NEWSBYDANINE SPENCER

Today is Veterans' Day in the United States, a day when we pause to recognize those who have served in our nation's armed services. Veterans' Day is traditionally a man's holiday, where we honor the men who have fought and died in our nation's wars. However, the number of female veterans has doubled over the last twenty years, from 4% in 1988 to 8% this year. This number will only continue to grow as our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan continues.

It is important to pay tribute to all veterans, including female veterans. According to the IAVA, more than 212, 000 female service members have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001, making up 11% of the force over there. More than 600 have been wounded in the combined wars and more than 120 women have died, including Staff Sgt. Amy C. Tirador of Albany, New York, who died November 4 in Kirkush, Iraq.

While we honor the sacrifices of veterans and their families, this is also an opportunity to examine our national priorities. According to a Congressional Research Service report, we have spent $944 billion on the global war on terror since 2001 (as of the end of FY2009). $683 billion (72%) was spent on Iraq alone.

Yesterday was a great day for women in science. In the morning, Ada E. Yonath of Israel became the fourth woman to ever win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Dr. Yonath and her American colleagues, Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Thomas A. Steitz, won "for studies of the structure and function of the ribosome". According to the Nobel Foundation, the trio "showed what the ribosome looks like and how it functions at the atomic level." By using a method called X-ray crystallography and creating 3-D models, Yonath, Ramakrishnan and Steitz have given scientists a better understanding of ribosomes which can be used to develop new antibiotics.

In the afternoon, the National Medals of Science, Technology and Innovation were awarded in a ceremony at the White House. Four women were honored:

Dr. Joanna S. Fowler, Brookhaven National Laboratory - received the National Medal of Science for her "pioneering work in chemistry involving the synthesis of medical imaging compounds and her innovative applications of these compounds to human neuroscience, which have significantly advanced our understanding of the human brain and brain diseases, including drug addiction."

Two American scientists, Elizabeth H. Blackburn and Carol W. Greider, won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine on Monday. Blackburn and Greider, along with their colleague Jack W. Szostak, won "for the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase."

Telomeres are structures at the base of chromosomes that protect the ends of the fragile DNA structure. As a result, telomeres protect the DNA and prevent the introduction of DNA mutations which keeps the cell healthy. Telomerase is an enzyme that builds the telomeres. Essentially, Blackburn, Greider and Szostak's research showed that healthy telomeres keep cells from aging and becoming damaged.

With Dr. Blackburn and Dr. Greider's wins, the Nobel Prize has now been awarded to women 38 times. In contrast, the Nobel Prize has been awarded to 781 men in Literature, Chemistry, Physics, Medicine, Peace and Economics.

Lioness is a fascinating new documentary by Meg McLagan and Daria Sommers and it gives us an inside look at the first women to engage in ground combat in U.S. history.

In 2003, the Army created the Lioness program, which sends female support soldiers out on missions with all-male combat units in Iraq and Afghanistan. Spc. Shannon Morgan, Spc. Rebecca Nava, Cpt. Anastasia Breslow, Sgt. Ranie Ruthig and Mjr. Kate Guttormsen, all of the First Engineer Battalion, were some of the first members of Team Lioness.

We first meet the soldiers after they returned home from Iraq and were still trying to adjust to life after war. Nearly all of the women appeared to be suffering symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Spc. Morgan had severe depression and anxiety. Spc. Nava experienced flashbacks. Sgt. Ruthig admitted she had violent mood swings and that her relationship with her young daughter had suffered as a result. Both Cpt. Breslow and Mjr. Guttormsen seemed incredibly sad and wounded by their experiences in Iraq.

It's easy to understand why. Each of the soldiers went to Iraq expecting to serve in primarily support positions. Spc. Morgan and Sgt. Ruthig were mechanics. Spc. Nava was a supply clerk. Cpt. Breslow worked in signal (communications). Mjr. Guttormsen was a company commander, the only woman to hold that position in her battalion. But when they got to Iraq in 2003, they were asked to join the newly-created Lioness program,

Initially, the Lioness missions were relatively simple. Spc. Nava describes her work on the missions as helping "calm the women and children. We gave the kids candy, toys and school supplies. So in the beginning, the Army didn't look so bad to them."

As the war intensified, so did the missions. They began going with their male colleagues on house-to-house raids in the middle of the night, searching for weapons or suspected insurgents. They guarded the interpreter and searched the women and children for contraband. "It was strange invading these homes late night. It was hard to imagine these families plotting against us," Cpt. Breslow wrote in her journal. Sgt. Ruthig concurred saying, "I felt like the Gestapo".

In early 2004, the Lioness teams partnered with the Marines in Ramadi. They went out with the Marines to search homes. They separated the women and children from the men and sometimes had to forcibly search the women. As the insurgency gained strength in Ramadi, violence ensued. The Marines and the Lioness women faced intense firefight, which the female soldiers didn't have the proper training or support for. Spc. Morgan, temporarily working with a firing team, was left behind in the middle of an ambush and had to figure out how and where to take cover. During another firefight, Cpt. Breslow realized she didn't know how to fire the missile on the humvee if she had to. "I felt we needed to know more," she said.

Because women are technically banned from engaged in combat, the Lioness women didn't have even the basic combat training so it was even more dangerous for them than it was for men. It didn't matter. As Spc. Morgan said, "We didn't stop. We covered over five or seven miles of nothing but insurgents (a day). They were throwing grenades at us and rockets, mortars."

No matter what, these soldiers kept going. When they came home, their heroics went largely unnoticed because they were women. "America needs to know that their daughters are doing the exact same thing that the males are doing now," said Spc. Morgan.

Lioness is a powerful reminder that women's roles in the military are rapidly changing. Female soldiers do see combat in Iraq and Afghanistan on a regular basis. As a result, women returning from war do suffer from PTSD and related conditions. Most importantly, regardless of how you feel about their mission overseas, these women have endured and sacrificed more than most of us can imagine. Female soldiers and veterans deserve our respect and support just as much as their male counterparts.

Lioness is currently available for purchase at the film's website, which also has a plethora of information about women in combat and women veterans. The film will be available on DVD via Amazon and other retailers on October 27.

Massachusetts' state Attorney General Martha Coakley was the first to formally throw her hat into the ring for the special election to replace the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA). The Boston Globe reported that Coakley picked up the nomination papers from the secretary of state's elections division and noted that:

Coakley has been quietly been putting together her Senate campaign over the past year, but has yet to announce officially. She has told associates she will run for the seat even if a Kennedy family member enters the race.

According to Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post, others considering running are Joe Kennedy II (a former Congressman from Massachusetts), Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA), and Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), who is best known for the Waxman-Markey Climate Change bill (which still has to work its way through the Senate this fall).

While I would have loved to see Vicki Kennedy (Sen. Kennedy's widow) run, I am thrilled Ms. Coakley has recognized this opportunity and is in the race to win. We need more women in Congress, especially in the Senate - and this would be one way to fulfill Kennedy's legacy of pursuing equal rights for women by improving the ratio of women to men in the U.S. Senate from 17 to 18.

A new documentary shines a hopeful spotlight on something we rarely see: a young woman living with paralysis.  I've only seen a short trailer (below) but what I saw was powerful: a young, vibrant woman in the prime of her life who also happens to be paralyzed from the chest down.

Cody Unser has transverse myelitis (TM), a neurological disorder caused by inflammation across both sides of one level, or segment, of the spinal cord. Ten years ago, she collapsed during a middle school basketball game, stricken with migraine headache-like pain. By the next day, she was paralyzed.

Later that year, Cody started her foundation, the Cody Unser First Step Foundation, which raises research funds to fight paralysis and to build awareness of transverse myelitis. Now she has partnered with the Reeve Foundation to produce what promises to be a fascinating documentary, Cody: The First Step.

The short trailer is a little awkward. Clips of Cody going to classes, doing rehab and scuba diving are interspersed with a primer of the latest spinal cord research from her doctor at Johns Hopkins, Douglass Kerr, MD PhD. According to Dr. Kerr, "We're at the point where we can begin to say if we understand the damage, we can now, in a very specific way, start to repair that damage." In other words, "[Cody's] not going to be an old lady when she walks again. She's going to be a young lady when she walks."

In a word: Wow.

I wish I could've watched this film four and a half years ago, when I had a freakish spinal cord injury and was paralyzed from the neck down. I've been extremely lucky. With a lot of hard work and quite a few miracles, I've regained most of my mobility. (Read more about my story here.)

Still, this has been the most isolating experience of my entire life. Prior to my injury, I had known very few women and girls who were paralyzed or used a wheelchair for mobility. In fact, I can count them on one hand. One was a friend who I attended a two-week summer camp with every year for most of my childhood. There were two others: a classmate from middle school and a college student who lived in the same dorm I did. The only "famous" woman I can ever recall using a wheelchair is the actress who plays Sharon Newman's mom on the "Young and the Restless". (Sharon will always be a Newman to me. Sorry, Shack fans.)

I've had no one to identify, no role models. After I stabilized medically, I was sent to rehab for two months to learn to adjust to life as a quadriplegic.  During my time on the spinal cord rehab unit at Froedtert Hospital in Milwaukee, there were only two other women there. There were only four men under thirty. The rest were middle-aged or elderly men. The message was clear: this doesn't happen to women, especially young women.

A study done by the Reeve Foundation found that women are less than half (46%) of people living with paralysis and women are barely more than a third (39%) of those who have experienced a spinal cord injury. The study also showed that people (men and women) under 40 accounted only 19.4% of people living with paralysis and they are 24.5% of people with spinal cord injuries. I could do a bunch of nifty math to figure out what percentage of the under-40 crowd living with paralysis/spinal cord injuries is women, but suffice it to say, my experience is true: we are a rare breed.

What I love about this documentary, from what little I've seen, is that it uses a intelligent, articulate, healthy twenty-two year old woman not just as a symbol that someday there will be a cure for paralysis but as proof that regardless of your ability, you can live a full, productive life.

Watch the trailer:

Cody's Trailer from Richelle Hecker on Vimeo.

Cody: The First Step has been made available to PBS. For information on how to request that your local PBS station air the documentary, click here.

On Monday, Jen wrote a great post on what you can do to support women veterans, including:

Support pending or new legislation for female veterans:

* Write letters
* Place phone calls to Congress
* Raise consciousness by blogging, tweeting, sharing the news with friends and family

To get you started, I've compiled a list of legislation already introduced in the current Congress.

1. S. 252 Veterans Health Care Authorization Act of 2009 which revises or adds provisions concerning Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) personnel matters  including provisions concerning women veterans health care. (You can read much more about the bill by clicking the bill name above.)

Current status: Placed on Senate Legislative Calendar under General Orders (7/24/09); Sponsor is Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman, Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-HI);

***Since this bill has been put on the legislative calendar and has Sen. Akaka's weight behind it, call/email/tweet your senator!

2. H.R. 1211/S. 597 Women Veterans Health Care Improvement Act will expand and improve health care services available to women veterans, especially those serving in Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (Iraqi), from the Department of Veterans Affairs, and for other purposes.

Current status: House (H.R. 1211): Passed in House on June 23, 009; Sponsored by Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-SD). Senate (S. 597): Introduced in Senate on March 16, 2009, and sent to Veterans Affairs committee; Sponsored by Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA)

3. H.R. 2583: Women Veterans Access to Care Act will direct the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to improve health care for women veterans, and for other purposes

Current status: Referred to House Committee on Veterans Affairs (5/21/09); Sponsored by Rep. Leonard Boswell (D-IA)

3. H.R. 293: Homeless Women Veterans and Homeless Veterans with Children Reintegration Grant Act of 2009 will expand the grant program for homeless veterans with special needs to include male homeless veterans with minor dependents and to establish a grant program for reintegration of homeless women veterans and homeless veterans with children, and for other purposes.

Current status: Introduced and referred to Veterans Affairs subcommittee on Health (1/9/09); Sponsored by Rep. Steve Buyer (R-IN)

4. H.R. 1171: Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program Reauthorization Act of 2009 Directs the Secretary of Labor to make grants to programs and facilities that provide dedicated services for homeless women veterans and homeless veterans with children.

Current Status: Passed House; Received in Senate and referred to Veterans Affairs Committee (3/31/09: Sponsored by Rep. John Boozman (R-AR)

5. S. 1237: Homeless Women Veterans and Homeless Veterans with Children Act of 2009 will expand the grant program for homeless veterans with special needs to include male homeless veterans with minor dependents and to establish a grant program for reintegration of homeless women veterans and homeless veterans with children, and for other purposes.

Current Status: Introduced in Senate and referred to Veterans Affairs Committee (6/11/09); Sponsored by Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA)

6. H.R. 2559 Help Our Homeless Veterans Act: Directs the Secretary of Veterans Affairs (VA) to carry out a national media campaign targeted at veterans who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless, with special emphasis on such veterans who are women.

Current Status: Introduced in House and referred to the House Committee on Veterans Affairs (5/21/09); Sponsored by Rep. Phil Hare (D-IL)

7. H.R. 840: Military Domestic and Sexual Violence Response Act will reduce sexual assault and domestic violence involving members of the Armed Forces and their family members and partners through enhanced programs of prevention and deterrence, enhanced programs of victims services, and strengthened provisions for prosecution of assailants, and for other purposes.

Current status: Introduced and referred to House Judiciary subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security (3/16/09); Sponsored by Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY)

8. House Congressional Resolution 28 calls for the Secretary of Defense to develop a comprehensive strategy to increase and encourage investigation and prosecution of sexual assault and rape cases in the military.

Current status: Introduced and referred to House Armed Services subcommittee on Military Personnel (2/6/09); Sponsored by Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA)

OK, people. You've got your marching orders. You know what to do.

For more information on any of these bills or to do your own research, check out these sites:

• Thomas (Library of Congress)
• Govtrack.us

When we say the word "veteran", we think of elderly men marching in the Memorial Day parade. With the exception of former POW Jessica Lynch, we don't usually think of young women as veterans, but with the progression of war in the Middle East - it's about time that we should.

In 1988, four percent of veterans were women. Today, eight percent of veterans are women, which makes them the fastest growing segment of veterans. While the average age of male veterans is 61, the average age of female veterans is 48.  Women veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are even younger. Almost all women veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan are under 40 and 58% are between the ages of 20-29.

These women are eligible for a wide variety of services from the Veterans' Administration (VA). Unfortunately, many are unaware of these benefits or have experienced barriers in trying to access the benefits they've earned.

Last week, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report on the status of women veterans in the VA health care system. The report found that the VA is often failing to meet the needs of its women veterans, especially in meeting women's privacy needs, making VA facilities women-friendly and fully staffing VA clinics and hospitals with appropriately trained women's health providers. (The Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America website has a great write-up of the report here.)

In conjunction with the report, the Senate Veteran Affairs committee held a hearing last week on Women Veterans: Bridging the Gaps in Care. After reading the report, the committee chairman, Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-HI) had one basic question: "Is VA meeting the needs of women veterans?"

According to testimony from government officials and women veterans, the answer is a resounding "Not yet."

Dr. Patricia Hayes, who is in charge of coordinating women veterans' health care at the VA, told the committee the VA is in the process of implementing a five-year plan to becoming a "one-stop shop" for comprehensive primary care for women veterans. This will include

• Hiring and training staff on women's health, including Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Military Sexual Trauma (MST)
• Allocating or constructing new spaces for women's health services
• Implementing privacy procedures
• Expanding outreach so women veterans know about the VA services they are entitled to

The second panel included five women veterans who shared their experiences in trying access their VA benefits. They spoke about the vital need for child care at VA facilities, as well the importance of making VA clinics and hospitals more child-friendly. They said the VA must increase its outreach to women veterans to let them know about services, preferably before service members are discharged from active duty. Panel members said they needed knowledgeable, supportive women's health providers who understand women's unique needs with PTSD and MST.

Most importantly, every single woman veteran said it is crucial to raise awareness that women do serve in combat and are veterans. They said that women with PTSD are often asked, "How can you have trauma when you can't serve in combat?" Yet women do see combat. (See Ms. Chase and Ms. Williams' testimony)

The panel said it is important to raise awareness about women veterans in the VA and the public at-large.

I'd like to do my part.

If you are a woman veteran and would like to share your story, please do so by posting a comment to this blog post, sending me a message  on Change.org or emailing me at danine[at]danine[dot]net. I will compile the stories for a possible future blog post. If you message or email me, please let me know how much/little identifying information I may use.

We don't say thank you enough to our veterans, especially to our women veterans.  As Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) told the panel last week, "Thank you for your service to your country. I really appreciate what you have done."

Resources:

Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) http://iava.org/

Swords to Plowshares http://swords-to-plowshares.org/

Disabled American Veterans http://www.dav.org/

We all know stories of women who have gone through hell just to get medical care:

• A co-worker who spent hours on the phone pleading with the insurance company to cover a life-saving procedure
• A friend with diabetes who had to choose between buying groceries for her kids or filling her insulin prescription
• A cousin who paid through the nose for private insurance because her job didn't offer insurance and she has a very rare genetic disorder
• A neighbor who stayed in a bad relationship because her husband's job offered good health insurance

These are all women I know. They could be women you know.  Women seem to bear the brunt of the health care crisis in this country. According to the Kaiser Foundation, there are approximately 17 million women who are uninsured.  That's nearly 1 in 5 adult women who have no health insurance. Men contribute to nearly two-thirds (63%) of the uninsured over all.

The good news is that most women do have health insurance.

• 64% have employer-based coverage
• 10% are on Medicaid.
• 6% have private policies
• 3% are enrolled in other government programs (i.e., military)

The bad news is that women are much more likely than men to be covered as a dependent on a spouse's employer-sponsored health insurance. (This may change as the "he-cession" continues.) Twenty-five percent of women (23.7 million) are covered as dependents. This makes them more vulnerable to losing their insurance if their spouse loses his job or the employer drops family coverage.  They are also more likely to lose their insurance if they are divorced or widowed.  (I know one woman who divorced her husband of 40 years when she was 62 years old. Since she wasn't eligible for Medicare yet, she had to negotiate for three years of health insurance in the divorce settlement.)

Only 39% of women (37 million) have their own job-based insurance.  These are the women the system is supposedly "working" for but health care costs are rising every day whether you have insurance or not. Every woman deserves quality, affordable health insurance.

Health care reform is a woman's issue.

It's going to be a long, hot summer in Washington as Congress tries to churn out some sort of health care reform legislation. By my count, there are at least five different proposals on the table and honestly, it's starting to look like there are too many cooks in the kitchen. Things are getting complicated, messy and expensive. Some have even suggested health care reform is too hard to do, at least right now. (Yes, I'm talking to you, Diane Feinstein.)

But health care reform can't wait, because women's health care can't wait. Study after study shows that if we have health insurance we take better care of ourselves. We go to the doctor when we're sick.  We fill the prescriptions that we need. We go for our annual Pap smears, mammograms and cholesterol screenings. Every woman has the right to good health, but as it stands, not every woman has the right to health insurance.

Contact your representative and your senators.  Tell them what you want to see in health care reform. They want to know what you think.  This is one of the most important pieces of legislation that will ever pass the United States Congress.

You have a voice. Use it.