Battle-tested, female war vets run for Congress

Battle-tested, female war vets run for Congress
By Donna Cassata
The Associated Press
Posted : Wednesday Aug 22, 2012

WASHINGTON — One flew an A-10 Warthog over Iraq and Afghanistan. Another was part of the 29th Infantry Brigade’s medical operations near Baghdad. A third lost both legs and partial use of an arm in a rocket-propelled grenade attack in Iraq.

All are war veterans aiming to serve in Congress. All reflect an evolving U.S. military. All are female.

After more than a decade of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, dozens of military veterans — Republicans and Democrats — are running for Congress this election year as voters have shown a fresh enthusiasm for candidates with no elected experience. This year, as the military has opened more jobs to women closer to the front lines, several of those veterans are females with battlefield scars and pioneering accomplishments.

Tammy Duckworth was a captain in the Army National Guard, sent to Iraq in 2004 and injured in November of that year when the Black Hawk helicopter she was co-piloting was struck but landed safely. In her second bid for Congress, the Democrat and former assistant secretary at Veterans Affairs hopes to wrest a northern Illinois seat from Republican Rep. Joe Walsh, an outspoken tea party freshman whose comments have stirred controversy.

Republicans and Democrats consider the 44-year-old Duckworth the favorite.

Tulsi Gabbard was a specialist with the medical unit of the 29th Brigade of the Army National Guard and a military police platoon leader who helped train the Kuwaiti national guard’s counterterrorism unit. The 31-year-old stunned Hawaii’s political establishment earlier this month with a come-from-behind win in the Democratic primary.
read more here

Fort Hood Second Lieutenant Jessica Scott takes to Twitter to take on Rush

On Saturday I posted about what some of my friends had to say about Rush calling a woman a "slut" because she used birth control. Military women do in fact take birth control pills for a lot of reasons but the fact is, they do, the government pays for it and Rush, well he managed to not only insult every woman in the country but also women serving this country and risking their lives.

It turns out that there was a military woman taking on Rush publicly on Twitter and I say BRAVO to her! My friends are proud of her too! Anyone still think Rush is worth defending?

Meet The Soldier Behind The "I Am Not A Slut" Hashtag
Army Lieutenant Jessica Scott was the accidental leader of a successful Twitter campaign against Rush Limbaugh last week. She also writes romance novels. posted Mar 4, 2012

Rosie Gray
BuzzFeed Staff

The most effective online warrior in the recent battles over contraception has been a 35-year-old Army officer in Fort Hood, Texas, whose tweets on March 2 helped galvanize women's outrage over the notion that using birth control would make someone a "slut."

Jessica Scott, a career soldier and company commander based in Fort Hood, Texas, had been folllowing the heated debate over contraception and religious liberty for a month, but Rush Limbaugh's description of a Georgetown University Law student and birth control advocate as a "slut" and "prostitute" pushed the second lieutenant over the line.

"The entire thing is absolutely appalling because her testimony wasn't even about sex," Second Lieutenant Scott told BuzzFeed in an email this weekend. "It was about a woman who'd lost an ovary because her insurance would not cover birth control pills she needed to control the ovarian cysts."

Scott, who has served in Iraq, wrote on Twitter that she "used birth control while deployed with my husband so I *wouldn't* get pregnant and sent home."
red more here

Does Rush Limbaugh think military women are "sluts" too?

No Clues Today in Search for Janice Rubendall, Missing Iraq Veteran

Iraq Vet’s Disappearance Flummoxes Family, Friends
Janice Rubendall, a 25-year-old Marine Corps veteran, hasn’t been seen since Jan. 4.
By David Powell
February 13, 2012

The moment that Ashley Barton saw the car, she knew something was amiss.

The cream-colored Chrysler PT Cruiser with California plates and a U.S. Marine Corps sticker had appeared near the end of the first week of January, parked by itself in a seldom-used auxiliary lot at the Riverview Landing at Valley Forge community in West Norriton. It was nearly half a mile from any of the housing units.

"They only use that lot when the Schuylkill floods the regular parking lot," said Barton, who lives in the complex. "Maybe once or twice a year. It’s on high ground. They tell us to park there and run shuttles [to the housing units]. Nobody would [normally] park there. I knew something wasn’t right.”

Through the car’s windows, she could see a purse and some military items. Traffic audibly zipped by on the nearby Betzwood Bridge that carries US 422 over the Schuylkill River.

“All of this [military] paraphernalia,” Barton said. “Posters, war stuff.”

Barton said she called West Norriton Police, but was told that police had already checked out the car out after an earlier call from another resident.

"They said it wasn’t stolen. I was more worried about the person who left it there," Barton said.

The car belongs to Janice Rubendall, a resident of the Trooper section of Lower Providence. Rubendall, a 25-year-old Marine Corps veteran, was reported missing by her father, Robert Rubendall, on Feb. 9. He hasn’t seen his daughter since Jan. 4.
read more here

Update: No Clues Today in Search for Janice Rubendall
Lower Providence woman has not been seen by family or friends in more than a month.
February 17, 2012
Lower Providence Township has published the following information:

Canine and ground resources, as well as marine units, conducted an extensive search of the Betzwood recreation area from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. in an effort to locate Janice M. Rubendall, a 25-year-old Lower Providence woman who was last seen Jan. 4, 2012. Personnel were unable to locate anything relating to the disappearance.

Rubendall was known to frequent the Betzwood Park area near the Route 422 overpass prior to her disappearance. Rubendall’s vehicle, a white Chrysler PT Cruiser bearing a California license plate, was located and towed on January 26, 2012. The vehicle was towed from the Riverview Condominium Complex in West Norriton Township near the Betzwood Park.

Rubendall is a white female, 5 feet 3 inches tall, weighs 110 lbs. and has a tattoo on her left bicep showing a mustang horse and a tattoo across her back that reads “CREED.”
read more here

Lesbian Marine With Severe PTSD Harassed By Evangelical Nurse At VA

One of my friends was a Lesbian. At first she was afraid to tell me knowing that I am a deeply devoted Christian and a Chaplain. When she finally trusted me enough, she approached the topic by asking me what I thought about one of her friends. I told her exactly what I thought.

God did in fact create humans through evolution but like the angels, the soul is not male or female. When the Bible said "God breathed life into him" that meant the soul was sent into Adam's body. The soul is perfect but the body of humans is made up with all kinds of things that do not fit in with perfection. We get sick, get old, die young as well as at advanced ages. No one can explain how a two day old child dies but another person lives to 102. I told her that sex outside of marriage is a sin and so is getting remarried after divorce but most of us do it anyway. That Christ said one sin is not worse than others, so if we sin in one thing, we cannot pass judgment on others and that we are all sinners in the eyes of God. It isn't up to me to judge the sins of others if I expect to be forgiven for my own.

Then she told me that she was gay. It didn't matter to me because I knew where her heart was and how much she cared about other veterans. Over the years I have met a lot of "gay" veterans but never once did I feel it was my duty to point out their "sins" to them. It was my duty to help them heal and try to reconnect them to God again. It is one of the reasons why I ended up attending First Church of Christ in Orlando. They feel the same way I do. All of us are flawed and none of us live without sin.

With this nurse working for the VA, it is not her job to do anything more than address the medical condition of this female veteran. If Esther Garatie had a spiritual issue she wanted to address, she would have gone to see someone associated with the clergy. She didn't need to hear it from a nurse or end up feeling judged by her and told she's going to hell.

Is this nurse asking every patient if they accepted Christ? What if there was a non-Christian sitting in the chair instead? Does she tell them they have to convert or go to hell as well? If this claim is true then this nurse needs to be helped to find another job and fast. I've heard too many other reports about the same problem going on and it needs to stop.

As for my friend, she passed away due to a list of health problems as well as Agent Orange and I can tell you that I am sure she's up there in Heaven and praying for Garatie to be helped the way she spent her entire life doing.

Lesbian Marine With Severe PTSD Harassed By Evangelical Nurse At VA

Written by: Bridgette P. LaVictoire on November 6, 2011.

Esther Garatie is a hero, a Marine Corps veteran, and a lesbian. It is this that has caused her problems. You see, Esther was suffering from severe PTSD with accompanying suicidal thoughts and she wanted help. She went to a Dallas-area VA hospital to get that.

Instead, what she got was some Evangelical Christian telling her that she was a sinner because she is lesbian.

Esther is still with us, but let us hope that the nurse has moved on to someplace a bit more suited to her actions like a church.

Esther told the Dallas Voice that:

I included information about my medical discharge injuries, while serving active duty, and that I was suffering from severe depression and possibly PTSD. I heard my name called, “Esther.” I got up and walked toward the voice of the woman, who barely looked at me, and called me “Sir.” I followed her into her office and before I sat down, politely said, “Actually, it’s Ma’am…. My name is Esther.” She sat down and looked at me, and her first question to me was, “Are you a Lesbian?” I honestly stopped for a moment in shock, not knowing what to say. Nowhere on the form, I had just filled out, did it ask me anything about my sexual orientation. I was so confused! I answered honestly, “Yes, I am gay.”
Alright, yes, that is actually an important question because it could impact psychological treatment. As for calling Esther ‘sir’ instead of ‘ma’am’, well, that is also explainable in that many female officers do choose to go by ‘sir’ instead of ‘ma’am’.

Of course, this was not a slip up. In reality, it was just plain rude. It goes downhill from there:

At this point I wasn’t really sure what to think. She then began to ask me about my depression and anxiety, and I became very emotional. This was why I was there, because my depression had gotten so bad that I had had horrible thoughts of suicide previously, and knew that I needed professional psychological help. Her second question to me was, “Have you asked God into your heart? Have you been saved by Jesus Christ?” This is when I realized that I was no longer a United States veteran in her eyes, I was just a homosexual.
read more here

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.
read more here

Poster Girl on HBO

I think this deserves to be seen but I also think there are many others stories out there about female veterans that should also be seen.

Poster Girl on HBO

A film by Sara Nesson

The story of Robynn Murray, an all-American high-school cheerleader turned “poster girl” for women in combat, distinguished by Army Magazine’s cover shot. Now home from Iraq, her tough-as-nails exterior begins to crack, leaving Robynn struggling with the debilitating effects of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
read more here

Yesterday I was talking with a female Gulf War veteran. She has health problems as well as PTSD but she also has a deep commitment to the men she saved. During our conversation, she never once mentioned if she thought they should have been in Kuwait or not. She talked about the people she served with. Vietnam veterans usually won't mention if they should have been in that country or not but they do talk about the people they served with. In the end, that is really the only topic that matters to them, each other. What makes them even more remarkable is no matter how much we fail them when they come home, they'd do it all over again.

Poster Girl is about a female veteran with regrets and as much as we honor the veterans without any, her experience should be just as valued to the rest of us.

Death highlights women’s role in Special Ops

Death highlights women’s role in Special Ops
The Associated Press
Posted : Tuesday Oct 25, 2011 16:22:38 EDT
WASHINGTON — Army 1st Lt. Ashley White died on the front lines in southern Afghanistan last weekend, the first casualty in what the Army says is a new and vital wartime attempt to gain the trust of Afghan women.

White, like other female soldiers working with special operations teams, was brought in to do things that would be awkward or impossible for her male teammates. Things like frisking burqa-clad women, for example.

Her death, in a bomb explosion in the Taliban heartland of Kandahar, underscores the risks of placing women with elite U.S. special operations teams working in remote villages.

Military leaders and other female soldiers in the program say its rewards are great, even as it fuels debate over the roles of women in combat.

“We could do things that the males cannot do, and they are starting to realize that,” says Sgt. Christine Baldwin, who like White was among the first groups of women deployed to Afghanistan this year as specially trained “cultural support” troops.

Male soldiers often cannot even speak to an Afghan woman because of the strict cultural norms that separate the sexes and the tradition of women remaining behind closed doors most of the time. Forcing the issue has yielded only resentment, military officials say, and has jeopardized the trust and cooperation of villagers. From the start of the war 10 years ago, Afghans have especially resented the practice of “night raids” in which male foreign soldiers enter and search homes, the traditional sanctum of women.
read more here

Using Art To Help Deal With PTSD

Using Art To Help Deal With PTSD
American heroes in Southern Colorado are suffering. They're dealing with the stress of deployments; some of them have post traumatic stress disorder.
Oct 16, 2011
Reporter: Alyssa Chin

There’s a new type of help for American heroes in Southern Colorado who are suffering. They're dealing with the stress of deployments; some of them have post traumatic stress disorder.

An organization called Military Creative Expressions is in Colorado Springs. They’re using art to help our veterans and retired military personnel heal.


Sunday they held an exhibit in Old Colorado City. 11 News talked to one artist who's dealing with PTSD and she said this is the only way she can cope.

After more than 17 years in the military, Juliet Madsen was forced to retire. An explosion in Iraq caused her to come home with a traumatic brain injury and she developed PTSD.

"They don't have a lot of female PTSD programs," Madsen said.
read more here

VA YouTube video wants to change attitudes toward female veterans

VA Announces PSA About Women Veterans

Nationwide Release Encourages Public to Join VA Culture Change

WASHINGTON (Oct. 13, 2011)- The Department of Veterans Affairs is taking its internal culture change message to the public with a new video about the vital role women play in the military and the importance of providing women Veterans with high quality health care.

VA's Women Veterans Health Strategic Health Care Group recently completed a 60-second public service announcement (PSA) that challenges viewers to rethink pre-conceived notions about women Veterans. This dynamic video features images of women in service to our country: they drive supply trucks, participate in reconnaissance missions, walk safety patrols, and operate helicopter machine guns.

"When these brave women complete their service and become Veterans, we want them to know that VA is there to meet their health care needs," said Dr. Patricia Hayes, Chief Consultant of the VA's Women Veterans Health Strategic Health Care Group. "At the same time, we want the public to recognize the contributions of women Veterans and the benefits they have earned through their service to the Nation."

Broadcast organizations interested in obtaining a broadcast-quality version of the PSA should contact VA's Office of Public Affairs (202-461-7600).

The number of women using VA has doubled in the past decade, and that increase is expected to continue into the next decade.

More than half of the women using VA health care have a service-connected disability. These range from combat PTSD to missing limbs. The PSA gives a sampling of the service-connected disabilities women Veterans must cope with on a daily basis.

The PSA was developed for nationwide release from a new employee orientation video-available at www.womenshealth.va.gov-created as part of VA's ongoing efforts to change its culture to be more understanding and accommodating of women Veterans and honor the important service they have given our country.

"VA's goal is to provide the highest quality care for every Veteran, regardless of gender. Part of this initiative has been educating staff so they understand and appreciate that it is their job to make sure women Veterans receive the best care anywhere," said Hayes.

In addition to new employee orientation, VA is spreading its culture-of-change message to current employees through posters, conferences, and e-mail messaging. VA health care providers are all given the opportunity to participate in a ground-breaking mini-residency program in Women's Health for Veterans. This program has already educated more than 1,100 VA providers on the latest knowledge in gender-specific health care.

For more information about VA programs and services for women Veterans, please visit: www.va.gov/womenvet and www.womenshealth.va.gov.

Women in combat? They already are.

Some say they are not brave enough. This says they are.

CAMP SALERNO, Afghanistan — A 19-year-old medic from Texas will become the first woman in Afghanistan and only the second woman since World War II to receive the Silver Star, the nation's third-highest medal for valor.
Army Spc. Monica Lin Brown saved the lives of fellow soldiers after a roadside bomb tore through a convoy of Humvees in the eastern Paktia province in April 2007, the military said.
After the explosion, which wounded five soldiers in her unit, Brown ran through insurgent gunfire and used her body to shield wounded comrades as mortars fell less than 100 yards away, the military said.
"I did not really think about anything except for getting the guys to a safer location and getting them taken care of and getting them out of there," Brown said Saturday at a U.S. base in the eastern province of Khost.
Brown, of Lake Jackson, Texas, is scheduled to receive the Silver Star later this month. She was part of a four-vehicle convoy patrolling near Jani Kheil in the eastern province of Paktia on April 25, 2007, when a bomb struck one of the Humvees.
Spc. Monica Lin Brown

And so does this

By Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 17, 2005
Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester fought her way through an enemy ambush south of Baghdad, killing three insurgents with her M-4 rifle to save fellow soldiers' lives -- and yesterday became the first woman since World War II to win the Silver Star medal for valor in combat.

The 23-year-old retail store manager from Bowling Green, Ky., won the award for skillfully leading her team of military police soldiers in a counterattack after about 50 insurgents ambushed a supply convoy they were guarding near Salman Pak on March 20.
Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester

When they end up in positions where they have to use weapons anyway, when they are trained to use them, brave enough to serve in a combat zone as it is, then why not treat them equally?

Report: Women should be allowed to serve in combat
From Alison Harding, CNN
January 15, 2011
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
A Pentagon commission says the ban should be lifted to create a "level playing field"
More than 200,000 women have served in the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan
The commission will send its findings to Congress and President Barack Obama
Washington (CNN) -- A Pentagon commission on diversity is recommending the U.S. military end its ban on women serving in direct combat roles -- a restriction the group says is discriminatory and out of touch with the demands of modern warfare.
In its draft report, the Military Leadership Diversity Commission said the military should gradually eliminate the ban in order to create a "level playing field for all qualified service members."
The commission, comprised of senior military officers, businessmen and academics, must now release a final report. Its findings would then need to be sent to Congress and President Obama before any changes to policy would be implemented.
The draft report said the military's "combat exclusion policies" do not reflect the realities of the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and create institutional barriers to women, who are prevented from getting key assignments that could lead to career advancement.
"Service policies that bar women from gaining entry to certain combat-related career fields, specialties, units, and assignments are based on standards of conventional warfare, with well-defined, linear battlefields," the report said. "However, the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have been anything but conventional."
More than 200,000 women have served in the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan. Since those wars began, 132 female service members have been killed, and 721 have been wounded.
Proponents of the commission's recommendations agree that technology and circumstance have drastically altered modern warfare. They say it is difficult to distinguish between combat and non-combat roles on the front lines of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
read more here
Women should be allowed to serve in combat

watch The Voice, Women at War and see how brave they always have been.
The Voice, Women at War

Local Group Seeing More Female Veterans In Need

When I made the trip to Washington DC for Memorial Day weekend ride to the Wall with the Nam Knights, I visited Walter Reed as soon as I got off the plane. Time was limited for this trip, as well as finances, so I used my points and flew into Washington to meet my husband there. I prearranged a tour of Walter Reed so that I could visit the men and women wounded doing what we ask of them.

Honestly, I needed this visit. It has become increasingly difficult to do this work. I've been getting burnt out more often and struggling to find reasons to keep going. I thought meeting them would give me some inspiration to carry on since that is what they do everyday no matter what they face. I was not disappointed.

Totally exhausted, I was greeted by the VIP Ambassador, Rosa Benella. She explained that many of the patients would be heading out of the facility for weekend passes but there were several of them willing to be visited by a stranger like me. One by one, my energy went into overdrive just by shaking their hands and spending a few moments talking to them. Young men and a woman my daughter's age, severely wounded but managed to have such an inspirational outlook for their futures, thinking about any hardship on me seemed pretty petty.

The young woman I met lost a leg due to an RPG. As I listened to what happened to her, with her Mom standing there near tears, she told me how blessed she was that it did not hit her higher. She was an MP. This young woman faces the rest of her life without a leg but does not face it without hope. She has no regrets for doing what she felt compelled to do. Serving her country was worth any price she had to pay.

If you ever feel sorry for yourself, you need to know these men and women and then, then you will understand what the human spirit is capable of. For us to allow any of them to end up homeless, end up without jobs, or become so hopeless they think about ending their lives, it not only becomes a disgrace upon this nation, it is a loss for all of us.

Local Group Seeing More Female Veterans In Need
Veterans Village Of San Diego's Stand Down Event Begins July 16; Clothing Drive Starts Friday

POSTED: 5:04 pm PDT June 16, 2010
SAN DIEGO -- As a local group gears up for an annual event which helps homeless veterans, 10News learned the group is seeing a rise in female veterans in need of assistance.

Darcy Pavich, a counselor at Veterans Village of San Diego, is sorting clothes for an upcoming three-day event known as Stand Down -- an event that is in its 23rd year.

Pavich said, "They're [women] driving through combat zones. They're being attacked with IEDs just like the men."
read more here
http://www.10news.com/news/23927074/detail.html

Female Warriors Engage in Combat in Iraq, Afghanistan

Female Warriors Engage in Combat in Iraq, Afghanistan
Vague Language in Policies Puts in Question Legality of Roles for Women in Combat
By MARTHA RADDATZ and ELIZABETH GORMAN
Oct. 25, 2009

The image of young women in a hot, dusty combat zone toting automatic weapons is still startling to some.

But right now there are 10,000 women serving in Iraq, more than 4,000 in Aghanistan. They have been fighting and dying next to their male comrades since the wars began.

"I can't help but think most Americans think women aren't in combat," says Specialist Ashley Pullen who was awarded a Bronze Star for valor in 2005 for her heroic action in Iraq where she served with a military police unit. "We're here and we're right up with the guys."

Technically they're restricted from certain combat roles. The Department of Defense prohibits women from serving in assignments "whose primary mission is to engage in direct combat on the ground."

Nevertheless, women serving in support positions on and off the frontlines, where war is waged on street corners and in markets, are often at equal risk. There have been 103 women who have been killed in Iraq and 15 others in Afghanistan.
read more here
Female Warriors Engage in Combat in Iraq and Afghanistan

Houston Iraq vet heads to Afghanistan as an aid worker

A return to harm’s way
Houston Iraq vet heads to Afghanistan as an aid worker
By LINDSAY WISE
Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle
April 19, 2009, 9:21AM

Elizabeth Vallette still remembers the faces of the Iraqi men staring down the barrel of her gun.

It was a Friday evening in 2004 and the Army captain from Spring was riding in an armored convoy south of Baghdad, an area considered friendly to U.S. troops.

“You drive by a mosque pointing your rifles at them, and the men, they were not happy,” Valette said. “Just silent. Just watching. Just, like, expressionless. And you can only imagine what’s going through their heads.”

The question nagged Vallette after she returned home to the Houston area at the end of her yearlong deployment. For all the time she’d spent in Iraq, she realized she knew little about Iraqis, except that they were suffering.

Vallette finished her six-year stint with the Army in April 2005 and dedicated herself to a new mission: to help victims of the conflict she’d left behind.

In between graduate business classes at the University of Houston, she volunteered with refugee resettlement organizations and launched a local chapter of The List Project, a non-profit founded in 2007 with the belief that the U.S. government has a “clear and urgent moral obligation” to help Iraqis endangered by their work with Americans. Now the 31-year-old former soldier is headed back in harm’s way, this time as a humanitarian aid worker in Afghanistan.

“It’s hard to come back and just settle down and watch it on the news — for me at least,” she said.

Vallette will draw on her experience as a logistics officer to work in Kabul with the Peace Dividend Trust, a Canadian foundation that supports economic recovery in post-conflict countries by facilitating the international community’s purchase of local goods and services.
go here for more
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6380487.html

Twice Betrayed: Women Veterans and Military Sexual Trauma

I started a group over on YouTube
Speaking out on PTSD
Videos: 16 Members: 6 0 Discussions
PTSD is a wound. No one would be ashamed of a bullet wound. Why be ashamed of this wound? End the silence and break the stigma.

The videos in this group are about PTSD with the bulk of them, PTSD from combat.

Two of the videos on this group are about women at war and afterwards.

The Voice Women At War09:49
From:NamGuardianAngelViews: 709

Women At War08:02
From:NamGuardianAngelViews: 8,838

I am what people call empathic because I can get into the pain others feel.

Main Entry: em·pa·thy
Function: noun
Pronunciation: 'em-p&-the
Etymology: Greek empatheia, literally, passion, from empathes emotional, from em- + pathos feelings, emotion -- more at PATHOS
1 : the imaginative projection of a subjective state into an object so that the object appears to be infused with it
2 : the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner ; also : the capacity for this

This annoyed the hell out of my husband until he finally got used to it. It came out one day early in our relationship. He got really angry "How dare you get into my world? You weren't there! I was!" I told him that he's the one who opened the door to let me in. I didn't ask to get into his world, into the pain, into the sadness any more than I asked for the rest of what came with entering.

For the following post from Lily over at Healing Combat Trauma to really sink in, just for this moment, try to be empathic. Close your eyes for a second and then pretend you were willing to die for the sake of your country. You trained to do the job you would need to do in Vietnam, in Kuwait, in Afghanistan or in Iraq. You live, eat, train with the men who were also willing to lay down their lives for the same country. The warrior ethos reverberates in your ears. You know you can trust those you serve with, with your life, but what you can't do is to trust them with your honor. You cannot trust them to not view you as an object. You know you can trust most of them but things have gotten so out of control, you wonder who is sizing you up next to other women so they can attack you and rape you.

This has been a problem in the military for a very long time. It's not just the attacks or the harassment a few in the military inflict, because of what is not reported in the media enough. Women stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan, in over 100 degrees of heat, stop drinking fluids early in the day. This damages their body as they dehydrate. Why are they doing this? To avoid having to go to the latrine in the middle of the night. They are that fearful of attacks. It's one thing to have to fear being attacked by the enemy or a roadside bomb. It's another to have to fear the others who have your life in their hands as well as weapons to use against you. This is a very serious problem and needs serious attention. Rape is a crime and should be treated like it but rape in the military should be treated as more severe than in civilian life. If you have any empathy in you at all, can picture yourself in the same position then pick up the phone and contact your congressman or congresswoman. They are all home now and need to hear from you.

August 07, 2008
Twice Betrayed: Women Veterans and Military Sexual Trauma
It's my deep-seated belief that women veterans who suffer military sexual trauma risk being twice betrayed: once by their perpetrator in uniform, once by the system itself, which should be doing a much better job of protecting them from a problem that's too apparent, widespread, and part of the actual culture to pretend that it doesn't exist.

See Jeff Benedict on this:
"But an occupation that thrives on a unique capacity for aggression among participants runs the risk of being a home for troubled men who cannot contain their rage against the opposite sex." -- Jeff Benedict, author of "Public Heroes, Private Felons"
Preventing Psychological Injury, Betrayal and Trauma: The Real “Costs” and “Treatment” of Military Sexual Trauma

Sometimes I think I miss the point on some of these blog posts: I’m too busy trying to set the stage and establish the “milieu” so that a thoughtful person can absorb it all and come away with a new outlook or two on a “same old” problem. But maybe I’m failing to come right out and say what I’m really thinking, and God knows enough people are floundering around on this topic who shouldn’t be, so maybe I just will. Here goes the suddenly editorial portion of our program:

We heard Jonathan Shay, M.D., Ph.D., pretty much the foremost expert nationally on veterans and PTSD, talk the other day about the “psychological injury” that troops are exposed to from lack of sleep, before and after combat, and how that sets them up for significant problems. True; agreed; understood. What we’re talking about here with women in the military and military sexual trauma is a similar thing: preventing and treating what is a grievous psychological injury – and one like what Shay talks about, something where the proverbial “ounce of prevention” is worth the “pound of cure.” Shay is remarkable: he’s one of a kind. There’s probably no better advocate for veterans in the country, although anyone who works with veterans from the heart is worthy of great honor. It’s a pretty much unsung, undervalued calling.
go here for more

http://www.healingcombattrauma.com/2008/08/twice-
betrayed-women-veterans-and-military-sexual-trauma-1.html

Sexual Assault In Military Draws Attention

Sexual Assault In Military Draws Attention
Case Numbers Rise As More Women Join Armed Forces; VA Increases Treatments For Victims

YORK, Pa., July 23, 2008
(AP) It took Diane Pickel Plappert six months to tell a counselor that she had been raped while on duty in Iraq. While time passed, the former Navy nurse disconnected from her children and her life slowly unraveled.

Carolyn Schapper says she was harassed in Iraq by a fellow Army National Guard soldier to the extent that she began changing clothes in the shower for fear he'd barge into her room unannounced - as he already had on several occasions.

Even as women distinguish themselves in battle alongside men, they're fighting off sexual assault and harassment. It's not a new consequence of war. But the sheer number of women serving today - more than 190,000 so far in Iraq and Afghanistan - is forcing the military and Department of Veterans Affairs to more aggressively address it.

The data that exists - incomplete and not up-to-date - offers no proof that women in the war zones are more vulnerable to sexual assault than other female service members, or American women in general. But in an era when the military relies on women for invaluable and difficult front-line duties, the threat to their morale, performance and long-term well-being is starkly clear.

Of the women veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan who have walked into a VA facility, 15 percent have screened positive for military sexual trauma, The Associated Press has learned. That means they indicated that while on active duty they were sexually assaulted, raped, or were sexually harassed, receiving repeated unsolicited verbal or physical contact of a sexual nature.
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http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/07/23/national/main4285105.shtml

Bill on female vets gets VA thumbs-down

VA GIVES THUMBS-DOWN TO LEGISLATION THAT WOULD HELP

WOMEN VETERANS -- VA says it doesn't have the money.

Sen. Patty Murray says: "I almost come out of my chair when I

hear that. If they need more money, then they should ask for it."


Bill on female vets gets VA thumbs-down

LES BLUMENTHAL
lblumenthal@mcclatchydc.com




WASHINGTON – The Department of Veterans Affairs said Wednesday that it opposes much of Sen. Patty Murray’s bill to improve care for female veterans, even as the number of women seeking VA medical services is expected to double within the next five years.

A top VA official admitted during a Senate Veterans Affairs Committee hearing that the agency might not be prepared for the anticipated influx of female veterans.

“We recognize there may well be gaps in services for women veterans, especially given the VA designed its clinics and services based on data when women comprised a much smaller percentage of those serving in the armed forces,” said Gerald Cross, the VA’s principal deputy undersecretary for health.

But Cross said the VA opposes many sections of the bill sponsored by Murray, a Washington state Democrat.


The agency’s concerns cover new studies of the physical and mental health problems female veterans faced and how the department was dealing with them. Cross said that would overlap with existing studies under way and would cost millions of dollars that could better be spent on health care services.

The VA also opposed sections that would require mental health workers to get special training on how to care for female victims of military sexual trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder, to require additional staff to deal with female veterans and to provide child care for veterans seeking VA care. The agency’s concerns about those proposals involved cost, necessity and a preference to let each region or hospital decide how to allocate its staffing.

The VA does support a provision requiring each VA medical center to have at least one full-time employee acting as a female veterans program manager and would require the department’s Advisory Committee on Women Veterans to include women who recently left the military.

“We are addressing the gaps with a number of initiatives,” Cross said. “We are absolutely committed to making (female veterans) welcome.”

“Making them welcome and addressing their needs are two different things,” Murray responded. “It’s important we focus laserlike on this.”

Women make up 14 percent of active-duty, National Guard and Reserve forces. About 180,000 have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In addition, there are about 1.7 million female veterans, and the VA is providing health care to about 253,000. That number is expected to double within five years.
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http://www.vawatchdog.org/08/nf08/nfMAY08/nf052308-3.htm

Invisible Scars Affect 7,000 Birmingham Vets

Invisible Scars Affect 7,000 Birmingham Vets
by Mike McClanahan

CBS 42 News
2008-04-22 23:43:36.0

"We had quite a few Marines that committed suicide or killed their wives,"said Al Murphy. The Veterans Service Advocate knows how memories can bubble to the surface years after an incident and send someones life into a tail spin. He served during the Vietnam War, but was also part of 14 Cold War combat patrols in a submarine.

"Here I sit now and I was in that situation some years ago, that I was able to cock the pistol and pull the trigger, but due to actually to the doctors here at this Birmingham VA hospital are what really saved my life," said Al Murphy.

Medication and group therapy helped Murphy cope with his crisis. Now, he wants to encourage other veterans to seek help.

Dr. Bill Beidleman with the Birmingham VA Medical Center says advances in medical science have dramatically increased a soldier's odds of surviving physical wounds, but they have also increased the number of veterans living with psychological trauma.

"A lot people forget that this is a war where because of medical care and evacuation we're taking horribly injured people with just unbelievably severe injuries to their limbs, to their head, to their necks, to their torsos and they're living. They're going to be in Germany in 24 hours, they can be in the United States in 48 hours, they can be in surgery in a few hours, and they can be stabilized in minutes," said Dr. Beidleman.

Dr. Beidleman is the Assistant Chief of Mental Health at the VA and also Professor of Psychology at UAB. He said PTSD has had many names in its poorly understood past. "It was called war stress, combat neurosis, shell shock, anxiety disorder now it's called post traumatic stress disorder,"said Dr. Beidleman.

And he said for the first time many of the warriors returning from combat with PTSD are women.
(see below on this part)
"Female warriors, these are women who are in combat roles and they are firing weapons every day," said Dr. Bill Beidleman.

On top of that, doctors are also seeing an increase in veterans of other wars.

"They may be exposed to a lot of those stressors.They may see their best friends blown up, but yet they may come out of the service go right to work work for 30 years, some work for 40 years, retire, and at that point we see their PTSD symptoms get dramatically worse. And it's because they have time on their hands," said Dr. Beidleman.

But the good news is more veterans are seeking help.

"I think their is less stigma now. I think people are more likely to come forward and say not only have I been physically damaged by my service in Iraq or Afghanistan, but I've been psychologically damaged," said Dr. Bill Beidleman.

The number of new post traumatic stress disorder cases is expected to keep rising.

In response the Birmingham VA Medical Center has tripled its mental health staff from 30 to 90 people. And construction is underway on a new building dedicated solely to mental rehabilitation.



Beidleman adds that today there are off-the-record resources for veterans seeking mental health treatment.

"We do have places called veterans' readjustment centers which are not affiliated with the hospital. Nobody will ever see you walk in the hospital doors. Yet, you can go to these vet centers and you can be treated for PTSD, for depression, for mental health problems without having to officially sign up at this hospital for treatment," said Dr. Beidleman.
http://www.cbs42.com/news/local/18036194.html

Ok, I'm really wondering if Dr. Beidleman is aware of how many females came back from Vietnam with PTSD considering they did.

Am J Public Health. 1997 February; 87(2): 169–175.
Posttraumatic stress disorder among female Vietnam veterans: a causal model of etiology.
A Fontana, L S Schwartz, and R Rosenheck
Veterans Affairs Northeast Program Evaluation Center, Veterans Affairs Medical Center, West Haven, Conn 06516, USA.
This article has been cited by other articles in PMC.
AbstractOBJECTIVES: The Vietnam and Persian Gulf wars have awakened people to the realization that military service can be traumatizing for women as well as men. This study investigated the etiological roles of both war and sexual trauma in the development of chronic posttraumatic stress disorder among female Vietnam veterans. METHODS: Data from the National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study for 396 Vietnam theater women and 250 Vietnam era women were analyzed with structural equation modeling. RESULTS: An etiological model with highly satisfactory fit and parsimony was developed. Exposure to war trauma contributed to the probability of posttraumatic stress disorder in theater women, as did sexual trauma in both theater and era women. Lack of social support at the time of homecoming acted as a powerful mediator of trauma for both groups of women. CONCLUSIONS: Within the constraints and assumptions of causal modeling, there is evidence that both war trauma and sexual trauma are powerful contributors to the development of posttraumatic stress disorder among female Vietnam veterans.
Full text
Full text is available as a scanned copy of the original print version. Get a printable copy (PDF file) of the complete article (1.5M), or click on a page image below to browse page by page. Links to PubMed are also available for Selected References.

Selected References
These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.
Furey JA. Post-traumatic stress disorder in Vietnam veterans. For some the war rages on. Am J Nurs. 1982 Nov;82(11):1694–1696. [PubMed]
Norman EM. Post-traumatic stress disorder in military nurses who served in Vietnam during the war years 1965-1973. Mil Med. 1988 May;153(5):238–242. [PubMed]
Fontana A, Rosenheck R. Posttraumatic stress disorder among Vietnam Theater Veterans. A causal model of etiology in a community sample. J Nerv Ment Dis. 1994 Dec;182(12):677–684. [PubMed]
Kessler RC, Sonnega A, Bromet E, Hughes M, Nelson CB. Posttraumatic stress disorder in the National Comorbidity Survey. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1995 Dec;52(12):1048–1060. [PubMed]
Bentler PM. Comparative fit indexes in structural models. Psychol Bull. 1990 Mar;107(2):238–246. [PubMed]
Lebowitz L, Roth S. "I felt like a slut": the cultural context and women's response to being raped. J Trauma Stress. 1994 Jul;7(3):363–390. [PubMed]
True WR, Rice J, Eisen SA, Heath AC, Goldberg J, Lyons MJ, Nowak J. A twin study of genetic and environmental contributions to liability for posttraumatic stress symptoms. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1993 Apr;50(4):257–264. [PubMed]
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1380789

PTSD in female veterans is not new. It has not changed much since the first days women went to war and if you watched my video The Voice, Women At War, you know what I'm taling about. Is it harder on today's female warriors? No and it is one more reason the "experts" should have been paying attention to all of them! The only difference now is there are a lot more of them serving today. In other words, more to need help but less help for them to receive.

Bill to highlight female veterans

Bill to spotlight issues for female veterans

By Kelly Kennedy - Staff writer
Posted : Saturday Mar 1, 2008 8:11:43 EST

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., is expected to announce legislation next week aimed at increasing the focus on female veterans at Department of Veterans Affairs facilities.

Since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan began, Murray has spent many hearings questioning VA officials about female veterans with histories of sexual trauma, whether research has been done to determine their health needs and whether VA hospitals are so focused on men’s health issues that women get left behind.

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.
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http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/03/military_femalevets_health_022908w/

Senator Patty Murray Stands Up For Female Warriors

Received by email. Thanks to all the members of this Army of Love out there making sure I get everything on PTSD. You never know what I'm going to miss.

Senator Murray is a great advocate for Veterans & is always involved in trying to make things better...

Senator Seeks Help For Survivors Of Military Sexual Trauma
http://www.theday.com/re.aspx?re=d38a90ee-2012-495c-9368-453825fac195

Washington — Scurrying back to her Army barracks in the dark after her shift at the hospital, Sally, a 21-year-old medic, was grabbed by a man who dragged her to the woods and raped her at knifepoint.
When she reported the attack, Sally, of Kirkland, Wash., who asks that her full name not be used, was brushed off by her superior officer at Fort Belvoir, Va., who dismissed the rape as a spat with a boyfriend.
Her story is alarmingly like that of hundreds of other veterans who have suffered sexual harassment, assault and rape in the military, according to Susan Avila-Smith, a Seattle-based advocate who has helped hundreds of women veterans get VA benefits and treatment for military sexual trauma (MST). (http://vetwow.com/)
Avila-Smith says she also was a victim when she served in the Army, having been sexually assaulted in a hospital recovery room after sinus surgery at Fort Hood, Texas.
The pressures on women service members, who now comprise about 7 percent of all veterans, are escalating:
• According to the Veterans Administration, 19 percent of women who have sought health care in the VA were diagnosed as victims of military sexual trauma.
• Cases of military sexual trauma increased from 1,700 in 2004 to 2,374 in 2005, according to the Department of Defense Sexual Assault Prevention Response Program.
Joy Ilem, assistant national legislative director at Disabled American Veterans, says many military women worry that there is no systematic way for commanders to handle sexual assault cases.
“It can definitely ruin your life if not treated,” she says.
Thirty-four years after she was attacked, Sally still takes medication for panic attacks, won't leave her house at night and is terrified of loud voices or large crowds.
She has endured years of nightmares, flashbacks, a nervous breakdown, depression and homelessness.
Sally has found solace in a Seattle support group of mostly female veterans with similar stories.
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., says women in the military return home traumatized because, in addition to the pressures of living in a war zone, they have been living in close quarters with men and, in many cases, report that they had been sexually harassed, assaulted or raped.
Murray is preparing legislation that would require the federal government to conduct research on military sexual trauma, provide an annual report to Congress on how the VA is handling these cases, and come up with treatments and policies to help women veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder.
For example, she says women should have separate waiting rooms and more privacy in veterans' hospitals because female victims of MST are further emotionally strained when they “face a room-full of men.”
The issue came to the forefront recently with the murder of Marine Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach, a personnel clerk at Camp Lejeune, NC., who was eight months pregnant when her burned body was found in a fire pit in the backyard of Cpl. Cesar A. Laurean, whom she had accused of rape.
Avila-Smith says more than 99 percent of men who rape women in the military are fellow soldiers.
“They are not strangers and they're not foreigners on the other side of the war,” she says. “They're people with access to you and your paper work, people in your unit.”
Many of the victims are reluctant to report the abuse because they could be charged with filing a false report or adultery, or they fear going to jail where they could be raped again, she says.
Sally Fictim Griffiths, 33, a Houston fourth-grade teacher, mother of two young daughters and former Marine lance corporal who worked as an administrative assistant, says she was raped at age 19 in Okinawa, Japan, by a Marine she knew.
She says women planning to join the military “need to have an opportunity to sit down with other veterans who have lived the nightmare.”
Griffiths says she wouldn't have joined the Marines if she had known about the environment.
She recalls being sexually harassed by much older married men when she enlisted at 18.
But she suffered a terrible attack after she asked a fellow Marine to go jogging with her. The male Marine declined the invitation, opting instead to sneak up and rape her on the beach. Griffiths was interrogated and accused of lying at a military hearing before she found the rapist's confession in a file cabinet.
She was quickly transferred, then given an honorable discharge with the help of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and was later featured on the CBS-TV program “60 Minutes.” Her attacker was promoted and served six more years.
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, also a member of the Senate Veterans' Affairs panel, says any federal program to deal with post-traumatic stress syndrome must consider that women in the military can face “mental anguish” if they are sexually harassed.
She says mental health problems for women veterans “are very real and much more a focus in the Veterans' Administration then ever before.”

Mental toll of war hitting female servicemembers

Cindy Rathbun, 43, of Yuba City, Calif., reflects on some of the traumatic experiences she had during her 25-year military career. Rathbun is getting treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder and military sexual trauma.
By Jessica B. Lifland for USA TODAY

Mental toll of war hitting female servicemembers

By Andrea Stone, USA TODAY


MENLO PARK, Calif. — Master Sgt. Cindy Rathbun knew something was wrong three weeks after she arrived in Iraq in September 2006. Her blond hair began "coming out in clumps," she says.

The Air Force personnel specialist, in the military for 25 years, had volunteered for her first combat zone job at Baghdad's Camp Victory. She lived behind barbed wire and blast walls, but the war was never far.

"There were firefights all the time," Rathbun says slowly, her voice flat. "There were car bombs. Boom! You see the smoke. The ground would shake."

As the mother of three grown children prepared to fly home last February, she took a medic aside. Holding a zip-lock bag of hair, she asked whether this was normal. "He said it sometimes happens," she says. "It's the body's way of displaying stress when we can't express it emotionally."

Numb, angry, verging on paranoia, Rathbun checked herself into a residential treatment center for female servicemembers suffering the mental wounds of war. Last month, she and seven others became the first all-Iraq-war-veteran class of the Women's Trauma Recovery Program here. The oldest of 12 residential centers run by the Department of Veterans Affairs, it is part of a rapidly growing network of 60- to 90-day programs for female warriors who, until the Iraq insurgency, had mostly been shielded from the horrors of war.
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