The rule was clear: Other than the commander’s stenographer, women
weren’t allowed on the top floor of the headquarters building.
For
Margo Willis, a brand-new Army enlistee in 1973 when the rule was in
place at Fort Meade, Md., the sexism was stinging.
“I will never
forget that,” said Willis, who retired from the service 20 years later
as a first sergeant and now lives in Tacoma. “Things have changed since
then. They’ve changed tremendously.”
And with the United States
fighting two wars with no defined front line and an enemy that uses
indiscriminate bombing as its chief method of attack, the role of women
in the military continues to evolve. But elected officials worry that
women face barriers to veterans benefits, especially health care.
“Once they get in, they see progress,” Sen. Patty Murray told The
News Tribune in a phone interview last week. “But the barriers they face
now mean they don’t always get the care they need.”
Murray, a
Washington Democrat and a member of the Senate Veterans Affairs
Committee, introduced legislation aimed to improve access to care for
female veterans. Her bill was rolled into the Caregiver and Veterans
Omnibus Health bill, which passed unanimously on Nov. 19.
Women
now make up about 15 percent of the military, according to Pentagon
statistics. Almost 2 million women are veterans, a number expected to
double in the next five years. And even though the military doesn’t
allow women in traditional front-line units, the ambiguous nature of the
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan means more women are being thrust into
combat situations than in any previous conflict.
And they face
problems during and after their service that have nothing to do with
combat. About 23 percent of women using VA health care have reported
sexual assault when in the military, and 55 percent have reported sexual
harassment, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’
National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
And while the
overall numbers of homeless veterans have been going down in recent
years, the number of female veterans without a place to live is
increasing, the VA’s director of homeless veterans programs told the
Boston Globe in July.
Murray’s legislation – officially named the
Women Veterans Health Care Improvement Act of 2009 – attracted 20
co-sponsors and bipartisan support. The House version passed June 23,
and the bill now awaits the president’s signature to become law.
The
senator said she was well-poised to pick up the issue because women
often felt more comfortable talking to another woman about the problems
they face.
Murray is the only woman on the Senate committee.
“I’ve
always been struck that men speak up about the barriers they face and
the problems they face,” she said. “Afterward, the women would come up
and whisper to me about the barriers they face. Women shouldn’t have to
whisper about it.”
For example, the bill calls for a pilot program
to provide child care to women who seek mental health services at the
VA.
At a grass-roots meeting Saturday in Tacoma of advocates for
female veterans, the issue of the legislation repeatedly surfaced. The
Ladies Operation Moving Forward event attracted about 20 people to a
storefront church on South Tacoma Way, where they shared experiences,
discussed available benefits, networked and sang hymns.
The event
gave speakers an opportunity to share their stories. One participant,
Sonorra McMath, served 20 years in the Army as a petroleum supply
specialist with deployments to the first Gulf War, Bosnia and the Iraq
war.
McMath discussed giving pre-deployment presentations to
sailors at Naval Base-Kitsap when she started having flashbacks to her
own time spent overseas, a symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder.
“I
was in hell,” she said. “I was literally in hell, suffering. And nobody
noticed. But when you look at me, you’re looking at the face of PTSD.”
Janis
Gbalah, who created Ladies Operation Moving Forward with the aim of
creating jobs and eliminating homelessness among female veterans, said
the legislation should provide a big boost to women returning from war.
“(Murray
is) taking the lead,” said Gbalah, also a captain in the Washington
National Guard. “She’s making sure the veterans – especially coming back
from Iraq and Afghanistan – are getting what they deserve.”
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