Iowa Mom shocked kids at school

Central Iowa mom surprises children following 10-month deployment to Afghanistan

ABC 9 News

WEST DES MOINES, Iowa (KCRG) - Captain Keri Pender, of the Iowa National Guard, pulled a fast one on her three children Thursday in West Des Moines. She surprised her three children at their schools following a ten-month deployment to Afghanistan.

Before she left the United States, Pender, who has served with the Iowa National Guard for eight years, told her kids Caleb, a sixth grader; Devin, an eighth grader; and Bailey, a tenth grader, that she was going to be deployed longer than expected. go here for more

Kansas National Guard Captain quit in protest for more to be done on preventing suicides!

This is the kind of Captain the military needs to keep because she cared more about those she was leading than her career! Captain Fields YOU JUST MADE A DIFFERENCE BY TAKING A STAND LIKE THIS!

Kansas National Guard Captain Submits Resignation in Wake of Suicides

Topeka Capital Journal
By Katie Moore
Posted Apr 6, 2019

When Fields tried to elevate concerns, she said she felt like addressing suicide wasn’t a priority for guard leadership. And while she said she doesn’t want to play “the female card,” she believes being vocal as a woman isn’t always well-received.

Fields said by speaking out, she has a lot to lose, but hopefully something will be gained.

“We have to hold our organization accountable,” Fields said. “We are not doing right by our soldiers.”

A captain in a Kansas National Guard brigade that experienced several suicides in six months said she has submitted a letter of resignation after concerns about the issue weren’t taken seriously enough by leadership.

The National Guard has a higher suicide rate than other branches of the military, including active-duty soldiers, a report from the Department of Defense said. However, the Kansas National Guard has a lower rate than guards in many other states, said Maj. Jason Davee.

Maj. Gen. Lee Tafanelli said the Kansas National Guard has had nine suicides in the past five years, three of which were in the past 18 months.

Additionally, a civilian who worked in the guard’s behavioral health department died by suicide last summer, and a man who had just been discharged died earlier this year. Their deaths weren’t included in official numbers, said Capt. Tara Fields.

Fields has served 12 years in the military, eight on active duty. She joined the Kansas National Guard just over a year ago as a behavioral health officer.
read more here

If you want to know why there has been more military members committing suicide...it is because leaders like her are not being heard! They hear her now! Pass this on and make sure other units hear her too!

Remembering Specialist Ashley Shelton

UPDATE to story of Ashley Shelton, the soldier who delivered baby in latrine while serving in Afghanistan

Remembering Specialist Ashley Shelton, the soldier who gave birth in combat

WTHR NBC 13 News
SANDRA CHAPMAN
PUBLISHED: APR 5TH, 2019

FRANKFORT, Ind. (WTHR) — Specialist Ashley Shelton is being laid to rest today in Frankfort, Indiana.

She was found unresponsive on Saturday, March 30 outside a Frankfort motel where she was to meet her mother and son to go swimming. Shelton was just 27 years old.

The Clinton County Coroner is awaiting additional autopsy results to rule on the cause of death but tells 13 Investigates there is no suspicion and no foul play.

13 Investigates has heard from Shelton's military friends who wanted a place to share their thoughts about their former comrade and friend, so Eyewitness News put this page together as a place to remember Spc. Shelton.

But first, a text message that Shelton sent to 13 Investigates Reporter Sandra Chapman.

read more here

Heroic Travis Air Base Airman saved lives in California

Reserve Citizen Airman’s quick action saves lives

Air Force Reserve Command
By Staff Sgt. Daniel Phelps
349th Air Mobility Wing Public Affairs
Published March 05, 2019

Staff Sgt. Emily Johnson, 349th Aeromedical Staging Squadron admin assistant, poses for a photo at Travis Air Force Base, Calif., on March 4, 2019. In January, Johnson helped save lives in a multiple car crash on Interstate 80 near Fairfield, Calif. during rush hour. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Daniel Phelps)

TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif.
It was just another day for Staff Sgt. Emily Johnson, 349th Aeromedical Staging Squadron administrative assistant. She had finished up work at Travis Air Force Base, California, assisting members of the 349th Air Mobility Wing with travel voucher issues. After a change of clothes, she was on her way to class in Vallejo, where she was taking classes to fulfill her dream of becoming a doctor.

As she drove down I-80 during its treacherous rush hour, the truck in front of her changed lanes revealing a 65-mile-per-hour collision course with a stopped car.

“The vehicle just casually merged over,” she said. “So, I didn’t think anything of it. Then all of a sudden, there was a stalled car in front of me. I slammed on my breaks, going 65. I had maybe 30 feet to stop.”

Johnson sat there for a moment in the carpool lane to process as cars zoomed around her.

“I sat there in my car and looked behind me,” she said. “I kept thinking, ‘I’m going to get hit, I’m going to get hit.’ I couldn’t stay there. I needed to get over.”

She quickly cut around the car, parked about 20 feet in front of it, and turned on her hazard lights. Once settled, she called 911 and told dispatch there was going to be an accident on the highway. Johnson then rushed to the driver in the stalled car, an elderly woman.

“I told her, ‘Get out of your car, get out of your car. You’re going to get hit. You’re not going to live,” Johnson described.

The Reserve Citizen Airman escorted the driver to her car and placed her in the passenger seat. As Johnson was about to leave the highway to get to a safe location, a crash was heard as two cars plowed into the back of the stalled car.

“As soon as I heard the hit, I told the woman to stay in my car,” Johnson described. “I jumped out of my car and ran back to check on the other drivers.”

And then a truck came. The two drivers who had hit the stalled car had gotten out of their cars to inspect the damage. When the truck came, it didn’t merge into the other lane where traffic was, it went towards the divide.

“I don’t think he had time to stop,” Johnson said.

The truck hit the two cars and struck the drivers who were out inspecting the damage.

“Literally, this all happened in less than a minute,” Johnson said. “I heard the initial crash, and by the time I got out to check, the truck had hit. Immediately, I started looking for people.”

She rushed to the first car, the air bag had gone off, the door was open, and there was no one to be seen. She went to the next one and the door was bent back the opposite way, and still no one.

“I thought, ‘Where are these people?’” she said.

She looked on the other side of the concrete divider, where oncoming traffic was, and there was a man standing in the middle of the highway. His pants were tattered and he was bleeding from his legs and face. He said he flew over the barrier when the truck hit him.

“My first thought was, ‘How are you alive? How are you conscious? How have you not been hit by another car?” Johnson said.
read more here

Cold Case Murder of U.S. Navy Seaman Apprentice

Pamela Cahanes cold case: Cigarette butt, cotton swab, dental floss led to arrest in 34-year-old homicide

Orlando Sentinel
Michael Williams
March 18, 2019

Her body was found early the next morning, in the yard of an abandoned home near Sanford. She was badly beaten and unclothed except for a pair of white underwear. Her uniform was found nearby. There was about $100 in cash in her pocket.

Pamela Cahanes, left, and Thomas Garner (Seminole County Sheriff's Office)

For three days in early February, Thomas Lewis Garner was being watched at his apartment in Jacksonville.

Garner, a dental hygienist, had led an unexceptional life for most of his 59 years. But advancements in DNA technology, along with the proliferation of family genealogy databases, led authorities to consider him a suspect in the slaying of Pamela Cahanes, the 25-year-old U.S. Navy seaman apprentice who was found beaten, strangled and dumped in an overgrown Seminole County lot in 1984.

An arrest affidavit unsealed since Garner’s arrest Wednesday reveals the methods law enforcement used to solve Cahanes’ killing.

All investigators needed to close the 34-year-old cold case was a sample of Garner’s DNA to compare to evidence found on Cahanes’ body. Their chance came Feb. 8, when he was seen walking out of his 600-square-foot, one-bedroom apartment and throwing a trash bag in the complex’s garbage compactor.
read more here

Vet Community Is About to Change

With Historic Number of Women in Uniform, the Vet Community Is About to Change

Military.com
By Mary Dever
11 Mar 2019

In 2018, the DAV released a comprehensive new report, Women Veterans: The Journey Ahead, based on the quality of programs and services currently available to female veterans, as well as recommendations for shaping the VA culture and system to better serve this population.

Army Pfc. Keylin Perez stands in front of the formation bearing the unit guidon during a field training exercise at Fort Meade, Md., Jan. 13, 2019. Perez is assigned to the 200th Military Police Command’s Headquarters Company. (U.S. Army/Army Master Sgt. Michel Sauret)

When former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta lifted the ban on women in combat roles in 2013, he gave the military two years to complete integration.

In 2015, two women successfully completed Army Ranger School, leading to a Pentagon decision calling for combat specialties to be opened to women. The following year, one of those women -- Army Capt. Kristen Griest -- became the first female infantry officer in American history.

With this change, and as the role of women in the military continues to expand, Women's History Month is the perfect time to recognize the thousands of women who fight to protect our country and how this new modern-day warrior is forcing changes in the services, programs and culture facing our veterans.

In fact, the number of women in the armed services -- and subsequent veteran population -- is rapidly increasing. According to the Defense Department, women now make up 20 percent of the Air Force, 19 percent of the Navy, 15 percent of the Army and almost 9 percent of the Marine Corps.

Women now make up approximately 10 percent of the current veteran population, the fastest-growing demographic. The number of female veterans treated at the VA almost tripled between 2000 and 2015. As a result of this rapid growth, the VA experienced difficulty meeting the clinical needs of female veterans at all sites of care.
read more here

Reminder: My husband and I are lifetime members of the DAV...because we believe in their mission to care for all generations AND GENDERS

These servicewomen are leaders, pioneers, change-makers and survivors

‘People Constantly Mistake My Mother for a Spouse, Not a Veteran’

The New York Times
By Lauren Katzenberg
March 8, 2019

These servicewomen are leaders, pioneers, change-makers and survivors. Here’s what their family members have to say about them.

The Times recently asked servicewomen and veterans to share stories about their military service for a project planned for today, International Women’s Day. I wasn’t surprised that we received more than 650 submissions to our reader call-out. But reading the dozens of accounts that poured in each day filled me with a renewed sense of appreciation and frustration for these women’s service. Too many had to force their way into an institution that has been designed for and upheld by men for generations. Too many were told they didn’t belong. And too many felt the physical and mental consequences of disrupting and threatening the male-dominated status quo in ways that should have been punishable — and yet were repeatedly ignored by senior military leaders.

This collection of stories is both a celebration of women’s military service and a reckoning of what they’ve endured. It’s also a recognition that the military still has a long way to go before we see any real resemblance of gender equality. As Capt. Ja’Mia Rowland wrote: “I have become accustomed to being the only person in the room who looks like me.” You can read her story and 39 others here.

The Times also asked readers with a woman in their family who serves or served to tell us about that person. Here is a selection of those responses.

People Constantly Mistake My Mother for a Spouse, Not a Veteran 
Randi Mahoney, New Boston, Mich.

My mother, Amy Hodge, was attached to the 10th Mountain Division out of Fort Drum in New York, during which time she deployed to Mogadishu, Somalia. She told me that while there she pulled over 300 dead bodies out of a river that were contaminating the local drinking water; she was involved in firefights; she held a friend while he died. The biggest challenge I’ve seen my mom face is the lack of recognition that she even served. When she walks into any veteran event or local post, she is instantly written off as a wife, and her stories and experiences are ignored, even though nine times out of 10 she is the most badass person in the room.

read more stories like that here

First Female Infantry Company Commander for Michigan National Guard

Michigan National Guard Gets First Female Infantry Company Commander

Military.com
By Matthew Cox
7 Mar 2019

Kemppainen said in a March 5 Michigan National Guard news release. "I didn't set out to become the first of anything. I only want to look back and know that I made a difference, that I encouraged others to do more, and be more, and give more. The fact that I am opening doors for women is great, but I want my actions to be an example of what doing it right looks like, regardless of gender."

Capt. Amie Kemppainen takes command of Company B, 3rd Battlion, 126th Infantry at a ceremony at the Grand Valley Armory in Wyoming, Michigan Saturday, March 2nd, 2019. (U.S. Army/Lt. Col. John Hall)

U.S. Army Capt. Amie Kemppainen made history recently by becoming the first female officer to take command of an infantry company in the Michigan Army National Guard, and among the first female infantry company commanders in the entire Army.

Kemppainen, who took command of B Company, 3rd Battalion, 126th Infantry Regiment, in a March 2 ceremony, is a member of a growing sisterhood that has stepped forward to volunteer for infantry, armor and other direct-action jobs after the Pentagon opened up all combat-arms jobs to women just over three years ago.
read more here

Women's History Month with 'Trailblazers' campaign

VA's Center for Women Veterans kicks off Women's History Month with 'Trailblazers' campaign

WASHINGTON — Today the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) announced that it will celebrate the start of Women’s History Month in March with a kickoff event on March 6, from 2-4 p.m. at the Women in Military Service for America (WIMSA) Memorial in Arlington, Virginia.

Sponsored by VA’s Center for Women’s Veterans, the event will feature 15 women Veterans representing all branches of military service in a 2019 campaign titled “Trailblazers: Women Breaking Barriers,” celebrating the contributions of women Veterans in honor of Women’s History Month and continuing through the rest of the year.

"Women Veterans are one of the fastest growing demographics within VA, and will represent nearly 20 percent of the U.S. Veteran population by 2045,” said VA Secretary Robert Wilkie. “VA is proud to serve all our nation’s Veterans, and the Center for Women Veterans does a great job reminding all Americans of the strong service and sacrifice of women Veterans through these innovative campaigns.”

The following women will be featured in the Trailblazers campaign:

Robinann Alex, U.S. Navy; Pappilion, Nebraska
Cathy Bennett-Santos, U.S. Army; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Patricia Collins, U.S. Army; Alexandria, Virginia
Diana Danis, U.S. Army; Bloomington, Nebraska
Kyleanne Hunter, U.S. Marine Corps, Leesburg, Virginia
Michele Jones, U.S. Army; Jacksonville, Florida
Judy Keene, U.S. Coast Guard; Washington, D.C.
Ginger Miller, U.S. Navy; Accokeek, Maryland
Tonja Myles, U S. Army; Zachary, Louisiana
Amanda Plante, U.S. Navy; Santee, California
Linda Singh, Army National Guard; Bowie, Maryland
Cassie Strom, U.S. Air Force; St. Louis, Missouri
Wilma Vaught, U.S. Air Force; Falls Church, Virginia
Melissa Washington, U.S. Navy; Lincoln, California
Tanya Whitney, U.S. Army; Sorrento, Louisiana

The campaign will provide a platform for the featured women to share stories about their military service and how their unique experiences in uniform led to their continued roles as leaders and advocates in their communities.

The event is open to the public. Please RSVP to join VA in celebrating these women Veteran Trailblazers. Registration deadline for the event is March 5.

Participants and invitees are invited to explore WIMSA’s exhibits and learn more about women’s service in the military by visiting www.womensmemorial.org.

For more information about the Center for Women Veterans and the Trailblazers Initiative, visit www.va.gov/womenvet or contact Alohalani Bullock-Jones at 00w@va.gov.

The Trailblazers campaign is sponsored in part by Veteran Canteen Services, whose mission includes emphasizing the importance of service to Veterans and supporting VA’s overall mission. For more information about VCS, visit www.vacanteen.va.gov or www.shopvcs.com.

You have the power to climb out of the valley and #TakeBackYourLife

This is a video I did last year.

Judge rules females should be drafted too!

Judge Rules Men-Only Military Draft Unconstitutional

The San Diego Union-Tribune
By Pauline Repard
24 Feb 2019

"Forcing only males to register is an aspect of socially institutionalized male disposability and helps reinforce the stereotypes that support discrimination against men in other areas" such as divorce, child custody and domestic violence services, Angelucci said.

Marine Corps poolees with Recruiting Substation Glen Burnie, Recruiting Station Baltimore take the oath of enlistment during the Military Bowl at the Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in Annapolis, Md. (Raul Torres/U.S. Marine Corps)

A federal judge has ruled that a men-only draft is unconstitutional, but he stopped short of ordering the Selective Service System to register women for military service.

The Houston judge sided with a San Diego men's advocacy group that challenged the government's practice of having only men sign up for the draft, citing sex discrimination in violation of the Fifth Amendment's equal protection clause.

"This case balances on the tension between the constitutionally enshrined power of Congress to raise armies and the constitutional mandate that no person be denied the equal protection of the law," wrote U.S. District Judge Gray Miller of the Southern District of Texas.

The lawsuit was filed in 2013 against the Selective Service System by Texas resident James Lesmeister, who later added San Diego resident Anthony Davis and the San Diego-based National Coalition for Men as additional plaintiffs.

The two men had standing to sue the government because they were within the age range of 18 to 26 in which men in the United States are required to register with Selective Service.
read more here

19 year old female soldier killed while deployed to border

Active Duty Soldier Killed By Suspected Drunk Driver

KURV 710 News Talk
By JSALINAS
February 17, 2019

A Valley man has been charged in the suspected drunk driving death of a U.S. Army soldier. 25-year-old Edward Leo Magallan was brought before a judge Saturday, charged with intoxication manslaughter, and ordered jailed on a $150,000 bond.

Magallan is accused of plowing into a Ford Mustang and running over 19-year-old Cassandra Julianne Perez. Perez was standing next to her car which had stalled on the southbound frontage road of I-69C at around 1 a.m. Friday. 

Perez was part of a squad of active duty soldiers assigned to the border.
read more here

Female Officer Cadet found dead at Royal Military Academy

Female Officer Cadet found dead in apparent suicide at Sandhurst

The Telegraph UK
Dominic Nicholls, defence and security correspondent
8 FEBRUARY 2019 

A female Officer Cadet has been found dead in an apparent suicide at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, amid reports she was being investigated for a ‘drunken night out’.

The unnamed woman, 21, was found dead in her room on Wednesday Feb 7. It is not known if she was an overseas student or from the UK.

It is understood the woman was involved in an investigation over a drunken party at Sandhurst last weekend, after which she apparently stayed overnight in one of the other colleges on the site on the Berkshire-Surrey border. The MoD said there was no suggestion of wrongdoing, except that she had not returned to her accommodation.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) confirmed an investigation into her death had been launched by Thames Valley Police. It is thought to be the first suicide by a female cadet at the Surrey base.
read more here

Ret. Major General Marcelite Harris buried at Arlington

Marcelite J. Harris, first black female major general, is buried in Arlington

NBC News
Gewn Aviles
February 7, 2019

She retired from the Air Force in 1997 as the nation’s highest-ranking black woman in the Department of Defense.

Marcelite J. Harris. in 1990AP file

Marcelite J. Harris, the first black woman to serve as a major general in the U.S. military, was buried with full military honors Thursday morning in Arlington National Cemetery.

Harris, who died on Sept. 7, at 75, didn’t always envision herself breaking records in the military.

Born Jan. 16, 1943, in Houston, she wanted to move to New York City to become an actress, but there was one obstacle.

“Her father told her she could only move to New York if she had a job after graduating college,” her daughter, Tenecia Harris, 37, told NBCBLK. “But that’s not really how acting works.”

Upon graduating from Spelman College in 1964 with a bachelor’s degree in speech and drama, Harris couldn’t find a job performing, so she signed up for the Air Force instead. She quickly moved up the ranks, becoming the first female aircraft maintenance officer and one of the first two female officers commanding at the Air Force Academy.
read more here

Georgia Air National Guard, first black female pilot

Georgia Air National Guard prepares to deploy its first black female pilot

Air Force Times
By: Kyle Rempfer
54 minutes ago

The Georgia Air National Guard is about to deploy its first black female pilot, Guard officials announced this week.

1st Lt. Andrea Lewis, an E-8C Joint STARS copilot with the 116th Air Control Wing, is already the first black female pilot in the history of the Georgia ANG.

1st Lt. Andrea Lewis, an E-8C Joint STARS pilot, already serves as the first black female pilot in the history of the Georgia Air National Guard. (Georgia ANG)

Soon, she’ll also be the first to deploy, said 2nd. Lt. Dustin Cole, a Guard spokesman, in a statement provided to Air Force Times.

Joint STARS use side-looking radar to locate and track moving objects behind enemy lines.

It is the Air Force’s only operational airborne platform that can maintain real-time surveillance over a corps-sized area of the battlefield, according to the service. And the 116th Air Control Wing, Lewis’ unit, is the only one that operates the E-8C and the Joint STARS mission.

Cole said he wasn’t able to release where Lewis’ deployment is taking her, due to operational security concerns.
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Historical flights and the woman who inspired them

The Navy's first all-female flyover will honor a woman who helped make it possible

CNN
Lauren M. Johnson
January 31, 2019

"She not only kicked doors open, she put a doorstop in the door and told others behind her to go through. Her mentorship was legendary," said Katherine Sharp Landdeck, a history professor at Texas Women's University who studied under Mariner at the University of Tennessee.

Rosemary Mariner in the 1990s, when she was commanding officer of a Naval squadron in California.

(CNN)The first woman to fly a tactical fighter jet in the US Navy opened the door for more than just women in combat. She also helped them with the transition to civilian life.

Now, at her funeral, retired Navy Captain Rosemary Mariner will receive the first-ever all-female flyover.

The special tribute, officially (and datedly) named the "Missing Man Flyover," honors aviators who have died serving their country. It features four jets flying above a funeral service in formation before one of the aircraft peels away and climbs into the sky.

Mariner died January 24 after a long battle with ovarian cancer. She was 65. Mariner was the Navy's first female jet pilot and the "first female military aviator to achieve command of an operational air squadron," according to a Navy statement.
read more here

Female Air Force Captain, assaulted twice...including Lackland Air Force

Faculty questioned whether Air Force Captain was really a victim of sexual assault: Witness

Comments made same month captain was terminated from internship for second time 

KSAT ABC News 12 
By Dillon Collier - Investigative Reporter 
December 21, 2018 

SAN ANTONIO - Faculty members of a clinical psychology internship at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland openly discussed the validity of claims from an intern that she was a victim of sexual and domestic assault, according to records reviewed by the KSAT 12 Defenders.

Former Air Force Capt. Robin Becker said she was removed from the internship after disclosing in 2015 that she was sexually assaulted and repeatedly physically assaulted by her former fiancé. 

In a letter submitted in January in support of Becker's attempts to get the Air Force to confer her psychology degree, Dr. Jeff Haibach recounted a lunch he attended along the Riverwalk in June 2016 with faculty from Becker's program.

Haibach, who at that time was engaged to a psychologist who had a supervisory role in Becker's internship, said faculty members were laughing and joking about Becker's tenuous standing in the rigorous year-long program at Lackland Air Force Base's Wilford Hall.

"As though Robin was making some sort of drama, as though she was entirely making information up or at least greatly exaggerating it," Haibach told the Defenders during an interview.

Becker's former fiancé, Adam Chylinski, was criminally charged in three attacks against Becker in 2014-2015. Two of the attacks happened in San Antonio while Becker was taking part in the internship; the other attack happened in their native Pennsylvania months before Becker moved to San Antonio.
read more here

Minnesota soldier committed suicide after assault and cyberbullying

Army Secretary Orders Changes to Policy after Minnesota Soldier's Sexual Assault, Suicide

WDIO News

December 14, 2018

During that time, the documents reveal the 21-year-old suffered from harassment by her attacker and from cyberbullying by fellow soldiers and their spouses.

The Secretary of the U.S. Army has directed staff to update policies regarding the treatment of victims of sexual assault who request to be transferred off-base, according to a letter sent to members of Congress from Minnesota.

The letter comes months after a KSTP investigation into the death of Pvt. Nicole Burnham, a solider from Andover, who died by suicide after being sexually assaulted, harassed and bullied.

Army documents obtained by KSTP show it took 82 days to transfer Pvt. Burnham from her base in South Korea after she reported the sexual assault.
read more here

THEY NEED TO ADDRESS THE NEEDS OF FEMALE VETERANS?

'Invisible Veteran' Multiple organizations claim female veterans are under-served in Jacksonville

That is the headline on First Coast News, and this is what the news was.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- A group of veterans and local organizations say female veterans have gone under-served and unfunded for too long. First Coast News met with four local veterans from different branches of the military and different organizations who all came to the same consensus, insisting there is a problem in Jacksonville for women who served, despite Duval County having the highest number of female veterans in the state.

But is sure as hell is not news to us!

This was in the report.

Nicole Gray is a U.S. Army and Navy veteran and founder of Got Your Six Female Veteran Support Service. She says she knows how it feels first hand. "Roughly four-and-a-half years ago, I was homeless and sleeping in a car here in Jacksonville. I went to various organizations for assistance, but because I didn’t have children and didn’t deploy to war I was ineligible for assistance," said Gray.

In 2007, they opened a PTSD clinic just for female veterans in Cincinnati.

By 2008 there was this report about the need to address female veterans as veterans.

Though VA officials say they are conducting a survey on women’s experiences at their facilities, as well as offering programs specifically for women, proponents of the proposed bill say it would target areas VA has not addressed. It follows a similar House bill proposed by Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, D-S.D., and Ginny Brown-Waite, R-Fla.

Murray’s bill will ask for:

• Assessment and treatment of women who have suffered sexual trauma in the military.
• More use of evidence-based treatment for women — particularly in areas such as post-traumatic stress disorder, where responses may be different or involve different issues than it does for men.
• A long-term study on gender-specific health issues of female veterans.
“One of the things we started to see early on is that there’s a lot we don’t know,” said Joy Ilem, assistant national legislative director for Disabled American Veterans.

SO WHY THE HELL ARE THEY STILL SAYING THEY NEED TO ADDRESS THE NEEDS OF FEMALE VETERANS? 

Navy veteran Taveta Hobbs still missing

North Carolina Navy veteran Taveta Hobbs remains missing a decade after her Thanksgiving week disappearance

NBC News

Juliet Muir

November 23, 2018

Growing up, Taveta Hobbs and her younger brother Clinton Crier were very close, Clinton told Dateline.

“She was a sweetheart,” Clinton told Dateline. “We had a huge love for each other because I was her younger brother, and she really looked after me.”

As she grew older, Taveta showed an interest in serving in the United States Armed Forces and joined the Navy in 1982.

“She was moving around a lot then, so we became less close,” Clinton said about their relationship. He told Dateline the two would still speak on the phone whenever possible.

In 1992, Taveta married Phil Hobbs. The couple lived in Virginia before moving to California, and then ending up in Raleigh, North Carolina in 2004, Clinton told Dateline.

No longer in the Navy, Taveta took a job with Salesforce about 20 minutes away in Carey, while she studied to be a certified stenographer.

Clinton, who lives in California, told Dateline that at a 2007 family gathering, he and Taveta had an argument. “It was a stupid argument that blew up. And some other frustrations boiled over,” he told Dateline.
read more here

Military women slammed for leaving kids? Seriously? Still?

Shamed for their sacrifice: Military moms don't always get a hero's welcome home

NBC Today
By Allison Slater Tate
Nov. 9, 2018

While deployed for six months with the U.S. Navy, Dr. Marion Henry had all the usual worries about being away from her husband and three children at their home in San Diego, California.

But that 2015 deployment — as the Director for Surgical Services on the USNS Mercy — was particularly hard for her, because it meant she missed the first day of school for Jack, then 8, Maggie, then 6, and Katherine, then 3. It was hard, she told TODAY Parents, to miss meeting her children's teachers, knowing which days they had "specials," and getting to know their friends and their friends' parents. When she came home in October, it was "very disorienting," she said.

In response to this story about a little boy rushing into his mother's arms as she returned from deployment with her National Guard unit in Afghanistan, one woman commented on Facebook, "Shame on her for leaving her child."

read more here

Note to military women: Do not expect them to understand you, or respect the fact that ever since the first women set foot on this land, fighting for their families, and yes, even in war, is part of our history.

The same things were said of these women in their own time!