Thursday, December 17, 2009

Are our heroes not getting what they deserve:(

Oh, boy! I ran across this article from the Associated Press written by Kimberly Hefling. Here is the link:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_female_veterans_finding_a_place

It's about female veterans returning from war and not getting the same treatment that male soldiers get. The piece is heart touching, and it moved me enough to do what I can for them by advertising it on the net until these female warriors get exactly what they deserve. The way I have chosen to do this is by re-writing it word for word and putting my perspective in as needed. My comments will be in red and are not without experience. I have only done one combat tour with women, but my good friend Josh C. has done two and actually experienced combat. I would like to credit him with the research. Let us begin:

WASHINGTON-Nobody wants to buy them a beer. What the fuck? Every time I go to a bar some horny soldier, sailor, airman or Marine is buying these bitches a fucking drink. 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. Except by the dudes that are still trying to get in their pants from deployment.

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. So it's a numbers game? 1,750,000 total male and female have deployed to the two theaters. This makes women about 13% of the total “fighting” force. I believe this is on par with total military strength. Nothing strange yet. They just want to serve their country too. But can they in the same capacity? Total deaths in both theaters is 5306 making the 120 deaths NOT 13% but a much smaller number-2.26% if you are curious! Equals????
For some, it's a lonely transition as they struggle to find their place. Yes, I agree. It can be hard going from the center of cock attention to being just another ugly girl.


Aimee Sherrod, an Air Force veteran who did three war tours (I have no fact basis on this but air force terms are not the infamous 12-15 month tours that COMBAT units are ordered. They are only six), said years went by when she didn't tell people she was a veteran. Uuuuggggghhhhhh???? Do you usually try to work it into a conversation? After facing sexual harassment during two tours (I thought it was three?) 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. I'll give her odds that she was actually rapped. I believe it. What I also believe that sexual harassment is a part of the culture. It is terrible that it had to go to rape. I sincerely hope the male was punished accordingly IF HE ACTUALLY DID IT. I was sexually harassed too. Other dudes slapping my ass, showing me their giggly sticks while they make fun of mine...so on and so forth. And during that time mortar attacks on FOBs were common. So claiming one or the combination of the two caused her PTSD when males are not even though they experienced the same events, desperately begs the question what the fuck are females doing their! Males can do the job better on average than females when females on average take a greater part of the resources such as compensation for disability claims. It is a simple cost benefit analysis. It cost more to placate females into the military culture than the benefit they give. That is all I'm saying.

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. She is a female that got out of the military she is not used to working or thinking for herself. Like some other veterans, she felt she improperly received a low disability rating by the Department of Veterans Affairs (Kimberly! Males too, you twat!) that left her with a token monthly payment. She was frustrated that her paperwork mentioned she was pregnant, a factor she thought was irrelevant. Yes it probably was irrelevant, but not unexpected. And since you brought it up, Kim. The guys in general want to thank Aimee for being somebodies or some peoples fuck buddy, Aimee. But you should have went to the aid station and got some free condoms. "I just gave up on it and I didn't tell anyone about ever being in the military because I was so ashamed over everything," Sherrod said. Hindsight is 20/20.

Then Jo Eason, a Nashville, Tenn., lawyer working pro bono through the Lawyers Serving Warriors program, stepped in a few years later and Sherrod began taking home a heftier monthly disability payment. God bless lawyers and constitutionally protected females.
"I've never regretted my military service, I'm glad I did it," Sherrod said. "I'm not ashamed of my service. I'm ashamed to try and tell people about it because it's like, well, why'd you get out? All the questions that come with it." And, “Why did you get in if you knew there was a fucking war on and you obviously don't have the emotional fortitude?” “Do you know who the father is?” “Air force good choice. Safe.”

The Defense Department bars women from serving in assignments where the primary mission is to engage in direct ground combat. Thank God. We will see how long this last. But the nature of the recent conflicts, with no clear front lines, puts women in the middle of the action, in roles such as military police officers, pilots, drivers and gunners on convoys. In addition to the 120-plus deaths, more than 650 women have been wounded. Still with the numbers huh, Kim? I don't want to get carpal tunnel syndrome to reiterate my point.

Back home, women face many of the same issues as the men, but the personal stakes may be greater. Female service members have much higher rates of divorce and are more likely to be a single parent. Quit fucking around! Aimee should have made him wrap it up. Kids these days are so impetuous. When they do seek help at VA medical centers, they are screening positive at a higher rate for military sexual trauma, meaning they indicated experiencing sexual harassment, assault or rape. The numbers do support this and yet they keep coming back for more. Some studies have shown that female veterans are at greater risk for homelessness. The studies conducted by womens groups and feminazies.

Former Army Sgt. Kayla Williams, an Iraq veteran wrote about her experience in a book titled, "Love My Rifle More Than You: Young and Female in the U.S. Army." She said she was surprised by the response she and other women from the 101st Airborne Division received from people in Clarksville, Tenn., near Fort Campbell, Ky. She said residents just assumed they were girlfriends or wives of military men. Or otherwise useless because it's a well known COMBAT unit!
"People didn't come up to us and thank us for our service in the same way. Because maybe it wasn't. Maybe on average the females do not go to war, the deploy to a war zone. They didn't give us free beers in bars in the same way when we first got back," (I already did that joke) said Williams, 34, of Ashburn, Va. "Even if you're vaguely aware of it, it still colors how you see yourself in some ways."

Genevieve Chase, 32, of Alexandria, Va., a staff sergeant in the Army Reserves, said the same guys who were her buddies in Afghanistan didn't invite her for drinks later on because their wives or girlfriends wouldn't approve. Not exactly right. The same guys who were her buddies in Afghanistan didn't invite her for drinks later on because their wives would probably fuck them and they didn't need her.

"One of the hardest things that I had to deal with was, being a woman, was losing my best friends or my comrades or fuck buddy to their families," Chase said. It was that sense of loss, she said, that led her to get together with some other female veterans for brunch in New York last year. The group has evolved into the American Women Veterans, which now has about 2,000 online supporters, some of whom go on camping trips and advocate for veterans' issues. About a dozen marched in this year's Veteran's Day parade in New York. SHIT! Another organization that women need just to-theoretically-do the same job as men. Do anybody see a pattern or can I not express myself clearly in writing.

"We just want to know that when we come home, America has our back," Chase said. "That's the biggest thing. Women are over there. Doing what exactly? You want to feel like you're coming home to open arms, rather than to a public that doesn't acknowledge you for what you've just done and what you just sacrificed."

Rachel McNeill, a gunner during hostile convoys in Iraq, said she was so affected by the way people treated her when they learned she fought overseas that she even started to question whether she was a veteran. And here we have a women questioning herself. Stop the presses. Maybe you know what you did, Rachel, or rather what you didn't do or didn't do as well.
She described the attitudes as "Oh, you didn't do anything or you were just on base," I would describe these attitudes as correct 99% of the time. And Rachel, if you looked at the female military on average and objectfully, you would too. said McNeill, who suffers from post concussive headaches, ringing in her ears, and other health problems related to roadside bomb blasts. The 25-year-old from Hollandale, Wis., was a sergeant in the Army Reserves.
She said she seemingly even got that response when she told the VA staff in Madison, Wis., of her work. She said she was frustrated to see in her VA paperwork how what she told them had been interpreted.
"It would say like, 'the patient rode along on convoys,' like I was just a passenger in the back seat," McNeill said.
Other women have had similar complaints. The VA leadership has said it recognizes it needs to do more to improve care for these veterans, and as part of changes in the works, female coordinators are in place at each medical center to give women an advocate. Another example of how the military changes and expends resources to keep women in the ranks. Who are a resource themselves, but not an efficient one. They are not a resource that can handle the job as well as their male counter parts. And they sure cannot do it without demanding special needs. The agency is also reviewing comments on a proposal to make it easier for those who served in non-infantry roles — including women — to qualify for disability benefits for PTSD.

Sen. Patty Murray, a member of the Senate Veterans' Affairs committee, recently asked VA Secretary Eric Shinseki and Defense Secretary Robert Gates to ensure that service members' combat experience is included on their military discharge papers, so later they can get benefits they are entitled to. Deployments are already on discharge papers. What the fuck is this FEMALE lawmaker wanting. “This is a female so we need special attention here.”???
Research has shown that a lack of validation of a soldier's service can make their homecoming more difficult. Research hasn't shown that it's poor leadership.

"What worries me is that women themselves still don't see themselves as veterans, so they don't get the care they need for post-traumatic stress syndrome or traumatic brain injury or even sexual assault, which obviously is more unique to women (What's unique to women. That's what it all boils down to.) , so we still have a long ways to go," said Murray, D-Wash.
Chase said one challenge is getting female veterans to ask for changes. Really? That's been a problem?

"Most of us, because we were women service members, are so used to not complaining and not voicing our issues, because in the military that's considered weak. True! Nobody wants to hear the girl whine," Chase said. But they still fucking do!
McNeill said that when she's been out at restaurants and bars with the guys in her unit, they make sure she gets some recognition when the free beers go around.
"They'll make a point ... usually to say, 'She was over there with us, she was right next to us,'" McNeill said. Probably a transportation unit.

My point is this. If females want to serve their country, I think that is great. We just have to figure out a way to do it more efficiently. Kim is trying to make known a problem that only OIF and OEF female veterans belove exist. That they are not being recognized for works that they didn't do. Aimee was in the fucking Air Force. I shouldn't need to say more. The only stress the women get over there is to gain the knowledge that their male comrades don't respect them but have to tolerate them. Women in the military have to be given every opportunity men get or they get to file what is called and EO complaint (equal opportunity). And this is true even in a tactical environment.

Women aren't guaranteed a fucking beer upon their return. It's not in their fucking contract. And this EO complaint thing only works in the military so thank you Kim for illustrating to us that female vets need special treatment again. But no surprise here. What does surprise me is that-despite their lack of trying-it's still “this man's army.” And though I hate to discard any potential resource at all. This one just cost too much to be useful. However, despite the stories and numbers of women not being treated fairly, there seams to be a constant supply of women in the ranks. So the army must be getting something right. Just not right enough to shut these bitches up. GET OVER IT! Consider it a part of your “sacrifice” that you don't get treated equally. And they don't get treated fairly. It disgusts me how much a good pair of titties gets away with stateside or overseas. I'm actually getting angry just thinking about it so I'm signing off.

Remember what titties are for.


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