Female Veterans Find Help With Emotional Wounds

Female Veterans Find Help With Emotional Wounds at Batavia Facility

Lou Michel


The Buffalo News

Mar 25, 2008

March 24, 2008 - After the improvised explosive and rifle attacks from the enemy, and after the sexual assaults and harassment from their own comrades, some female veterans find their way to the red brick house in Batavia to heal.

As if the horrors of war were not enough, women in uniform have been under assault for years in a culture that has failed to vanquish sexual attacks and harassment against them. Just last week, the Pentagon released figures indicating that one-third of military women are sexually harassed and many others sexually assaulted.

So the need for the red brick house at Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Batavia is well documented.

It is home to a post-traumatic stress program exclusively for female veterans and is one of only four such facilities in the country.

Up to six women can be accommodated at the home, and when discharged, they are expected to continue with rigorous outpatient services. Healing does not come overnight.

“It’s very new for the VA and for the world,” said Dr. Terri F. Julian, manager of the VA’s post-traumatic stress program in Batavia.

Many of the female veterans who enter this cozy two-story house with its “Welcome Home” sign had been attacked by men — and sometimes women — who wore the same uniform and swore the same oath to defend the United States as they did.
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http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/ArticleID/9668