Helping female veterans with nowhere to turn

Helping female veterans with nowhere to turn
By Alanna Durkin
Medill News Service
Posted : Friday Aug 17, 2012

In August 2005, Army Lt. Jas Boothe had one thing on her mind: getting herself - and the son she was raising on her own - ready for her deployment to Iraq.

But a phone call and a doctor’s visit a few weeks later changed everything. Boothe, who was 28 at the time, learned her home had been destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. Soon after that, she was diagnosed with cancer in her head, neck and throat.

“So, now there is no deployment, there is no home and now I’m facing losing my military career, which is how I take care of my child,” she said in a recent interview.

She began to research housing options. The Veterans Affairs Department referred her to social services, where she was told she qualified for welfare and food stamps.

“There were a ton of services, housing facilities for men, but someone had forgotten about the women,” she said. “Our sacrifice was not equated to that of the males’ sacrifice, and that was shown in the level of services that we didn’t have.”

After 30 radiation treatments and two surgeries, the military cleared Boothe for duty. Now a captain in the Army National Guard, she was able to stay in the military, afford a home and support her son. But her experience taught her that there were likely other women veterans with nowhere to turn.
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