Tag: female veterans

From Battle Scars to Badges of Honor: 13 Questions with Paratrooper Bobette Brown

Posted on by robbie

Bobette Brown, a U.S. Army veteran and motivational speaker, isn’t afraid to speak about her wounds, the physical and mental pain she’s experienced in life. Whether recounting a knee replacement surgery, sexual assault and harassment she experienced in the military or a five-day stretch of sleeplessness from her trauma, she believes that keeping secrets doesn’t do anyone good.

“You don’t have to look like what you’ve been through,” Brown tells the crowd at a Got Your 6 Storytellers event in New York. “See today, you can choose to take your experiences and go from scars to beauty marks. And those battle wounds can become badges of honor. It’s all your decision.”

Known to some of her fans as Lady Bobette, Brown now works as a “transformational architect,” helping to push others forward through difficult experiences through her speaking, coaching and consulting business. NationSwell caught up with Brown to ask about her service as an airborne paratrooper and advice for bouncing back.

What does it mean to be a veteran?

To me, a veteran is someone who has willingly sacrificed and served the United States of America and its citizens. Choosing to serve speaks to the veterans level of commitment, boldness and audaciousness.

What inspired you to serve your country?

I don’t have a heart-wrenching response to this question. Honestly, I decided to join the U.S. Army because I wanted… “Independence.”  I wanted to leave my parents’ home and go “be all that I could be.” The Army was very familiar to me, having grown up in the military environment. When the recruiter sweetened the deal by offering me a signing bonus if I went to Airborne school, I jumped at the opportunity.

How can someone support veterans?

Look for daily opportunities to give back and show appreciation to veterans. As much as I am grateful for the public holiday to acknowledge veterans every November 11, I think veterans should be celebrated throughout the year. Veterans are men and women who worked daily to ensure the safety and security of the U.S.A. If there is an opportunity for to volunteer, visit or validate veterans – just do it. Why wait for a “special day?”

What 3 words describe your experience in the service?

Adventurous. Fulfilling. Inspiring.

What is the quality you most admire in a comrade?

Integrity. It speaks to the character, honor and resilience of the service member. We love the slogan “Army Strong,” but the reality I’ve learned is that we are only as strong as the weakest link.

Who are your heroes in real life?

My dad, the man I am named after, Robert “Bobby” Greene, is my hero. He is a highly decorated career officer, Army Ranger, Jumpmaster trainee, Purple Heart recipient and Vietnam survivor. He served in the United States Army for 20 years. When we talk, I often ask him to share stories of his military career and lessons he learned. He is an arsenal of wisdom. He loves his family and has been married to the same woman, my mother, for over 56 years. They are an example of resilience in military families.

Who was the most inspirational person you encountered while serving?

Command Sergeant Major Daisy Brown. She had to be one of the most inspiring women I have ever met. She broke the ceiling as one of the first African American women to hold such a high rank. Yet, she still remained humble and could always find a reason to laugh. A few years ago, we lost contact. I’d love to know what she is doing now.

If you could change one thing about your service, what would it be?

Nothing. Everything I learned and experienced has made me who I am today. I would not want to change any of it.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?

I do not know if I can narrow it down to one, greatest achievement, especially as I reflect on surviving those 20+ mile rucksack road marches with 30 to 45 pounds on my back. I am also proud that I successfully completed jump school and made numerous jumps without breaking a limb. I can remember the number of people who started airborne training with me but did not finish.

How does being a veteran help you to tap into your resilience?

The years of discipline and training in the military have been crucial to my ability to rebound from numerous personal obstacles that I endured throughout my life. Life is filled with stressful experiences, but when I remember the many obstacles I endured and bounced back from, it continues to serve as motivation and a reminder — if I did it before I can do it again.

What is the key to thriving after experiencing a difficult or traumatic experience?

Finding and getting help from a licensed therapist and staying committed to the course. I went to several therapists in the Veteran Affairs system before I finally found the perfect therapist for me at the Vet Center. A good therapist will challenge you to get better. She or he will challenge you to uproot some extremely painful and traumatic events. There were times when I did not want to go back. But I kept reminding myself, there would be a time when I will have to encourage others to keep going. How would I be able to do that if I gave up? So, my desire to help others really helped me to thrive. Also, I cannot downplay the key importance of having a supportive circle of family and friends.

Why is it important to let our fellow comrades in life help push us through difficult times?

They remind us that difficult times won’t last forever. In spite of all that we’ve experienced our comrades are there showing and reminding us of another reality. We can choose to live life to the fullest or we can allow it to suck the very life from us. Comrades challenge us to go the extra mile, while reminding us they are also running in the same race.

Why shouldn’t people conform?

I like to say that being and staying “authentically you” should be one of your core values. Why be a cheap copy, when you can be a truly amazing original?

After Enduring Homelessness Herself, This Veteran Helps Other Soldiers Find Opportunity

Posted on by robbie

Looking to take advantage of the educational benefits that the military offered, Anita Pascual joined the National Guard when she was just 19 years old.
Just as she was set to deploy to Iraq, however, she found out she was pregnant, so she left the Guard only to join the Army three years later and serve in Afghanistan.
After active duty, Pascual returned home to her three kids in Fresno, Calif. and hit a bumpy road. “One day I was me, a soldier, and the next day I’m mom again,” she tells Valley Public Radio. “Mom, and sister, and daughter and I had to do all that buckle up and it was just exhausting and overwhelming sometimes.”
Pascual couldn’t pay her bills and soon received an eviction notice. She turned to the nonprofit WestCare Foundation’s housing complex for homeless vets: HomeFront. The organization welcomed her and gave her an apartment to stay in while she got back on her feet; about four years ago, she was able to leave and move into her own home.
Now Pascual works for HomeFront, helping other female vets facing homelessness find jobs, education opportunities and support.
Elle, a veteran that Pascual is helping, appreciates the extra touches HomeFront provides to help homeless service members. “It’s not just a room and that’s it. You have all the capabilities of what can help you to move forward,” Elle says. “It doesn’t make you feel like you’re sitting under a park bench anymore.”
Elle credits Pascual with helping to put her life back in order. “I’m going to get my college benefits, she put me up with a good position with being able to get a job. Seven or eight years of back and forth it took seven weeks just for Anita to help me out.”
MORE: For Female Veterans Experiencing Employment Woes, This Organization Offers Strong Advice

This Radio Host Reaches Out to Female Vets

Posted on by robbie

A few years ago, Air Force veteran Teresa Lambert felt silenced about her experiences in the military, as do many female vets. But now she speaks up by hosting a radio show focused on issues facing female veterans that’s sponsored by Women Veteran Social Justice (WVSJ) and recorded on the campus of the University of North Georgia Gainesville.
Lambert has a lot to talk about on air, such as the fact that female veterans are more likely to become homeless than male veterans are, and women vets face homelessness at a rate four times greater than civilian women. Since many of them are coping with trauma from abuse, female soldiers feel uncomfortable visiting V.A. hospitals and shelters where large groups of men gather, and many of them are mothers who can’t find homeless shelters that accept kids.
Lambert’s job as the northeast Georgia ambassador for WVSJ is to help female veterans with any issues they face. Not long ago, she was struggling, too, having been a victim of domestic abuse during her time in the Air Force. She felt frustrated with the military’s response to her troubles and experienced symptoms of PTSD. “By the time I left, my anxiety level was so high that I would not let anybody touch me,” she tells the Gainesville Times. “I didn’t get any kind of help, and I was such a mess. I continued making bad choices.”
One poor decision many female veterans make is to fail to seek help that’s available to all veterans since that assistance is often geared toward men. “A man walks around and he’s wearing a veteran’s hat and that’s OK,” she says. “But if a women does it, she’s just wanting attention.”
So Lambert and the WVSJ reach out to female veterans — in person and through social media — offering them assistance, resources and camaraderie. Volunteers give fellow female veterans food, housing and help filling out paperwork and applying for benefits.
“(Female veterans) all have at some point the feeling that we can’t be the only one,” Lambert says. “We can’t be the only one going through this, whatever it may be.” And now with the help of WVSJ, more female vets are realizing that they aren’t.
MORE: For Female Veterans Experiencing Employment Woes, This Organization Offers Strong Advice

What Happens When You Give a Soldier a Pen Instead of a Gun?

Posted on by robbie

For seven years, members of a Philadelphia-based nonprofit have been traveling the country turning the stereotype of veterans not speaking about their military service on its head.
Warrior Writers hosts regular workshops for veterans in Chicago; Ithaca, N.Y.; New York City and Boston; as well as visiting workshops in other cities to help soldiers (regardless of age) express their feelings and experiences through poetry and prose.
This year Warrior Writers is teaming up with Combat Paper, a nonprofit teaching vets how to turn their old uniforms into artful paper (read our story about the organization here), to offer three writing and paper-making workshops in New Jersey. These efforts were made possible by a $135,000 grant from Impact 100 Garden State.
After the veterans and active-duty service personnel polish their writing at the workshop in Morristown, N.J., they will be presenting their work during the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival at the NJ Performing Arts Center in Newark on October 25.
One participant in the Morristown workshop is Sarah Mess of Branchburg, N.J. Mess served in the Army in Somalia and wrote a piece in the voice of male soldiers who didn’t think she belonged. “She thinks too highly of herself,” Mess reads in a video for Daily Record. “Let’s knock this girl back down to her stupid, dumb girl position. Come on, boys, sic her. Get her. Beat her. Kick her. Don’t let her up. But she’s bleeding. Good for her. That’s what she gets. She should have never joined the Army.”
“I’m able to express and tap into things here that maybe I didn’t even know were still stirring, like I did today,” Mess tells Lorraine Ash of Daily Record. “I’m able to bring those things to the surface and share them in safe spaces with people who’ve experienced similar things. The draw is that it’s veterans working with veterans. The draw is that we don’t call it therapy. When you start calling things therapy, it creates an aversion to wanting to participate because of the stigma. This works because it’s just community.”
Eli Wright, who works for Combat Paper NJ and served as a medic in the Army, tells Ash that while explorations of painful topics like Mess’s piece are welcome, “We’re not all here because we are broken by the military and trying to heal. We have a lot of veterans involved in these projects who are not combat veterans. A lot served during peacetime, but they’re still artists and they still have plenty of things to say. It’s not all about war trauma.”
Clearly, it’s about art.
MORE: This Paper Can Heal Veterans
 

For Female Veterans Experiencing Employment Woes, This Organization Offers Strong Advice

Posted on by robbie

It’s no secret that since the recession hit, post-9/11 veterans have faced a greater rate of unemployment and underemployment than the civilian population. But what many Americans may not know is how difficult it is for female veterans, in particular, to find employment.
Based on July’s unemployment numbers, 11 percent of post-9/11 vets that are women didn’t have jobs, compared with 9 percent of male vets and 7 percent of female civilians.
Once they’re out of the military, many female veterans struggle to find a job that pays them anything near the salary they earned while serving their country. Adding to the problem is that 20 percent of them have husbands in the military (compared with 4 percent of servicemen whose wives are in the military), making them vulnerable to losing a job due to reassignments.
All these factors have led to an increase in the number of female veterans struggling with the ability to provide housing for their families.
The Business and Professional Women’s Foundation (BPW) aims to turn this trend around through a mentoring program focused on helping female veterans get on a promising career track.
Deborah L. Frett, CEO of BPW, tells Sandy M. Fernández of Redbook magazine, “People say, ‘What’s the big deal? They’re just like male vets.’ But they’re not. They’re women, they’re veterans, they’re often the family caretaker, they may be single moms — these are all groups with their own employment challenges, and they come together in female vets.”
One such woman is Dawn Smith. After her military service, Smith, an Air Force veteran and mother of four, struggled to find job that paid well and made use of her experience. All she could find was a job at a federal agency, earning a salary that was substantially lower than the one she received from the Air Force — so much so that she sometimes had to forego dinner so her children could eat.
Smith joined the BPW mentoring program and through her mentor, learned how to retool her resume so that it aligned with her career aspirations. It worked. Smith tells Fernández, “Soon I was hired by another federal agency at twice the pay.” From there, Smith went on to start her own business. “Everything feels more doable when someone has your back,” she says.
On Nov. 10, BPW and Redbook will hold a career readiness event for about 200 unemployed female veterans — covering everything from finding mentors to what to wear for interviews. Hopefully, the seminar is just the first step in launching many fruitful careers for female veterans.
MORE: One Community’s Special Valentine’s Day Treat for Its Female Vets
 

This California Development Will Serve as a Refuge for Military Women

Posted on by robbie

As Americans push for better treatment of women in the military, more organizations are also realizing the importance of helping females after they leave the service.
Female veterans have become the fastest-growing sector of the American homeless population, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Health. The Department of Housing and Urban Development reported that last year, an estimated 8 percent of the 58,000 homeless veterans were women.
Which is why Volunteers of America sought to develop a complex focused on female vets and their children. Soon, one of the nation’s first housing projects dedicated to our women warriors will open its doors.
MORE: Grace After Fire: Helping Female Vets Go From Soldier to Civilian
The Blue Butterfly Village, appropriately named since it sits perched atop a hill overlooking a butterfly preserve in San Pedro, California, will feature mental health services and after-school activities for children, according to Vincent Kane, director of the National Center on Homelessness Among Veterans. (Male vets with children will be considered if they are responsible for household income.)

“These women are not damaged, they’re not ill,” said Robert Pratt, president of Volunteers of America Greater Los Angeles. “They’ve just had traumatic experiences. They need a place of their own.”

Those traumatic experiences can range from sexual assault to post-traumatic stress disorder. One in five female vets report sexual trauma — including rape — compared with the one in 100 men, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. And a 2012 Veteran Affairs report found that more than half of homeless female vets experienced sexual assault during service. And while the country is grappling with ways to prevent female sexual harassment within the military, many women don’t speak up out of fear of causing trouble. Adding to that stress and trauma is witnessing the brutality of war and how it affects young children and families.

MORE: Fighting for the Women Who Fought for Their Country
Volunteers of America has doled out $15 million to build the Blue Butterfly housing project on land that the U.S. Navy vacated in 1997. The Navy deeded nine acres to the nonprofit as a part of its base reuse project following the shuttering of the Long Beach shipyards. The 74 town homes in the village take up about a third of the land, while the remaining acres were awarded to Marymount California University and Rolling Hills Preparatory School, according to Pratt.
While more emergency shelters and temporary housing assistance for female vets are cropping up, the majority of long-term housing aid is still directed at male veterans, according to Pratt. However, the San Pedro complex is aiming to change that by becoming a model for future female-centric housing projects across the country.
 

Providing Assistance to “the Forgotten Heroes of America” is Top Priority for This Veteran

Posted on by robbie

Even if you’ve had lots of bad luck come your way, there’s probably someone out there that can top it. Captain Jaspen Boothe of the Army National Guard is one of those people.
While this single mother served in Iraq in August 2005, she lost everything back home in New Orleans to Hurricane Katrina. And the hits didn’t stop there.
The very next month, she was diagnosed with “aggressive head, neck, and throat cancer,” according to her website. As a result, she could no longer be deployed overseas and needed a job to support her young son and to pay for her medical care. She inquired about around about assistance, but was told that there aren’t any organizations dedicated to specifically helping female veterans. 
While undergoing radiation treatments for her cancer, Boothe managed to keep a position in the Army Reserves. Once she felt better, she joined the Army National Guard, in which she now serves, based out of Washington, D.C.
Now that she had climbed back on her feet, Boothe wanted to do something to help other female veterans caught in difficult circumstances. So in 2010, she founded the nonprofit Final Salute, Inc., with the goal of housing homeless female veterans. “When Americans think of veterans, they’re only thinking about the men. Women veterans are the forgotten heroes of America. A lot of them have fallen on hard times,” Boothe told Denise Hendricks of HLN Morning Express.
To date, Final Salute, Inc. has helped 200 veteran women and their children, and now runs three transitional homes for them in Alexandria, Virginia; Martinsburg, West Virginia; and Columbus, Ohio. Through its S.A.F.E. program (Savings Assessment and Financial Education), the organization assists women vets achieve financial stability and offers emergency assistance, and through its H.O.M.E. initiative (Housing Outreach Mentorship Encouragement), it offers housing assistance and help with food, diapers, and other essentials.
“We are not a pity party environment. We give you all the tools that you need, but your success in this program is up to you.” Boothe’s tireless efforts, she said, are “the right thing to do as an American and the right thing to do as a soldier.”
MORE: Fighting for the Women Who Fought for Their Country
 

Grace After Fire: Helping Female Vets Go From Soldier to Civilian

Posted on by robbie

It was the sight of a little boy peering at her from behind a pole that signaled to Staff Sgt. Stacy Keyte that readjusting to life at home was going to be tough. Keyte had just returned from a nearly two-year deployment to Iraq, and this doubtful child was her son, Caleb, then almost 3. Caleb had been shown lots of pictures of Mommy while she was away, and he had talked to her on the phone and by videoconference many times, but he was still reticent to come forward for a hug. “He was saying, I know you, but Iʼm not really sure about you,” Keyte says with a chuckle.
She can laugh about it now, thanks in part to the support of other female veterans who know firsthand what she went through. Keyte works with and for former servicewomen as one of seven staff facilitators at Grace After Fire, a Texas organization that aims to connect Americaʼs women veterans to one another. Keyte sought help from the group after returning from Iraq in 2006, and soon after joined the program as a staff member. Headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, Grace After Fire operates under the mantra: knowledge, insight, self-renewal. According to its mission statement, it strives to help female vets overcome a multitude of challenges “not by putting a Band-Aid on the wounds of post-traumatic stress, military sexual trauma, depression, or substance abuse, but by giving time and space for women veterans to listen, connect and heal with one another.”
The service, which is funded through the Texas Department of Health Services and a variety of private funds, is especially valuable in the state. In 2014, Texas surpassed California as the state with the most female vets and counts 192,000 women among its growing veteran population — about 47,200 Texas women have served in Iraq or Afghanistan. In the United States, there were a total of 1.6 million female veterans in 2012, 60 percent of them under 30, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). To reach vets outside of the state’s borders, Grace After Fire also runs “Graceʼs Garden,” an online community where vets can share tips, experiences, problems and a compassionate ear.
MORE: Fighting for the Women Who Fought for Their Country
Keyte, who lives in Fort Worth, received her orders to deploy to Tikrit, Iraq (Saddam Husseinʼs hometown), in 2005, just after Caleb’s first birthday. She celebrated her own 25th birthday in Iraq. Keyte’s husband, a Texas Army National Guardsman like Keyte, also got orders to ship out for service along the U.S.-Mexico border shortly after his wife did, and the couple was forced to place Caleb in the care of his grandmother.
In Iraq, Keyte struggled to cope. She found one “battle buddy” who had left her teenage children at home, but no one who shared her particular situation. “It was hard, especially since I was a first-time mom,” she says. She kept in touch with Caleb over the computer and telephone, but calls had to be made in a communal building with close-set booths that made privacy impossible. (When her husband did another overseas tour in 2009, soldiers were able to call home using Skype on their laptops in more private settings.)
Keyte’s deployment was difficult in itself. She worked as a media communications specialist in Iraq, behind the front lines — but that didn’t mean she was safe. In Iraq and Afghanistan there is no defined battlefield. Keyte often felt and heard the shock of incoming artillery. Though she had been fully trained in combat skills, her first brush with indirect fire was still disconcerting. “Thereʼs no safe place there,” Keyte says, adding that no matter what kind of training a soldier receives, it cannot prepare him or her for the first encounter with live fire.
After coming home, Keyte set about reconnecting with her almost 3-year-old son, but even the simplest, everyday tasks reminded her of the time she had missed. When she was asked in a restaurant if she needed a high chair or a booster seat for Caleb, she didnʼt know. Her readjustment was difficult — made harder by painful migraines for which Keyte sought treatment through the VA — but she pulled through, went back to school, earned a master’s degree in marketing, had another baby, a son now aged 4, and joined Grace After Fire to work on the groupʼs signature program Table Talk: Color Me Camo.
ALSO: Life After the Military: Helping Veterans With Their Second Act
Table Talk focuses on setting up peer-to-peer groups, says Lil Serafine, chief operating officer of Grace After Fire, bringing together vets in supportive small groups to talk about their needs. The program also helps veterans navigate the various agencies and organizations that can help them with specific issues, be it child care or health services. Facilitators like Keyte, who are all home-based around the state, also train volunteers on how to set up their own peer-to-peer groups, an especially useful tool in such a big state as Texas with lots of small towns and rural communities.
Grace After Fire also holds a couple of retreats each year for vets and their families. In June, they will gather at a San Antonio-area resort with a full schedule of events and  programs — some just for fun, like the visit to a nearby ranch, and others aimed at helping renew bonds in families that have been apart. Sessions are held for spouses and children to allow them to talk about their problems and concerns, and also to help them deal with Momʼs transition from soldier to civilian. The retreat is likely to attract 100 families or more, says Serafine, and with full funding from the Newmanʼs Own Foundation, it will be free for families.
For Keyte, now retired from the Texas Army National Guard, her job has been “an answer to a prayer,” enabling her to serve her fellow vets. “I know a lot of women who are always focusing on everyone else and never stop to deal with themselves,” she says. Grace After Fire is all about helping warriors renew themselves. “In the military we are not allowed cry or someone will say, ‘Youʼre so weak, so emotional,’” Keyte says. “Here, we learn to be our natural selves again.”
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