Invictus Games Update

First gold medal of Invictus Games goes to 9-11 survivor
Orlando Sentinel
Stephen Ruiz
May 9, 2016

American Sarah Rudder kisses the 2 gold medals she earned Monday at the Invictus Games at Disney World. (Alex Menendez/Getty Images for Invictus Games)

It was a big day for Sarah Rudder. She was getting promoted in front of the Pentagon.

The date was Sept. 11, 2001.

"We were pulling survivors out at first,'' said Rudder, a retired lance corporal in the U.S. Marines. "The next day, I went to pull non-survivors, and upon pulling non-survivors, I crushed my [left] ankle. I had several reconstructive surgeries, but they couldn't save the leg.''

It seemed appropriate Monday that Rudder claimed the first gold medal awarded at the first Invictus Games on American soil. She won it in women's lightweight powerlifting and later added another gold in indoor rowing.
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Army Nurse Takes Pride in Representing Team USA at Invictus Games
DoD News
By Shannon Collins
Defense Media Activity
May 10, 2016

“I’m grateful for my family to be present to watch me compete, especially having my daughter in attendance for this year’s games, since she wasn’t able to attend the inaugural games,” she said. “These games are very personal for me, given my military career and background, and it’s a blessing to have my family in attendance to experience how much these games mean to me.”

Army Capt. Kelly Elmlinger performs laps in her race wheelchair at Joint Base San Antonio, Texas, while training for the 2015 Department of Defense Warrior Games, June 11, 2015. DoD photo by EJ Hersom

ORLANDO, Fla., May 10, 2016 — Fierce competitor Army Capt. Kelly Elmlinger will participate in track and field, swimming and rowing at the 2016 Invictus Games being held this week at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex at Walt Disney World here.

During the 2014 Invictus Games, Elmlinger’s first foray into the competition, she earned gold medals in the 100-meter and 400-meter wheelchair races, the shot put, and in the cycling time trial; silver medals in discus during track and field, the cycling road race, and the 50-meter backstroke in swimming. She took fourth place in the 50-meter and 100-meter freestyle in swimming.
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At Invictus Games, athletes forge powerful friendships in beating adversity
Stars and Stripes
Dianna Cahn
May 10, 2016

ORLANDO, Fla. — They didn’t know each other when one was blown up and the other was shot a year apart in southern Afghanistan.

By the time they met at a wounded warrior competition, retired Air Force Tech Sgt. Leonard Anderson was missing one arm below the elbow and all but one finger on his other hand. Air Force Staff Sgt. August O'Niell had endured at least a dozen surgeries.

Their lives have intertwined ever since.

They train and compete together. Anderson was there for O'Niell’s leg amputation and again when his daughter was born. O'Niell was there when Anderson, missing his hands, had no choice but to retire from the Air Force.

And when Anderson prepares for the swimming finals at the Invictus Games on Wednesday, his buddy will be there to help him to pull on his Speedo.

Their friendship is the story of these warrior games, where the fierce determination needed to get here comes with a disarming vulnerability. That’s a tough pill to swallow for these guys, but it forges deep friendships and a camaraderie among competitors like none other in the world.
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Invictus Games Competitor Lauren Montoya Still Fit For Duty

Invictus Games competitor Lauren Montoya says adaptive sports 're-lit that fire in me to find myself again'
ESPN
Tom Friend
Senior Writer
May 7, 2016

"The injury wasn't the hardest part; it was being taken away from Afghanistan before she was supposed to. There wasn't the transition time of, 'OK, I'm going home now, I'm ready, I've finished my job.' Now her job was just to lay in a bed. She's a go-getter. She can't just lay there. That's just not how she lives."

THE EARTH MOVED under her feet. That is Lauren Montoya's memory of war -- a constant rumble from the ground on up. Every sound, human or otherwise, was guttural, and she always had this sixth and seventh sense that someone was watching her, trying to kill her. For most of her stay in Afghanistan, she was a gunner stationed in an armored truck, her finger on the trigger of a 50-caliber machine gun, her job to have four eyes in the back of her head. There was no mental break allowed. The stress of it all was supposed to be trained out of her at boot camp, but that's only in theory. The reality was that Montoya's insides were always rumbling along with the earth. Until nighttime came.

Gunners get to shut their eyes, too. Montoya would slip into her sleeping bag each night at 3 a.m., in the middle of a Kandahar desert, and stare up at the stars. The sky seemed wider, brighter and more 3D in Afghanistan, almost mystical. The air felt fresher. She says maybe it was the juxtaposition between beauty and hate. But for whatever reason, the ground stopped moving for her at night. "We were in a war zone,'' she says. "There are enemy dudes watching us, and we can hear them over the radio. But it was probably one of the most peaceful and tranquil moments that I've ever had.''

All these months later, in San Antonio, Texas, that is the vision that keeps coming back to Lauren Montoya. Safe in her apartment, along with her wife, her daughter and her prosthetic, she lives for those Afghanistan nights. They are in her dreams and daydreams. They fuel her.

It is why she runs.

Soon enough, she received the news: The Army deemed her fit for duty. In other words, she was as qualified as any other able-bodied person to defend her country.
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Home From War Female Veteran Feels Service Devalued

Home From War, Female Veteran Discovers Not All Military Service Is Valued Equally
KPLU
By GABRIEL SPITZER
APR 30, 2016

As a female vet, she was often mistake for a “real” veteran’s wife or girlfriend. And as someone who did a majority of her service within the confines of that Army base, she discovered that some soldiers played down what she went through.

Marine Corps translator Vanessa Davids (second from the left), on one of her rare trips off base.

COURTESY OF VANESSA DAVIDS

Vanessa Davids did most of her military service “inside the wire,” as an Arabic translator on a base in Iraq. Her job called on her to translate audio and video recordings, in hopes of gathering intelligence, foiling attacks and probing enemy action. She translated bomb plots, beheadings, even in some cases child pornography. As a result, she got an intimate, and dark, perspective on human nature.

“Doing the work that I did, it really seemed to me at the time that evil was in every single person, and it was just a matter of how well they hid it from you,” Davids said.

But upon returning from her deployment, she discovered that not all military service is treated equally by either the military itself, her fellow vets, or the civilians she now moved uncomfortably among.
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Female Iraq Veteran Getting Help After Standoff with Police

UPDATE April 7, 2016
Officials: Standoff subject has PTSD

Officials reported Muirhead is a U.S. Army veteran who served in Iraq and was suffering from PTSD, a condition of persistent mental and emotional stress occurring as a result of injury or severe psychological shock, typically involving disturbance of sleep and constant vivid recall of the experience.

Police: Woman in Port Clinton standoff is Iraq War veteran
Toledo Blade
April 7, 2016

PORT CLINTON — Authorities have identified a 31-year-old Iraq War veteran as a woman who kept law enforcement agents at bay in a nearly seven-hour standoff in the city Wednesday night.

Melissa Jo Muirhead, an Army veteran, was taken to a hospital for evaluation, according to Port Clinton police.
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From NBC 24

Officials say Muirhead is known to police and is believed to be suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Charges are not likely, according to Chief Hickman.

US Marine Standing Tall Inspires Prince Harry

Standing tall, the 'incredible' amputee marine who inspires Prince Harry 
The Telegraph 
By Gordon Rayner 
27 Mar 2016 

US marine Kirstie Ennis was sent messages by Prince Harry as she fought back from a life-threatening infection following the amputation of her leg.

Prince Harry has saluted the “absolutely incredible” courage of his friend Kirstie Ennis after the US marine fought back from a life-threatening infection following the amputation of her leg.

Miss Ennis, 25, shared pictures on social media showing her standing on her new prosthetic limb in the spring sunshine and posing for modelling shots as she said she was “so thankful for the world around me”.

The Prince boosted her recovery by sending her messages in hospital and is now hoping she will be well enough to compete in the Invictus Games in Florida in May, the Paralympic-style event he launched two years ago.
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Professor Turned Into The Nanny For 4 Month Old

Watch: Professor Holds Former Marine’s Fussy Baby During Class
The Blaze
Carly Hoilman
Mar. 26, 2016

“Taking care of others in a time of need, and even in not a time of need, just loving and caring about others — that God’s purpose,” Dr. Darryn Willoughby

Full-time wife, mother and college student Katy Humphrey found herself in a predicament last week when the babysitter she hired backed out last minute. Humphrey, a former Marine, was counting on the sitter to watch her 4-month-old daughter, Millie, while she attended class at Baylor University.

Knowing that missing class was not an option, Humphrey quickly began brainstorming solutions.

“I had the Marine reaction, since I was in Marine Corps — I have to pull through somehow,” she told KWTX-TV.

So she placed her baby girl in a carseat and headed to class.

“I was thinking, ‘well I hope I can balance both,’” Humphrey said.

She didn’t however, think of what she’d do if Millie got fussy. And that’s exactly what happened.

But instead of getting frustrated at the student who decided to bring a wailing infant to class, the professor, Dr. Darryn Willoughby, went over to Humphrey and offered to help comfort Millie.

“Within the first five minutes Millie got fussy,” Willoughby, the Associate Professor of Health, Human Performance, and Recreation and the Director of Exercise and Biochemical Nutrition Laboratory at Baylor, told KWTX-TV. “So I just went over, picked her up, carried her back, and went right back to lecturing without missing a beat.”
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Female Veterans Face Multiple Challenges in Civilian World

Civilian life offers multiple challenges for women veterans in Duval; survey results released
Jacksonville.com
By Beth Reese Cravey
Fri, Mar 18, 2016

Like their male counterparts, women veterans are subject to post-traumatic stress disorder, military sexual trauma, health issues, a high divorce rate and homelessness. But they also have other challenges that men may not face, such as child care, single-parenting issues, sexual abuse and gender discrimination in employment, according to the local group.

Bob.Mack@jacksonville.com

“We have a lot of work to be done,” said veteran Deloris “Dee” Quaranta,

founder and executive director of the women veterans group.

For women veterans in Duval County, finding adequate employment, financial stresses and mental health challenges are the leading barriers to building successful civilian lives after military service, according to the results of a recent survey.

The survey was the first phase of RestorHER, a two-year research project by Jacksonville-based nonprofit Northeast Florida Women Veterans and the University of Florida Psychology Department and funded by the Women’s Giving Alliance of the Community Foundation for Northeast Florida.

In the next phase, a system of care and services will be developed that responds to the survey results.

“We have a lot of work to be done,” said veteran Deloris “Dee” Quaranta, founder and executive director of the women veterans group.

About 72 percent of the women surveyed said they had at least one service-related health problem. The most common physical problem was hypertension, at 26 percent. But most of their issues were related to mental health — 47 percent, depression or anxiety disorders; 39 percent, sleep disorders; 30 percent, post-traumatic stress disorder; and 18 percent, military sexual trauma.
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Army Staff Sgt. Elizabeth Wasil Did Know She Broke Record

Aiming For Rio Paralympics, U.S. Army Sgt. Elizabeth Wasil First Seeks Redemption
Team USA
Karen Price
March 3, 2016

Elizabeth Wasil gets disoriented when she swims, so when she was first helped out of the pool at the Jimi Flowers Classic meet in January in Colorado Springs, Colorado, she had no idea what all the yelling was about.

“I don’t know where I am when I’m done swimming and my teammate, Reilly Boyt, was screaming, ‘You got a world record,’” Wasil said. “I was like, ‘Who are you talking to?’”

Wasil highlighted the Jimi Flowers Classic back in January with a new world record in the SB7 50-meter breaststroke.

Boyt was talking to Wasil, a sergeant in the U.S. Army, who has gone from newcomer to Paralympic hopeful in just four years. Just days after being named to the U.S. Paralympics Swimming National “A” Team, Wasil broke Jessica Long’s SB7 world record in the 50-meter breaststroke with a time of 41.21 seconds. This September, she hopes to represent her country at the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Paralympic Games, which has been her goal, she said, since the very start of her Paralympic swimming career.

“As soon as I found out that there was a chance that I could become a member of Team USA, I wanted it,” she said. “That was my sole focus and drive in every practice, every weight session, every competition.”

Wasil isn’t comfortable discussing the specifics, but the bilateral hip injuries she suffered while serving as a medic in Iraq in 2010 led to multiple surgeries and the loss of function in her lower left leg. Though she was never a swimmer growing up, her desire to return to active duty led her to the pool in January 2012.
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Texas Veterans With Service Dogs Still Not Welcomed?

Woman says company refused to allow service dog
Killeen Daily Herald
Clay Thorp | Herald staff writer
February 8, 2016

When Kimberly Pearson retired from the Army in 2012 after serving in Iraq as a combat medic, she said she made the decision to enlist the help of a large breed of service dog to help her with balance and pain in her legs after suffering injuries in a 2004 ambush.

Eric J. Shelton | Herald

Dog

Kimberly Pearson gives her service dog Zakhar, a Caucasian Ovcharka, a kiss Monday at Mickey's Dog Park on W.S. Young Drive in Killeen. Pearson was denied entry into Palm Harbor because of her service dog.

“Basically, there was an ambush and lots of explosions,” Pearson said. “My feet and legs received injuries that needed six surgeries so far. And they’re not quite done with the surgeries, so I still have a lot of issues with pain and imbalance. It was just a mess. I was the medic. Instead of running away, I ran in and I kind of paid for it.”

Soon after, Pearson special ordered her new Russian Bear dog from Romania, as she said breeders there are known for raising mild-mannered giants.

But on Monday, Pearson said she and her service dog, Zakhar — who weighs 150 pounds — were denied access to Palm Harbor Homes, a local home store where Pearson wanted to look at model homes.

“It’s a very large dog because I use him for balance,” Pearson said of her 1-year-old dog.

“So, he’s large and he scares people, even though he’s a teddy bear. People just look at him and he scares them.”

Pearson said the employees at Palm Harbor simply wouldn’t allow them inside any model homes.

A similar incident in July occurred at the Wal-Mart Supercenter in Harker Heights.

Dave Alvarado, 39, went to the retail store to buy a few items July 10, right after he finished a counseling session for his PTSD, which he said he developed during two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan.
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BOHICA Suicide Prevention Bill

I'm going to keep this short but far from sweet. There is yet another suicide prevention bill out of congress. Yep, those guys who did such marvelous work on all the others they decided to just do more of them.  As if that makes sense to anyone.

"According to Brown's office, an average of 18 to 22 veterans take their lives each day — a statistic that has largely remained unchanged for more than a decade."

If he's quoting those numbers while writing a bill for female veteran suicide prevention, we're all screwed! This one is out of Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown on the Veterans Affairs Committee. If he doesn't know where those numbers came from or what the real ones are, pretty much sums up lack of attention to all the hearings they've held IN THE LAST DECADE!

‘Full Frontal with Samantha Bee’ and GI Janes

‘Full Frontal with Samantha Bee’ to Spotlight Women Veterans 
Variety 
Jackie Maffucci 
Guest Columnist 
FEBRUARY 3, 2016 

In the premiere episode of TBS’ new late night talk show, “Full Frontal,” Samantha Bee investigates how the Veterans Administration will be prepared for the needs of women, given that combat jobs will now be open to them. Guest columnist Dr. Jackie Maffucci offers her perspective on the needs of women in the service, and how they’re treated once they leave active duty.

As a kid, the military was a mystery to me. Service members were embodied by a cartoon and and an action figure: GI Joe. It’s only now that, after working for nearly a decade as a civilian in the military and veteran communities, I’m led to ask, what about GI Jane?

To this day, as a nation, we don’t see women as combat veterans. We only see GI Joe. And yet, the military is at its most diverse point, with women as the fastest growing population both in service and in the veteran community. 

They comprise nearly 20 percent of new recruits, 15 percent of the 1.4 million active duty force, and 18 percent of the 850,000 reserve component. In 2003, they represented six percent of the veteran population; today, they represent 10 percent. 

So what about GI Jane? Why do we still refuse to see her, to support her and acknowledge the sacrifices that she’s made for this country?
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Amputee Iraq Veteran Focused on Her Journey to Beijing

Amputee Iraq veteran hands triathlon challenge to Fort Carson troops
Colorado Springs.com
By Tom Roeder
Published: January 24, 2016

"It is all about going from Baghdad to Beijing and realizing it's the journey that really mattered."Melissa Stockwell

Iraq war veteran Melissa Stockwell shows her prosthetic leg while speaking with members of Ft. Carson's Wounded Warrior Transition Unit and others about her experiences Wednesday, January 20, 2016. Photo by Mark Reis, The Gazette

Iraq amputee Melissa Stockwell told a group of wounded, injured and ill Fort Carson soldiers that triathlon training saved her life after a bomb took her leg.

"It healed me from the inside out," Stockwell said last week during a breakfast gathering that urged the troops to join the Southeast Armed Services YMCA's new triathlon training team.

She's widely considered a triathlon medal contender at the Paralympic Games this summer in Rio De Janeiro.

Stockwell was a lieutenant in the Army's 1st Cavalry Division when her Humvee was hit by a roadside bomb in 2004.

"I looked down and there was blood where my leg should have been," she said.

She was evacuated from Baghdad to Germany and then sent to Walter Reed Army Medical Center for treatment.

"Nobody told me my leg was gone," she recalled.

Stockwell, though, didn't have time to mourn her injuries at Walter Reed.

"I looked around and saw so many soldiers who were worse off than I was," she said.
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Family Searching for Missing Female Iraq Veteran

'Out of Character': Suburban Mom of 6 Missing for More Than a Week
NBC 5 News
By Charlie Wojciechowski
January 11, 2016

Brenda Gonzalez Jackson was last seen Jan. 3 after a relative dropped her off at her home in the 200 block of Arcadia Street

Brenda Gonzalez Jackson, a 31-year-old mother of six and Iraq war veteran, went missing more than a week ago after she was dropped off at her suburban Park Forest home.

Family members said the disappearance is out of character for the young mom, noting she would never leave her children behind.

“Anybody who knows her has even mentioned this is out of character for her,” said Jackson’s mother, Maria Gonzalez. “This isn’t what she would do unless she was harmed or was forced to do it.”

Jackson was last seen Jan. 3 after a relative dropped her off at her home in the 200 block of Arcadia Street. She was reported missing two days later.
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Marines May Get First Female "Rifleman"

Marine expects to be one of first female riflemen
Marine Corps Times
By Jeff Schogol, Staff writer
January 8, 2016

“There were times where I didn’t think that I could make it to the very end, but I just stuck it out.”
Cpl. Remedios Cruz

Cpl. Remedios Cruz, seen here training at the Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center in Bridgeport, Calif., said she will apply for a lateral transfer to the Marine infantry. (Photo: Marine Corps)

If all goes as expected, Marine Corps Cpl. Remedios Cruz should be one of the first women in the infantry.

Cruz, 24, graduated from the School of Infantry in September 2014. Then in July, she and five other women completed a study, in which male and female Marines volunteered to perform combat tasks. Currently a supply clerk, Cruz plans on applying for a lateral move into the infantry.

“Just being in that study … I definitely enjoyed being out in the field and getting to experience the camaraderie between my brothers- and my sisters-in-arms,” she told Marine Corps Times on Thursday.

Originally from Fleischmanns, New York, Cruz has been overcoming obstacles since she joined the Marine Corps.

“One of the first things that my recruiter told me was, ‘Once you sign on the dotted line, you’re committed,’” Cruz said. “I’ve been loyal ever since.”
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Female Amputee Proves No Arms Needed to Lift Up a Brother

War took her arms, but not her humor, compassion for other vets
News Tribune
Adam Ashton
December 14, 2015

Captured from Kleenex YouTube Video

Wounded in 2007, former JBLM bomb technician now helps others heal
Mary Dague appears in an upcoming zombie movie backed by veteran groups
Spanaway woman also featured in a new art book, a collection of images of war amputees

As a little girl, Mary Dague daydreamed that she’d grow up to wield superpowers.

She got them in Iraq.

That’s where she put herself between an explosive and her team on an Army bomb disposal squad. She “hugged the bomb,” losing her arms to shield her partners from the blast.

Now a double amputee, Dague is still saving lives.

She defuses veterans coping with traumatic experiences, using a combination of frank talk about her own life, dark humor and an online persona called Mary Wondernubs.

She’s walked people back from the brink of suicide and grieved with spouses of fallen troops.

“I would not be sitting here right now if Mary didn’t answer the phone,” one veteran tearfully said in a recent video that Kleenex produced to highlight Dague’s outreach. “I would not be sitting here right now.”

Dague, 31, says she’d prefer to hide in her Spanaway home with her husband, playing video games and inviting over choice friends. But in the eight years since she lost her arms, she’s come to recognize she has a gift for helping others heal.

She works with a black humor common among veterans that shows she understands the lasting repercussions of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but that she won’t let them hold her back.

“I couldn’t let this whole incident change who I was,” she said. “Otherwise, they win.”

One of her T-shirts calls her a “thumb war champion;” another depicts a short-armed Tyrannosaurus rex declaring “worst drummer ever.”
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Linked from Stars and Stripes


Wounded Warrior
Kleenex Brand

Captured from Kleenex YouTube Video

America’s first female POW honored? History Forgotten.

UPDATE
December 14, 2015
Iraqi war vet Lynch honored in Cape Coral

America’s first female POW honored in SWFL 
Naples Daily News
By Jessica Lipscomb
December 11, 2015

A plan three months in the making, former Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch landed in Fort Myers Thursday for a weekend of events with local veterans.

In this file photo, Jessica Lynch, who shot to fame as a POW during the Iraq war in 2003, is featured in the South Charleston, W.Va. Christmas Parade Saturday, Dec. 10, 2011.(AP Photo/Bob Bird)

Lynch, who was captured in Iraq in 2003 and rescued by U.S. Special Forces nine days later, was welcomed at Southwest Florida International Airport with a flag line reception and a group of Patriot Guard Riders eager to have her in town. Ramon Villanueva Jr., the commander of Amvets Post No. 65 in Cape Coral, said he has been working with one of Lynch's family friends, who lives locally, since September to coordinate the visit.
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Would have been a good idea for the reporters to learn some history first before deciding on that headline.

First black female POW sets the record straight The physical healing is done, but nearly seven years after becoming the U.S. armed forces’ first black female prisoner of war when she was captured by Iraqi insurgents, Shoshana Johnson is still dealing with the mental trauma of her ordeal. In March 2003, just days after the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom, Johnson’s unit got separated from its convoy and was ambushed in the city of Nasiriyah. Eleven members of the unit were killed, and seven, including Johnson and Jessica Lynch, were captured. Lynch, who was held separately, became a national hero when she was rescued after nine days of captivity. Johnson and four other captives were rescued after 22 days, also to be welcomed as heroes.

Gulf War Major Cornum Recounts Her Ordeal as a POW During Persian Gulf War

Female POWs prove women can endure war's hardships
From Florena Budwin, a Civil War woman who disguised herself as a man to join union troops and was held in a confederate prison camp, to the 67 Army nurses who were taken captive by the Japanese in World War II, there have been less than 100 military women held as POWs throughout American history.

Women Prisoners of War During the Civil War Dr. Mary Walker was held for four months in a Confederate prison camp, accused of being a spy for the Union Army. Doctor Walker is the only woman to have been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Louisiana Army National Guard Gets New "Molly Pitcher"

La. National Guard enlists first female field artillery soldier
Shreveport Times
Spc. Megan V. Zander
241st Mobile Public Affairs Detachment
December 10, 2015

Pvt. Journae Q. King takes the Oath of Enlistment as the first female automated tactical data systems specialist in the Louisiana National Guard at the Military Entrance Processing Station in Belle Chasse, Nov. 30. (Photo: (U.S. Army National Guard photo by Spc. Megan V. Zander/Released))

NEW ORLEANS – Secretary of Defense Ash Carter announced last week that all military jobs will be open to women.

For the first time in U.S. military history, gender will no longer be a deciding factor or disqualification.

The Army had already begun the process of integrating some jobs, including many field artillery positions that were opened to women in October.

On Nov. 30, Pvt. Journae Q. King made history for the Louisiana Army National Guard as the first female to enlist as a field artillery automated tactical data systems specialist.

After completing training, King will operate communication systems, assist in the preparation of computer centers, prepare field artillery tactical data systems, and determine target locations using computers or manual calculations.

King, 21, of Laplace, graduated from East Saint John High School. She was attending college at Southern University when the military caught her eye.
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Molly Pitcher was a patriot who carried pitchers of water to soldiers and helped with cannon duty during the American Revolution's Battle of Monmouth.

Female Iraq Veteran Says "It’s About Time" For Combat Jobs

‘It’s About Time,’ Says San Diego Female Combat Veteran On Pentagon Decision 
Historic decision opens approximately 220,000 military combat jobs to women
KPBS News
By Susan Murphy
December 4, 2015

“Most people didn’t know I was a female because you’re completely covered in flak jackets and Kevlar."

Women can now serve in all military combat roles, Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced Thursday.

By Susan Murphy Natalie Slattery, a Navy veteran who served in ground combat in Iraq in 2008 as a convoy gunner, talks about her experience outside the San Diego Veterans Museum in Balboa Park, Dec. 3, 2015.

The historic decision will open approximately 220,000 jobs to women and clear the way for them to serve in battle-hardened roles, including the Navy SEALs, as long as they can meet the rigorous requirements.

Carter also acknowledged that women have been serving for years on the front lines in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“I’m very happy that they’ve made it public now for people to know. It’s about time," said San Diego Navy veteran Natalie Slattery, 28, who served in ground combat in Iraq in 2008.

Female pilots flew through combat zones, female medics treated the wounded on the front lines and all-female teams known as “lionesses” accompanied troops in house-to-house searches.

Slattery was a convoy gunner — a position that wasn’t typically open to women.

“I was that person you see on top of all the trucks and in all the gear,” Slattery said.
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After 10 Years of Service, Veteran with 3 Children Homeless

COURAGE: Army vet, 3 children join ranks of hotel homeless in Brockton 
Cynthia Cast knows this Thanksgiving will be different for the family because of the difficult situation, but she is thankful and grateful for the help she has received.
Enterprise News
By Marc Larocque Enterprise Staff Writer
Posted Nov. 26, 2015

Before that, Cast served in the Army for 10 years. She enlisted as a senior at Brockton High School, following in the footsteps of her father, who was a veteran. She was the first woman in her family who joined the military, she said.

BROCKTON – In the Holiday Inn Express overlooking Westgate Mall in Brockton, an Army veteran has been living with three young children. Cynthia Cast found herself without a home in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving.

Her apartment lease ended and she was financially unable to secure a new one. Cast joined the ranks of roughly 50,000 homeless veterans around the country. “It’s been very discouraging,” said Cast, 42, who is trying to use a veterans rental assistance program to find a new apartment. “And it’s definitely stressful. You don’t want to be in a hotel. You want your kids to live a normal life.”
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Iraq Veteran Body Slams Purse Thief

Iraq War veteran stops alleged purse thief 
WSMV Nashville
Reported by Cody Engdahl
Nov 13, 2015

NASHVILLE, TN (WSMV) - An alleged purse snatcher didn’t realize a veteran of the Iraq War was standing nearby.

Brittany Dugger is an executive chef who has been busy trying to open a restaurant. She stepped outside for a breath of fresh air. “I look over and there’s a guy coming around and he has something tucked underneath his shirt,” Dugger said.

Dugger said the man was carrying a purse that wasn’t his. She said she wasn’t going to let him have it. “He didn’t notice me, so I used my whole 110 pound to slam him up against the wall and separate him from the purse,” Dugger said. read more here