Tag Archive for "veterans"

Posts Tagged veterans

Quick Hit: Veterans’ partners and children often struggle with PTSD too

The great Mac McClelland has a must-read piece in the latest Mother Jones on the epidemic of post-traumatic stress disorder among military families. Yes, families. PTSD is affecting not only returning vets but also their partners and children–and few are getting the help they need.

Brannan Vines has never been to war, but her husband, Caleb, was sent to Iraq twice, where he served in the infantry as a designated marksman. He’s one of 103,200, or 228,875, or336,000 Americans who served in Iraq or Afghanistan and came back with PTSD, depending on whom you ask, and one of115,000 to 456,000 with traumatic brain injury. It’s hard to say, with the lack of definitive tests for ...

By Syreeta McFadden • 12 years ago

Women veterans’ battle with unemployment goes unnoticed

Media Matter’s Lisa Reed connects a couple of dots from last night’s debate as the economy took a complementary role to the foreign policy discussion. Particularly, a close examination of the challenges women veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan face in this economic climate. And while the state of veteran affairs continues to have a male face, the condition of women veterans remains underreported. Last month’s Bureau of Labor Statistics reports:

Nearly one out of five women who served in the military at home or abroad during the two wars is now without a job, the new BLS statistics show. As the U.S. troop drawdown continues in Afghanistan, the unemployment rate for post-9/11 female vets surged to 19.9 percent in September, compared to ...

By Syreeta McFadden • 12 years ago

Are all job programs created equal?

The Southern Poverty Law Center has filed a sexual descrimination suit against Asheville-Buncombe Community Christian Ministry (ABCCM) of Asheville, North Carolina. The SPLC alleges that women veterans were given unequal access to job training classes, as well as, resident support in comparison to men.

The SPLC filed the complaint on behalf of Bagby, an Army veteran, and other female veterans. It details how female veterans are excluded from job training and educational programs provided to male veterans that include truck driving and culinary arts skills. Women have access to classes such as knitting, art therapy, yoga, meditation, how to declutter your room, self-esteem and Bible study, according to the filing.

We’ll have yet to see what the findings will determine. ...

By Katie Halper • 12 years ago

Rep. Joe Walsh on “female, wounded veteran”: “Let’s move on. What else has she done?”

Whether he’s refusing to pay his child support so he can afford to fund his campaign and go on luxury vacations, lying about not being able to afford it, calling President Obama a liar, or yelling at constituents, Illinois congressman and Tea Party darling Joe Walsh knows how to keep it classy. So, I shouldn’t be surprised by his most recent disgusting comments about Tammy Duckworth, who is running against him in Illinois’s 8th congressional district. Duckworth served as Assistant Operations Officer and a Black Hawk helicopter pilot in Iraq. After her helicopter was ambushed and hit by a grenade, she successfully landed the helicopter, but lost her legs and her right arm in the blast.

In an ...

Whether he’s refusing to pay his child support so he can afford to fund his campaign and go on luxury vacations, lying about not being able to afford it, calling President Obama a ...

By Lori Adelman • 12 years ago

Service Women’s Action Network to launch 11-11-11 website to honor women veterans

What kinds of narratives exist around the experiences of women veterans?

According to the Service Women’s Action Network (SWAN), not enough. That’s why SWAN announced this week that they will honor women veterans this Veterans Day with the launch of a special website capturing firsthand accounts of women veterans. The site, http://www.womenveteransday.org, houses digital stories of women who have served, and will be updated regularly with more women’s stories.

SWAN is a national human rights organization founded and led by women veterans. According to their mission statement, SWAN’s vision is to transform military culture by securing equal opportunity and the freedom to serve in uniform without threat of harassment, discrimination, intimidation or assault. SWAN also seeks ...

What kinds of narratives exist around the experiences of women veterans?

According to the Service Women’s Action Network (SWAN), not enough. That’s why SWAN announced this week that they will honor women veterans this Veterans Day with the ...

By Eesha Pandit • 13 years ago

To serve and protect: Increasing number of homeless female vets

Every few weeks a story breaks into the news about homeless veterans. As though our collective consciousness can’t really handle a frequency much greater than that. This week, it’s a story of Kenya Smith, who served in the Navy for 14 years. Smith lost her home to foreclosure recently and joins the 14% of the population in the US that is unemployed.

A former lieutenant and medical service corps officer, Kenya Smith first enlisted right after college. She earned two master’s degrees, deployed to Iraq and worked in healthcare and administration. She thought this experience would benefit her upon her re-entry into civilian life. As it turns out, it did not.

“I ran projects. I was an HR manager. ...