Women change face of combat, VA care

Women change face of combat, VA care
Since 2001, females in uniform have faced bullets and bombs unlike ever before

Written by
Jeanette Steele
6 p.m., Nov. 6, 2011

Army National Guard soldier Angela Kozak served for a year in Iraq, the only woman in her engineering unit. She felt she had to work harder to be respected in the battle zone, even though she was in just as much danger as the men.

When she got home to Delaware in 2004, her head rattled by war, she had another battle for respect — this time at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

“I don’t think they were quite ready to see women at the VA. I remember sitting in the waiting room with older veterans and one of the gentlemen looked at me and said, ‘Oh, are you waiting for your father?’” Kozak, 30, now a senior at San Diego State University..

“I said, ‘No, I’m here. I’m a combat vet.’”

As the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan end, female veterans will be changing the demographics of who seeks care for service injuries, especially the “signature” wound of these wars: post-traumatic stress disorder. Since 2001, women in uniform have faced bullets and bombs unlike ever before — in part because more military jobs are open to them, and partly because the concept of a “front line” doesn’t exist.
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