Eli Painted Crow, female warrior fights for female warriors

Mike Tharp: Local vets stand up for Stand Down
Jim, a Vietnam veteran, sits in Eli PaintedCrow's living room. Balding, brown-bearded with calloused hands, he talks with Ismael Hernandez, vice commander of Merced's Disabled American Veterans chapter.

Eli (pronounced 'Ellie'), 48, a Yaqui Indian, shuffles through copies of online material she's just printed out from her ever-humming laptop. As she talks in her kitchen about her efforts to help female veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Jim's words slide in from the other room: "Rockets...mortars...PTSD."

Eli moved to Merced in 1989, early in her 22-year career in the U.S. Army. She got out as an E-7, a mid-level noncommissioned officer. NCOs form the backbone of any military unit. They know more than privates and corporals and colonels and generals about how the Army and Marines work. Eli's MOS (military occupational specialty) was 88M, truck driver.
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