Final Salute, Inc is a non-profit filling a critical gap in services within the Veteran space. Every day, they help homeless women Veterans and their children find safety, stability and hope. While Final Salute is based in the Washington DC Metro area, the organization has assisted more than 7,000 women Veterans and their children in 32 states and territories.
Any woman who’s ever served her country knows what it feels like when other people assume that couldn’t possibly be you. The complete look of surprise, the automatic glossing over, even the occasional angry assumption that you don’t belong. The subtle (or sometimes blatant) distrust that spurs people to challenge women on their Veteran status, while taking men at their word.
Combat Sexual Assault is a nonprofit dedicated to empowering MST survivors and their families to exercise their rights. It is CSA’s …
In recent years, June 12th has unofficially become Women Veterans Day in the United States. There is a fierce debate in the Veteran community this time each year—even among women Veterans. Should there should be a separate day recognizing women who served in the military?
She stepped out of her car and was immediately accosted by a man in the parking lot. He pointed out that her husband was not there. She responded politely that she was aware. He kept talking, adamant that she was in the wrong. “Well you can’t park there. This is for Veterans only.”
She told the man she was a Veteran. He insisted she was not. But she didn’t back down. “I said, I was in the Air Force, I did my time. I have a DD-214. He said, ‘No you don’t. They don’t look like you in the Air Force.’”
“That Chapstick must be really good.” Regularly surrounded by men who outranked her, it was the kind of comment Carmen Felder …
After Conley separated from the Navy, she felt the intense gaze of others who didn’t understand what their curiosity cost her. It was like being under a microscope. At this point she was still having surgeries. People would see her in a wheelchair and ask a cascade of questions that left her feeling very uncomfortable. Eventually she stopped talking about being a Veteran, and if people made assumptions, she let them go. “I wouldn’t do anything to correct them because it was just easier. And people don’t always need to know everything. I definitely downplayed and was almost secretive about what I did. Because [I got] everything from disbelief to that awful question: did you kill anybody?”
While the military has long been dominated by men, it has never been a thing solely of their own making. Women …