Women Combat Vets Battle for Acceptance

[unhappycamper]

Women Combat Vets Battle for Acceptance
December 14, 2009
Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- Nobody wants to buy them a beer. Even near military bases, female veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan aren't often offered a drink on the house as a welcome home.

More than 230,000 American women have fought in those recent wars and at least 120 have died doing so, yet the public still doesn't completely understand their contributions on the modern battlefield.

For some, it's a lonely transition as they struggle to find their place.

Aimee Sherrod, an Air Force veteran who did three war tours, said years went by when she didn't tell people she was a veteran. After facing sexual harassment during two tours and mortar attacks in Iraq, the 29-year-old mother of two from Bells, Tenn., was medically discharged in 2005 with post-traumatic stress disorder.

She's haunted by nightmares and wakes up some nights thinking she's under attack. She's moody as a result of PTSD and can't function enough to work or attend college. Like some other veterans, she felt she improperly received a low disability rating by the Department of Veterans Affairs that left her with a token monthly payment. She was frustrated that her paperwork mentioned she was pregnant, a factor she thought was irrelevant.


Rest of article at: http://www.military.com/news/article/women-combat-vets-battle-for-acceptance.html?col=1186032310810

[fasttense]

1. I understand that military women don't quite fit in.

I retired after 20 years in the military. Some people are impressed, some people are put off, some people assume you are a lesbian, some people think you are a very bad mother, but most people can't just accept you for what you are.

Add to this, round peg in a square hole social set up, PTSD and you have a recipe for disaster.

[unhappycamper]

2. Don't forget that at least 25% of female veterans have either been raped or sexually assualted.

I personally know three of them. :(