her and left fellow soldiers wounded.
Back home from war, she was taking care of her ailing father in his 90s and the two lived on his pension. After his death, she bounced from relative to relative, some of whom were getting evicted amid the housing crisis. Everywhere she looked for work, she was turned down.
"People just don't want to hire you because you're too old," Jackson said.
At the same time, she was angry and depressed. Once outgoing, she told family members not to come see her unannounced.
"Everyone was telling me that I've changed," Jackson said. "I remember telling them, quit telling me I've changed because I haven't changed. I'm the same. You guys have changed."
She continues to look for work. Her car was repossessed while she was deployed, so she's had to relearn how to take the train or bus to look for jobs. She faces the possibility of getting deployed again and worries about the future.
"Sometimes I feel really good about it and I'm upbeat," said Jackson. "Sometimes, when I sit and think about certain things, I get depressed. I get discouraged because it's really hard to say what the future holds."
The program where the women live is one of fewer than 10 nationally that receives money from the Department of Veterans Affairs to provide care in specialized programs for homeless women veterans. It provides housing, but also employment help and treatment for sexual trauma.
Administrators had worked with male veterans for years and assumed the same types of programs worked for women. They quickly learned when they opened the women's program in 2001 that the women's issues were more complex and required longer treatment.
"They really have different ways of dealing with things," said Dr. Diane West, a nurse and therapist who administers the program.
They also found that men and women in the same structure didn't work. A majority of the women had experienced sexual trauma and craved privacy. Some became involved with the men, which complicated their treatment. They were moved to their own building in 2005.
Today, it offers 38 beds for women without children and recently expanded to add rooms for eight women with children. West has gotten calls from women needing help from as far away as Massachusetts. Among those calling for help, West said, was an Iraq veteran with a 3-month old.
Recently, VA Secretary Eric Shinseki pledged to advocates to end homelessness among veterans in five years, and specifically mentioned the need to help women veterans.
The VA is far more proactive than it's ever been, and recognizes the need to be more family friendly, said Pete Dougherty, director of VA's homeless veterans programs. It supports legislation sponsored by Murray that seeks to expand government dollars to programs that target women veterans and the children of the homeless.
It also wants to expand on a partnership between the VA and the Department of Housing and Urban Development that provides permanent housing in public housing and ongoing case management treatment services for veterans.
It "makes it much more appealing for a woman veteran because that woman veteran doesn't have to lose care and custody and control of their children in order to access and obtain services from us," Dougherty said.
The VA's on the right track, but in today's economy, it will be a tough task, said Steve Berg, vice president for programs and policy at the National Alliance to End Homelessness.
In upcoming months, Ortiz plans to leave U.S. Vets where she continues treatment, and in January she plans to enter Long Beach City College on the new GI Bill. She said she no longer hangs out with a drug-using crowd, and instead finds companionship with other veterans.
Her fear is that she will lose control of her post-traumatic stress disorder and her life will take a downward spiral, possibly even leaving her on the streets.
"What makes me think that I'm not like the Vietnam veteran that just like one day snaps and does a flashback and is down in the dumps again?" Ortiz said.
Not only are they raped but many are killed... like the several North Carolina female soldiers that were murdered almost one after the other a couple of years ago. And it didn't matter if they were pregnant or not...