 Alright, I'm going to get started here promptly on time to be able to pull up programs for you. Well, I just want to welcome everyone to the Women Veterans Seminar. I'm Joy Eamon. I'm the National Legislative Director of the State Committee. And I will be the moderator for the seminar today. I'd also like to introduce the newest member of the legislative team, Naomi Badness. Naomi was recently appointed to my team. She is the Associate National Legislative Director. And I'm so pleased to have her. She is going to be covering the Women Veterans Support Polio in the future going forward, but she just came onto our staff this week. So, you know, I'm giving her a little bit of a break this week. But if you're going to give me, I think, no, Naomi, she's been with DAB for over 15 years. She worked as a transition socialist officer, but a national socialist officer, coming from our NSO office in Florida to Washington, D.C. to the younger legislative team. And we're thrilled to have her. She brings a world of experience to the issues that she'll be covering and so we really look forward to having her. And if you don't know her, please take the time during the rest of your convention to stop and introduce yourself or after the seminar and get to know her first. We have a great program for you today, so I want to get started. And I'd like to begin by introducing the members of DAB's Women Veterans Interns Committee. We have our chair of Linda Hill from Louisiana. Linda? I saw Dr. Lillis just come in. There she is on her floor from California. I want to thank Dr. Hill for being an interim Women Veterans Committee member for all their hard work over the last year. Ladies, please, look at them all they can. I'd like to introduce DAB member and our special guest speaker this afternoon, Phyllis J. Wilson. Phyllis currently serves as the President of the Women in Military Service for America Memorial Foundation. The only major national memorial honoring the 3 million women who served our country from the Revolutionary War through the present day. A retired Chief Ornot Sir Phyllis Wilson served 37 years as an Army Intelligence Officer, visiting more than 35 countries across five continents. She served as the Command Chief Ornot Sir of the United States Army Reserve as a key member of the executive team managing an organization of more than 200,000 personnel with an annual operating budget of more than 8 billion dollars. Phyllis is a registered nurse and holds two master's degrees, two bachelor's science degrees and a certificate in nonprofit management from Duke University. She has received numerous military decorations and awards including the Meritorious Service Medal, Joint Service Commendation and Achievement Medals, the Iraq Campaign Medal for Global War and Terrorists and Expeditionary and Service Medals, and the Army Parachute Dispatch. In 2017, she was inducted into the Army Women's Foundation Hall of Fame and sits on a number of boards and was recently was appointed to the Reserve Forces Policy Board of the Secretary of Defense. Finally, Phyllis has eight children and fourteen grandchildren, four sons who have military and all are combat veterans. Look up toward a notably distinguished guest, President of the Women and Military Service for America Memorial Foundation Phyllis Wilson. Thank you all so much for giving me the opportunity to come and talk to you today a little bit about the Military Women's Memorial, your memorial. A memorial that I had already been serving in the military for 16 years when the memorial was dedicated in 1997, 25 years ago. I never heard of it. I didn't know it was happening. Now Joy knew and she was there on opening day, one of over 40,000 people that stood at the entrance to Arlington National Cemetery as the memorial was being dedicated. Fast forward to today, in just a couple of months, we'll celebrate the 25th anniversary of the same memorial that honors the three million women that have served and helped defend this nation even when it was not legal for us to be part of the military. I'm going to show you a short video that still chokes me up so after it plays, be patient with me as I'll be a second to recover. But in this video, you will see the little general that could. Brigadier General Wilma Vaught. She is the founder of the memorial and President Emeritus. And when she retired from the United States Air Force in 1985 as a one-star general because of her time in grade, time in rank, she was the senior ranking woman, not just in the Air Force, in the entire Department of Defense. Almost exactly one month ago today, she was at the White House from the President to award her America's highest award to civilians, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. That's further ado. Let's enjoy this video. Now, this was in 1997. I say that because we had two women that were there to serve in World War I. Yes, World War I. And she will have a little line. You'll see her, she'll have this little round hat up there. Her son walked her to the podium. She was 102 years old. And when her son walked her up, he was a retired Navy captain, and he was 81 years old. He was about to get into the line after she says, when I served in the Navy, what? We got off the metro site and, oh my God, I looked to my left down toward the memorial, and it was just seeing people. And you put it fine, an empty place, all the way out of the Lincoln Memorial. There were tens upon tens of thousands of people all helping to get recognition and the immensity of what this memorial was and will be. Doesn't vary before this beautiful memorial on sacred ground to honor and pay tribute to the generations of American women who have served and are serving in our nation's armed forces. It was so powerful, and there was nothing else to do but cry. Thank you. America knows what you do and what you have done. Maybe it hasn't always been recognized loudly and clearly. We recognize it, we're grateful for it. We say God bless you and we will always thank you for helping to make our country what it is. Well, I was sitting for a couple of days, and one of the things I had planned was for the military to bring the flags in states and territories down that aisle. I had talked to some of the people who were carrying those flags, and they said it was one of the most unforgettable moments of their life, because people were reaching out and touching those flags. It meant so much to them. I'm Captain Linda Brayden. I stand for the women who served in Granada, Panama and the Gulf War. It was overwhelming. It was a feeling of pride. It was a feeling of camaraderie to see so many women in place to have them still wearing their hats or maybe their ribbons on their suits. There's one of the things I had encouraged them to do is if you can't wear your uniform, wear whatever part of it fits. It's all they've got if they can. Shortly, the doors of your memorial will be open. Let's go down and cut the ribbon. There are so many memories of the dedication and one of them is a quotation from an army nurse, so we know more too. And to me it epitomizes what this memorial is about. When she wrote, let the generations know that women in uniform also guarantee our freedom. That our resolve with justice great is the brave men who stood among us. And with victory, our tears felt justice hard. And that's the vision of what the generations know that women in uniform also guarantee our freedom. So in the 25 years since the memorial opened and General Vaught with her tenacity, we call it, her name is Brigadier General Wilma L. Vaught, and we call the memorial the house that Wilma built. And it is without a doubt with her steadfast, her time on Capitol Hill, her time traveling in this nation from the mid-1980s, not just until the doors were opened. She was the president of the foundation from 1986 until 2016. I'm only the third president of this entire incredible organization. There's only 25 of us that work both at the foundation, which is separate from where the memorial is. We have the largest collection of military women's uniforms, artifacts, diaries, journals, photos, largest in the world. And we share it with the Smithsonian's. It's at the Redd Library in California right now. We put it any place in every place so that America knows what their women have done for generations. And what they now have the opportunity to do as a result of whose shoulders we stand on. Those of us that have served and are serving, imagine what the next few generations of women will be in the uniforms. But we look at all of the opportunities. We have exhibits within the museum. It looks like a lot of people see that curved wall at the entrance to Arlington National Cemetery. I think that's all it is. But you come behind those doors on either end and inside is 33,000 square feet of goodness of storytelling from the Revolutionary War of Dr. Mary Walker in the Civil War. The only woman not only to receive the Medal of Honor, the only woman to have it taken away, and the only woman to get it back again. But we tell that incredible story. We talk about these women that in the sea services in World War I, only the Army Nurse Corps and the Navy Nurse Corps founded in 1901 and 1908. That was the only way women previously, previous to World War I, could serve in the military and not with to be a laundress or to be some other kind of adjunct supporter but not in the military, the Navy and the Army Nurse Corps. Now they could not be called by a rank. They were either called Miss or Nurse. And while they were paid slightly less than a lieutenant, and they wore rank that looked pretty much the same as, they were never to be addressed as an officer never saluted. World War I happened such a shortage of people in the military and there was never going to be enough that somebody in the Pentagon was reading through all of the policies and laws and all of them said that in order for you to join the military in the 19-teens, 1915, 1617 era, you must be a man and a citizen of the United States except the Navy Reserve it simply said you must be a citizen. So the Chief of Naval Operations made a judgment call and said let's enlist women into the Navy Reserve and if we need to activate them, and over 10,000 women, they lined up sitting blocks as soon as they knew they could enlist into the Navy. Like the lady that said, I served in the Navy when women couldn't even vote. But because of that, we will argue that on Capitol Hill that was really the tipping point that gave women the right to vote because the standard story on Capitol Hill back in the day was that because we did not exercise all of the requirements of being a full citizen of the United States, i.e. you did not serve in the military, but there were laws on the books that said women could not serve in the military, but wait a minute, I can't vote because I won't serve in the military but you're telling me. So because of that, about 15,000 women served in World War I, the sea services, the coast guard, and the Navy. The one branch of service at that point that did not permit women to serve was the Army. But we found a way, ultimately. Now Congress was not happy about this idea of women in the loophole. So they quickly acted on Capitol Hill and changed the law so that once again, even in the Navy Reserve, it must be a man and a citizen to serve. It was not again then until the 1940s with World War II that they started saying we were going to have to bring more women in. And their first calculations, fuzzy math on the back of the envelope, I guess, they figured 86,000 women would be needed to serve in uniform in World War II. In fact, over 400,000 women served in uniform and that doesn't count all of the extras, the Red Cross, the USO, all of the other ancillary services that were out there supporting and doing things because we were kept and how many women could join. And then in June 12th of 1948, only 74 years ago, Harry Truman signed Women's Armed Service Integration Act. Yes, a big deal for us served for the duration of the war plus six months and then thank you very much, ma'am, go home. This now gave us the opportunity to serve for a career with major stipulations. We could not exceed 2% of the military. This was in 1948 and in 57, nearly a decade later when General Watt joined the Air Force they were less than 1% of women in the Air Force and she recalls being on a major installation of her seas and it was three women nurses and herself for the only female nurse in uniform that were on a major installation overseas. So it took a while to change course in that area as well if you got pregnant you were instantly, you were discharged. So I don't know if you noticed in the dedication video where whatever could fit. Well the lady in the helmet liner that is actually the mother to the design architect that helped to design the memorial. It was a national opportunity for people to submit their renderings of what they felt the memorial should look like. The mom to Michael and Freddie said you're an architect you're going to help design this and now you're going to help design and submit for the competition you better win it because I had to get out of the army because of you. The competition with Mary and Weiss they were two people from different architecture firms that came together because General Watt and her staunchness said there must be a senior woman on every part of this construction from the design to the construction company to all the subcontractors there must be a senior woman. So Mary and Weiss joined farms with Michael and Freddie and they're happily married now to this day. So we brought them together. We continue to tell these stories and we highlight from 97 who could have guessed that in less than four years after we dedicated 9-11 what would happen and all of the changes this nation has seen the wounds we have all worn. Like I said I have four of my sons that are combat veterans. I've spent time in Iraq and Afghanistan. I'm a proud member of the DAV and the DAV DSO so a gentleman near Fort Rocker, Alabama as I was transitioning out he sat me down and he said you're going to do this. I said I'm pretty good, I'm fine. I started at the top of my head and I went down and I stand in front of you as 100% service connected. I challenge too many people think that if you get something you're taking away from somebody else letting that mindset language across our communities and that's what I love about the DAV is that you guys reach out and you have that hand up mentality. I had no idea at the time but as we went down the list yeah it hurts yeah I'm uncomfortable but as we go down as people get older who knows what happens with the conditions. I have one condition in particular that I wanted to share with you and that has to do with why I'm so excited that they pushed the signature of the signing of the White House till Wednesday because I intend to, I've been invited to stand there and to sign the act down the list. Not just for all of the women veterans but you know I've got sons, I have friends and I visit some of my men and women colleagues at Arlington National Cemetery. I pop a top for them, I know they drink, I'm not a beer drinker but I'll pop it, I'll take one sip and then the rest of it goes on the grass there at the Great Walker and I think it's important that we tell them how we're doing too what we continue to do to make a difference in the veteran community but as I go there and I have the opportunity to stand and witness what the PAC Act does it affected me directly I have an autoimmune situation where my body is attacking my own liver and in the 1980s this situation was the number one leading cause of liver transplantations and also the living cause of death thank God the medications that we now have available to us will slow it down now that I should have a normal lifespan. So unfortunately I have not met the right people at TAV so when I have the opportunity to join you from a life member well of course that's a no brainer and I'm happy to stand here in front of you healthy as healthy as can be taking advantage of the Veterans Affairs medical care that I think is world class and I'll tell you as a registered nurse that I do have access now based on position to talk with Secretary McDonough and let him know and I normally love to champion the good news stories I got COVID in May of this year first time double vaccinated double boosted shouldn't be gotten but did. The VA medical center says they knew I was COVID positive in less than four hours I had five different physicians offices calling me my endocrinologist, my liver physician my primary down the line to make sure I had one I knew I had COVID and two then the pharmacist called to find out did I want to take any kind of medication my brother died at age of 59 was January from COVID it's no joke I said yes I want something what are my options I can either get infusion or oral medication so I have to look at the facts let me tell you what the VA did they gave me the pharmacist gave me her phone number and she said can you be here before 2pm today absolutely she says call me when you're five minutes from the front door and we all said somebody looked like they were in a hazmat suit not four years ago have a brown paper bag in front of them I pull up I put my driver's front window down I show my ID card they confirm it says Phyllis Wilson on my driver's license they drop this bag on my passenger front seat and they turn and they walk away I drive home and I start taking medication as soon as I got home had almost no ill effects whatsoever but that's what your VA exam is doing because news goes fast when we tell the bad things sadly it's rare that we tell the good news stories and I just want you to know at least for me and the DA VA Medical Center and I'm confident people that look at that they have no idea who I am from Jane Smith anybody else in their system I don't get a special tag beside my name I promise you so that's what I'm seeing happening in the VA and I'm so pleased and I continue to receive all of my care through them although I do keep my tricare for just in case but for the VA and what we're doing with women's health and women's clinics I think it's stunning and it feels like a really great way for us to connect all of our women veterans in so I'm going to close by just simply we are in the midst of where our 501 C3 that's how you got to we do raise money in order to tell these incredible stories of women past, present and into the future one of the American women currently serving in the Marine Corps as a helicopter pilot is most likely a Jasmine will most likely be the first woman on the face of the moon that's a U.S. Army it's certainly not just of amazing women like Dr. Mary Walker Civil War not like Deborah Sampson of the Revolutionary War not like the incredible generations of World War II Korea, Vietnam and let's talk about those cold war veterans shall we? That's amazing that's the peace dividend you guys were probably the best generation because nobody wanted to tangle with the United States through the Cold War era and we have a special part where we talk about the cold war generation and the men and women that wore the uniform because you are a veteran whether you were in a combat zone or not we're very proud of every one of you so I have a short one minute video but again hopefully it's your red blood pumping and please guys let it work the call to serve our stories of triumph and sacrifice are vital to our country's history we serve in every branch of the military at every level as warriors, innovators and leaders the military women's memorial is the only national memorial dedicated to the lives of American service women in 20 years our world-class education center has brought the nation together to honor their courage determination and love of country the military women's memorial bring these stories to life for a new generation for our service and I'm sure in the two videos it brings up lots of memories for me being there as well and it's just like one fifth of an eye but I'm sure we want to make sure all women veterans have an opportunity to get their sign up you know make sure you're a part of history and that your voices are heard so let's give a great thanks to Kate said the masters sure so we do have the masters in every state Shannon is one from New York from Puerto Rico from Puerto Rico Louisiana, Puerto Rico, yeah we got him in the house so one of the things that we have is like a big baseball card story of amazing everyone that has ever served or is serving you don't have to wait till you're out to put your story into our national database of 300 to 2,000 women's stories now but there should be 3 million stories in there and I'm certain there are a number you're in here that had not even begun to tell your story so we do have a table set up Shannon has been manning the table Karma from Puerto Rico so do reach out or go to the website women's memorial.org up on the top right how you can create an account and men in the room you can create an account too anybody that has capacity to get onto the website please create an account we have 275,000 friends of the memorial that have an account because then once you're in there you can search to see is your mom, your grandmother your aunt, your niece, your daughter your wife is her story in our database and if it isn't and she's still alive please encourage her to tell it in first person if she's no longer living tag, you're it tell her story as best you can don't let her story be left out researchers look at our database and they're looking at the change over time of what women are able and capable of doing and what legally we've committed to do now every career field is open but very few of the women that have served in the last 25 years have their stories on our database almost all of those 302,000 that are in there are the women that served before we ever opened our doors so if researchers are looking there's no way for them to tell that time's changing yes we still have work to do but you're standing on shoulders of all American patrons that are no longer living and it's on you to make sure that their stories have the impact and the power that shows what they did made a difference for each of you and the same applies for the men in the room please you know somebody that has served or is serving I got a lot of dads that will register, create an account and register their daughter and they purposely put in a really bad picture of the girl smart they know what they're doing because they know she'll get in there and update it, right so it's all online now you can do that but you have to create an account to get into the database and then when you get in challenge you go in and look up names like Julia Child Marilyn Monroe you name them they're probably in our database Julia Child served in World War II she was a USO woman that was in a combat zone and that's the criteria for that we also served so she's got her department of defense ID card we have a photo of that so it's incredible who you can find but the stories that are stunning this one woman was born in the 1920s when her British parents were vacationing in the United States and she was born on US soil which made her an American citizen but she grew up in England World War II kids shortly before D-Day they were advertising basically they knew there was women in Britain that could join the American Women's Army Corps 45 women that this woman knew they all joined up together and her story is stunning of what she did, she went to Omaha Beach D-Day and because she was a good singer just before they took off from England to get to D-Day they asked her to can anybody sing so they lifted her up bodily over the heads of sailors and soldiers to the top of the ship she sang everything from Chattanooga Choo Choo to Boogie Boogie, Boogie Boogie you name it she sang and in her story her most memorable experience is seeing the joy on the faces of a little dirbug a little dance and singing along and she said she knew even before they left while some of them enjoyed it it would be the last time for years they'd have something enjoyable but also for some it was the last singing they'd ever hear and this meant a lot to her these are the stories if you need a good pick me up get yourself an account and if nothing else go in type in any old name you're going to find out a 302,000 you should find somebody that has that last name and just start reading them and it should empower you to make sure that if you know a woman or a veteran or you are one yourself keep adding in add your second service, your third service what you're doing now on the DAV what you're doing with other organizations keep adding to it Tammy Duckworth is in there in fact served then with the VA in the state of Illinois became a congresswoman from Illinois and now as a senator her story we keep updating out with her and her team it's important because I believe we are lifetime servants to this nation if you have given yourself raised that right hand and scored that out of I think it's just part of our DNA for the rest of our lives what you need to do, get to the desk get to our counter, we've got brochures that explain the information and a lot of ways that you can help support us to tell those stories and to safeguard all of the artifacts and diaries and journals that these women have sent to us just being in fact if you're having any kind of an event in your state you can always reach back to our home page and say we'd love to have one of the state ambassadors or we can get a representative there giving you a speaker we'll get somebody to you to help explain this and I'm so glad to see that we have been in the room this is not a women's only topic we need to make sure we're American veterans and we're proud of it and it shouldn't be done in a cycle so continue to tell that story be proud and register I need them to pick me up every day to keep me challenged and I'd like to expand we're hijacking the conversation here I just wanted to share something so I'm a hospice nurse I trade a lot of nursing but the last thing I did was hospice before I went overseas in El Luna but anyhow there was a World War II nurse that she wasn't even a nurse she was a co-breaker maybe she's a wave and she was very elderly and I took care of her and what really impressed me and I get emotional is she told me her story and she said I didn't do anything different the MPs escorted us every day we were embarrassed by ourselves and they took us to this building with no windows and we all went ahead and interpreted everything they said and we gave it to them so they wouldn't be able to know what the MP was thinking and doing and she said and she did that for like 5 years and she was young she was in her 20s and she spoke fluent German and English but she said she did nothing different she didn't do anything it was nothing to her I thanked her and I said don't you ever think that what you did was insignificant because she told me well I didn't get blown up I didn't lose legs and arms like the guys didn't normally do and I said no but if you didn't do what you did there would have been a heck of a lot more guys starting to normally do so thank you for everything you did and I don't think her story ever got told because she told me that there were 4 days before she passed away I wish she had but she was so humble and didn't think it was significant and if it wasn't for women doing that kind of stuff in World War II they would use this even computers and those who made computers and people like her co-breakers made a huge difference and I respect you now I'm just like I was only I was just we have to stop doing that to ourselves Americans deserve to know what an American budget looks like and we all look at us we are all so different we're every shade, every ethnicity everything and that's what I'm so proud of is to see and be able to tell these stories so challenge accepted please make sure that these stories are told get to the table here or go to womensmemorial.org and take the time get it started at least and then we'll continue to carry the water for you our ambassadors have been doing yeoman's work of getting especially our deceased women veterans stories into the database but we can't register and history will not recall what is not told so we've got to get it in there so thank you very much that was really very touching I'd now like to introduce Jennifer Dean from the VA million veterans program may have seen that they're here on site during the convention MVP is national genomic research program to learn about genes lifestyle and military exposure of veteran health and illness veterans partner with MVP contributes to improving the lives of fellow veterans and ultimately everyone Jennifer I know you wanted to talk to this group specifically for a couple of reasons yes thank you so much thank you I just felt this girl was a hard ass to follow but if you touched on some things that are really important to us with the million veteran program I see lots of familiar faces in the room and I know lots of who are already familiar with our program or members LA so for those who aren't that familiar you've already gotten over who we are looking at and how we can help them lifestyle and military experiences and the diversity in that program is the most important thing for us to be able to make sure there's medicine that we're delivering at the VA is representative of all of you the whole goal of this is to really bring personalized medicine to the bedside so how do we treat the individual as an individual when you guys are getting care traditionally in research women are underrepresented as well as minorities I know it's shocking right and so we're trying to change that within our program to date we are just 200 veterans shy and enrolled for 900,000 and out of that about 9% are women so that means maybe 16,000 women are in our cohort already our women tend to be younger and more diverse than the cohort of men which means that we can actually do some really amazing research looking at that group so we're looking to expand our portfolio of women's health over the course of the next several years and really start to build that up so we're asking for your help in reaching out to more women veterans to help us to make sure that we are all represented within this program it's going to impact your care for years to come and those of generations to come behind you you guys are giving a legacy for future generations as well as doing yourself a benefit by helping us to really provide evidence-based medicine to you guys in health care so we launched a women's campaign back in March of 2021 and since then we have enrolled 10,000 new women into the program we have materials and information that you can share but we can ask that you talk to another veteran and let them know about this program and just share our website with them you can learn more at mtp.ba.gov and to date we have over 48 projects that are ongoing and are expanding to 75 plus by the end of the year and we are doing research in areas like PTSD suicide risk breast cancer risk and are having a lot of really incredible findings from out of this so why does this matter, right? If we can understand biological ways with some these diseases we can find better ways of screening individuals so that we can do earlier intervention or tailoring therapeutics to an individual again based upon you as an individual person so some of the research that came out to date has looked at suicide risk and we have been able to identify 30 pathways that can now be used to start looking at identifying additional risk factors and new avenues for treatments and therapeutics for individuals who are at higher risk of developing a kind of suicidal condition and we've looked at some COVID-19 very COVID-19, right? Everybody could have been able to try to understand what was going on looking at long COVID and looking at the impacts of this on our population it's so incredibly important and so one of the things that mtp was able to contribute to that was looking at the cohort of African Americans so we have over 150,000 individuals about African ancestry in the program it is the largest cohort of its kind in the world as well as we have probably the largest cohort of women in any program of interest in the world and so we were able to identify that individuals who are at specific genetic risk genetic variants are at higher risk of developing severe kidney disease so what does that tell us? That tells us that in these individuals we really need to be straining for this and treating them differently and making sure we're looking out for those things in those individuals and finally from women doctors we are making at-risk and at-risk and testing screening tools to see whether or not it can apply to women within the VA and we have actually found the guess that these tools do work well but in our female population however we were really able to test it in our 13 ancestry population and we do have large numbers we still need to increase that diversity and things are tailored to each one of you individually so we're going to be launching a mental health cohort as far as it's not headed on to healthcare and we're going to be investing 50,000 new veterans to really focus in on some of those severe mental health conditions and substance use conditions so stay tuned for some of that coming out in the future and we are again just looking for your help and it's right in the word consider joining the program come to us with any questions and really would love to hear from you and hear your feedback on how we're doing and what you guys would like to see from our program in the future. This is not to start a program, it's your program you have made this possible we always joke that if there is a gene for service we will find it in our veterans and you guys have to come out and really step up and are leaving this amazing incredible legacy to go on into the future for decades and decades to come so I will leave it at that and if you guys have questions you're interested in sharing information or reading some information from us please reach out to either at our call center you can go to mpda.gov our call center number is there or you can reach out to me personally at the table until about 5 today so we'll have business cards out there but I appreciate every single one of you and we can just join our program today and talk to us about it or who has come to us with your concerns and really look forward to reaching that million but also in beyond we're starting to increase our portfolio of research not only in women's health but in military exposures as the fact that it's more of as well enrollment included is going through an important type of process so you try and send it as an organization to give permission to access health records that allows us to track your health over time if you have a small type of blood you can do this enrollment either at a local facility there's about 70 VA's across the country that have staff there or you can go online if you actually have a way of collecting a specimen that we send a kit to your house so that we can really reach additional populations that don't use the VA's or that it's a really long drive for you guys to get there so you can select that option and have that kit nailed to your house whether your information is used for research or not, get any identifying information so we protect your privacy as best we can all of the information that's published on it is published on a group of individuals and no one is directly identified so we are doing everything we can to protect privacy and security and I know a lot of folks have concerns about your benefits no information goes into your health records about your participation in the program it is used for research purposes not for clinical decision making purposes so it is not something that's going to directly impact your benefits in any way, shape, or form thank you everybody that hasn't enrolled yet into the program will do so to make sure that we're equally represented in that denominated study I am pleased to say that we are going for the next part of our program we can hear directly from some women that are who have been appointed or served as women veterans committee advisors in their department so as our guest panelists they'll make their way to the stage I'm just going to give a little brief overview about the panel discussion now that we'll have many of you might be asking for this in terms of the women veterans seminar because probably the most frequent question we get asked is for a call that comes up to be might say you know I've been appointed as a women veterans committee chairperson and I don't know where to start and I say well did you ask your commander or appointed you and what did they say and usually I'll get them they didn't know and told me I'm not sure do whatever you want to do so I know a lot of you have been in that same situation and the four women that are here have had some of those same experiences and been in that same situation at first and so I thought it would be a great idea for you to hear from them directly about what challenges they face in their department for studying at the women veterans committee for looking at what kind of outreach outreach strategies could be employed to attract women veterans to come to the meetings what resources they use to develop a broad network of women in their community and then finally to share some tips with you how to get started and to be successful as well so I want to start with having each of the panelists introduce themselves and if you're pleased to share your name apart from what you're affiliated with and when you serve in the military and Kim we will start with you can you hear me now my name is team viewers I'm Dakota and I serve in the military I'm a retired staff department I was an Army heavy vehicle operator Julia Taylor Department of Connecticut U.S. Army 2000-2014 Katina Barnes U.S. baby I served from 1992 to 2005 as a hospital woman I'm Julia Taylor I represent the department of Tennessee retired Air Force and I have been a hospital administrator by the VA and the Air Force my specialty is aerobatic evacuation it's basically flying patients back to the United States my career field is aerobatic evacuation flying women warriors back to the United States primarily 130's 141's I was on flying status for 20-20 years retired colonel I started out by telling us about your current role in the department and that initial experience with being appointed as a women veterans coordinator or vice or two-year department and just trying to meet those needs of women veterans in your state right now I serve as a senior vice commander and chair of women's group we're relatively new to the illness we have a young female that was basically our only active female for several decades and a couple more of us jumped on in the last two years we have one lady that's very active across the other side of our state so we're relatively new and small at anything that's going and we've done a couple things last year that we're going to the second time this year a retreat at an old monastery that we're doing and we do a state of women veterans event and trying to bring in more and more women veterans every year and currently my position as department state commander we have a fairly decent women both of the chapters have their own thing going we have a massive fishing event with our women's group we also have a meeting with some of the local community college and universities with a better noesis and we try to get to partner with the National Department of Reserve especially those who are deployed and just kind of help them out with talking about benefits and services and supports in the community and then we have a fairly decent connection with some of the senior centers and senior homes and I have to say I am very very proud of the department that came and got a lot of our past commanders who are very involved I have not I haven't called anyone in the department that hasn't been willing to help or run something drive to pick up someone so I have to be grateful and very thankful for today that we have a really good networking team Hi my name is Petina Lawrence I'm now from the state of Maryland I started out in my department woman's committee chair and then I was moved up to the state I served for four years as the woman's committee chair and now I'm on the committee with Nicole as our state chair I'm a physician from a committee that existed in the Department of Genesee I've been employed to keep that value I appointed a year ago in the state convention Department of Genesee and the state agency actually had a program for many years which was pretty good and we stepped that game quite a bit in this last year so if each of you also would serve give us an audience an idea what were some of those initial challenges that you faced because oftentimes some of you have also talked about if you were a partner committee or you came into a committee so that there were other people who would have been just one or two of you there what were some of those challenges and then how did you decide about engaging trying to engage other women that lived in the state that they weren't active in the Department of Genesee I don't know if you've really solidified what was the committee supposed to be doing I felt like I had it in the area that it was a title of the program I'm sure they had done some things but it was like starting for me I engaged in the Department of Demand and acquired what we thought we needed to be doing and of course the civil I really don't and I thought I would not call expectations all the time and then we could develop when I reached out to the time it was when I learned that they don't really have a women's program designated at the DAB national level the women's program is really a women's committee that is designed to be a special emphasis program within the DAB not a separate part not like board versus the board education or whatever but we are part of the DAB and it's a special emphasis program I funded myself to go to the last year convention in Tampa thinking that I would then meet some people and learn exactly what it was what we were supposed to do unless they are a little frustrated when I got there we did two weeks two hour program that is not the only issue we have on the table but it was a hot fight since then we've developed a lot of relationships both with the national and with the DA when we start talking about resources and success for our community but it was difficult because there was nobody at any level that could tell me what the expectation was which direction the program was supposed to go but who knows which agency even though we didn't know what we were supposed to do the sentence after they said we're going to apply value to be that person was let us know who you need to fund who you need to budget money for your program so one thing I think you can learn from this which I've talked to a number of you over the years about is if you do have the opportunity if you're appointed to one of these positions it's really important to develop to write out some of the goals what you'd like to achieve and to if you have meetings to keep minutes of those meetings not to keep the crime attack cheap for the next person as we know these positions just like the interim women veterans is up to the the national standard to make those appointments so that people can change and it's the same in the department level as you bring in you another chapter of the department commander they may say we'd like to give so and so an opportunity and as you can hear at some locations it's really difficult if you're just starting from the square one rather than saying okay here's what I've done what came before me and certainly you can then build on that foundation is it important of guest this did you find it was important to reach out for example to your VA contacts you're more than the program manager or MST coordinator others could you talk a little bit about that for me I spent about in my chapter as a woman to community chair it was really important to be invited to see a voice woman in my chapter but I was given an opportunity to organize events it was whatever I wanted to but I felt what the veterans could benefit from so I just started thinking about things that I would personally enjoy or was important to me then I created a contact with the VA clinical women at the Baltimore Clinic and I started asking them about things they felt what the veterans needed to know or what they felt was important for me to share with other women veterans so that's how for us we had our first event which was military sexual trauma and PTSD it was really important because at that time even though it was talked about there was a lot of information on resources out there from veterans to go to or legal noise and then when they learned there wasn't just women veterans that started from MST but also men as well and then there were more women that started from MST than there were actual women veterans I know it's a subject that we hear a lot about there are people that are still suffering from it so then once I started making connections with the VA I started reaching out to other organizations I started reaching out to the veterans and the team that wanted to participate on the committee and see what they wanted to do as well so we just started going from there so I was given a clean slate with a very small budget I was with the budget and decided to I was able to I was able to ask I had to ask for money from the the chapters so that I could finally the events that I wanted to host and we went right there for us Connecticut connected with our VA was the key for us and the bright channel so we have a quarterly town hall at the women's clinic and we do it by either Zoom or social media so we need quality and find out what our main focus was rep-round services and prevent homelessness or housing issues so it could be whether it's a rental issue it could be because during COVID people couldn't work there was issues with childcare so those are things that we focused on at our center and the women's director and the women's thing was really, really supportive and then we reached out to other services as well because we have a large population of American lesions that have reached out to them to see what were they doing and how we can partner with them and many of them ended up becoming dating by words in history but I think the challenge for us for me at Iconic Connect we're so spread out so from where I am with the chapters it could be a two-hour drive so having in-person events can be challenging so my focus lately is just to connect with the states in this summer so a lot of states are not having meetings during the summer months so it's really connected to see what's going on in those states and have meetings could be because of the state commander is starting to put together meetings with the service officers in the department to find out what are the challenges and what supports the women need in your chapter and go back again to VA the VA program director and see what we can get from there one of the things that we did that was really successful was a baby shower so we started with baby showers again and to also get some of the spouses to join in support but the challenge for me mostly is because we're so spread out is to get people in the same place at the same time we had three challenges that are at the top of my list the first one is where are women where are all the women that are in our state where are all the women that are in the TAV and that was challenge number one one way we overcame that is we had membership lists printed and we found all the females and we sent them all those garbage we didn't get a huge response but we did get some of the response and that's how we got people invited to our first event that we did and from there it keeps growing the next challenge one that will continue to work on as we grow is how then do we make those women feel comfortable and how do we find out what their needs are because as much as we want to grow and do we basically have to be guided by the work that we're serving so we have several women that we're working with outside of the TAV that are my birds but they're on the outside not comfortable coming in either because of an MSDA experience or maybe they're going through a claim right now or something that's triggering that they don't want to come into the TAV so we're finding ways to do things with them outside of there and then our goal is to survey them and find out what do you want to do and what are you interested in when it comes to serving veterans and continue to build programs to be there our third challenge was as we're doing this how do we widen our nets and the way that we're doing that is a lot of collaboration in the community there are so many service organizations and veteran organizations in our area and we had the standard for the veterans that we did last March there were almost more boosts than our participants and everybody loved it the resources we connected to the resources that connected to each other that was a really great thing and having that resource fair available in the event was amazing lots of partners, lots of collaboration and hopefully that keeps on going we had the department commanders in a letter to the business level and then part of what we're doing today is trying to share how to those who may not be as familiar with the VA hospital system or the veteran system is in the health care department they have broken down VA health care across the United States that's what they call visits they used to be regions and then they came with a small organization veterans integrated as a network of service in the vision one of everything, every program in a hospital is represented in the vision level so it's kind of one of the hardest part Tennessee wrote a letter to the vision director and asked them for an opportunity for enhanced VA support on women's health issues it was received with open arms and the vision director got it out on Monday to support staff and on Tuesday morning at the 7 o'clock meeting all of the VA veteran center directors he shared it was coming and on Wednesday they had it in their hands and emails and calls started coming from the hospital women's program managers saying we understand you're going to be our partner how can we help, what are you going to look at so we started on a higher level and had it filter down so even if somebody wasn't interested I think one of the, you know you mentioned with them program manager when anybody calls me that's one of the first things they say for a resource you need to build your list go in there with that program manager they're your source to lots of information lots of resources within the VA if you have a homeless veteran a woman that's homeless you're going to have kids with them that needs immediate housing someone with substance use disorder or mental health problems they're going to put you in contact with everybody so that if you have someone with a specific problem you've got a number to call right away to get that person to someone so I think that should be number one on your list and I think it's great when they're willing to meet and you hear that often times they're willing to meet with you and then you have, you know quarter mega means or phone call or a student meeting to update you about what's happening at the facility level as well they might be having certain programs or a certain day that they're doing something special for women veterans if you certainly want to be in that city I'll hire the way you're saying with the relationship you've built by starting with a visit as a result of that relationship that we now have a quarterly meeting available to us with the medical center director and all the hospitals in Tennessee additionally each hospital is mandated by this into our institute two town hall meetings a year for female veterans and four forums and we are participants in every forum because they want us to have an opportunity to bring issues that are being discussed to see the other female veterans so that we can increase our population and that is what really really well and that's a great contact to have because if you see something at your facility where it's not a welcoming safe environment you should be contacting the facility director immediately any women veterans program manager so that they're responsible to make sure that changes immediately so building that contact list and them knowing you and taking your call is important and showing up getting to meet them I wanted to ask about a couple of you told me and it seemed to be a theme as we were talking about the summer today about opening it up and being family friendly and including children in some of your events something to talk about that and why it was important at the same appointment that we had last March child care was a big part of it I know for myself I had four kids and it was hard for me to even come when I first got involved because my husband had to work and I had to be at the meetings I'm very lucky I have an amazing chapter we have tons of support from everyone especially the men in our chapter for all of us women and I would bring my kids to meetings and having that open was the only reason I'm sitting in front of you today if they wouldn't have offered that I wouldn't be sitting here it also got to expose my children which is kind of cool but when we did this women's event one of the main things we needed to do was to have child care personally to the veterans that I brought in one of them had five children one of them had four they both had very young children and so for them to be able to leave for an entire day sometimes it just wasn't possible so having that option available and maybe some of them don't need it but that was a really critical thing for us to have I know for us what I see is actually a need for that because we don't we have, I haven't done a lot of events in Chinese members but one of the things that we talked about is creating auxiliary women because that's where some of our supports can come from can come from so I haven't started that yet but it's in the works that's right about now but that I see is a great support to have to bring people out who don't have child care or maybe have a spouse at home who's ill and they can't come so have other people come with them because a lot of times better events are mostly for veterans so if we open it up so that they can bring maybe an older child or a sibling or a grandchild someone who's at home in a very good process bring them with them we can have more people and more participation if any of you have done anything like where the kids are part of let's say a program where their moms are talking about their military experience as we know oftentimes women veterans just don't talk about that they don't share a continuing with their family but almost like so they hear directing their moms some of the interesting and maybe sharing pictures with them when they're in the military what they did we have a women's fishing trip and I bring my grandchildren I have five grandchildren so I'm able to bring four the three of them normally come with me any of my mom came with me and it was just amazing they feel sometimes they're like oh we didn't know that well you're not supposed to do that but it was amazing because they see especially when they're younger my oldest grand is 10 almost in that one so he's understand a little more so this is an amazing experience to watch them glee over what we're doing together these sources have been being used contacted community organizations to donate items or to partner somehow to support women veterans and I'm bragging right now just that you know so I do we reached out to cosmetics which is an organization it's an online cosmetic company and they donated $75,000 worth of facial cleansing products that was an amazing thing and we were able to not just share with women veterans we were able to share with staff so a couple of things we have our hospital volunteer the person that held us out we were able to donate to women veterans who work night shifts so we will bring the product set up to the hospital or to volunteer and they will distribute to the night shift because oftentimes a lot of women that are women veterans are staff and because they work nights they never get to come out in the daytime unless they know what's going on so we want to make sure we include those as well and so that's one of our major partners and also with the college oasis that's another group that we reached out to and in Connecticut a lot of our issue is housing issue so we were able to connect with the homeless team of the hospital a lot of the women that are in the homeless program some of them are OTA sure they are not in the service group because obviously their homeless are facing housing issues so we were able to connect with the housing the homeless team of the hospital and which kind of lead us right into BJO those who are coming out of incarceration and we were able to meet with them and find out what supports and services they needed sometimes it's just getting a couple of women together and saying hey can we look in our classes and see what we need, what we have and we may need someone that's maybe a 3x because when you go to my goodwill you don't find stuff for women that are taller and larger women it's easier to find something that's smaller size so we were able to knock that off the park and just partner with some of those groups and being membership sometimes but her goal really is to just connect women to services and give them some support that they can get back to that quality of life they deserve I mean when she told us about that we were all like wow I mean just from a call or reaching out for cosmetics and then there are so many companies online that you don't think about but even when we're doing events I will move Costco or BJ's and have my D&D letter or something and they will give me a couple packs of stuff with the better choices we'll give snacks at the college and they will call the next questions because I give them one day so I can contact me on Thursdays because I can't be open like so Thursdays I'll get about 13 between 13 and 24 calls from student veterans who are just looking for support and services either connected to men of health or needs other support so it's just another way to get women's supports. Can you talk about we have a stand-up for women veterans wellness retreat in Sioux Falls South Dakota if you guys have been up on your meeting for the D&D magazine and the speech you're in there on the last issue and if you could tell us a little bit about that because that was just it looked really awesome One other thing to start with was a really great speaker having that keynote speaker to share her story I was busy for a lot of it helping my friends with their nine kids who were throwing food everywhere for our first speech but a great keynote speaker we had her NSO there we also had a meeting so they didn't want to file a claim we had breakout sessions we had a lunch all together we had Native American females come in and bring in our colors and share some of their story and our culture with us we collaborated with a I should have mentioned earlier when I talked about the child care the way we got child care was to work with the southeast technical college in our town and their child development group is who came in in child care for our second class so if you have a local college that has a child development program they might be willing to help you especially if you're active at the colleges bringing them things and that's the way for them to get back to it's all about the connections we found and we had food and snacks and we could choose sessions it was pretty great we had a lot of ideas that we shared one that I thought was a great idea was to go with un-ranged I'll talk to you about it in the future or having a self-defense class and asking the local police department or some of the experience and to post that so our VA medical center has done several women's events in the past and I couldn't go because it was during the work day or in the hours with my kids but they would do things like knitting, flower-ranging which some of us like that's fine but a lot of us, we want to do things like let's go to a gun range let's go shoot the guns let's learn some self-defense and as we age or as our disabilities get worse that's another concern that we have so having that self-defense course being able to do things that remind us of our layers and we always will be so that was a huge thing we're trying to figure out Great and I know a couple of you I think Val and you posted an ice cream social and doubled your participation just again with a small snap getting donated and again it doesn't not all chapters or departments may be able to provide funding but you know there's some things you can do too with your time so visiting a woman's veteran that might be hospitalized that has no other family or an elderly veteran who really needs someone to read for her because her macular degeneration is bad or I know one of you, Julia visited multiple patients and bring comfort packets to women veterans right? Yes since 2014 chapter 13 starts the operation gift card and we've had a lot of women participation so over the years we've noticed that the women warrior transition to Italianess of course there's more and more women getting out because more and more women are serving so we are able to specialize welcome home packages for women so we are feasible to meet once a month from Connecticut with the support of LVAP and from Connecticut to Walter Reed and now Fort Belmore military hospital and we're able to create to bring the packet and also fundraise through local community local services and we bring anything gift card so we're bringing about $5,000 gift card so each service member will get about $75 it's different so we're able to bring different types of things that women need like the cosmetics names it's more facial cleanser we're able to talk with them more about the supports of services talk about women's care and how to contact the VA when you get back to your state because they're still in active duty so half of them don't know anything about it probably shouldn't know anything about VA so we're able to bring on one cheater on who to contact when you get back to your state you give them pointers to service officers but we also the American Legion depends on where they are and where they come back to the state and that's been huge because many of them while they can they're not VA members or can't become VA members but they're getting some supports and services and they will contact me and find me when they get out you have an opportunity to see someone the microphone here before we get to part down and tell them why my name is Gail Gallo, I'm from Indiana chapter 17 and these are the kind of women veterans that come to our chapter I have a mom and two children that come in on a Friday evening that says our husband is Peter she said come to the house and she has no money and she needs someone to spend that night on Friday evening and it's on Friday evening and I can't go to the VA and I have no money for her to go to spend the night and she has two sometimes three children and she's walking and she's just been made up and now we're in my second and this is more often than not we're just going from neighborhood where I go with my mom so now the notion is going to help her the medical centers have an idea of interpersonal violence in your women veterans program manager getting their contact information to say I have an emergency how can you help I would ask them because they partner up with the community for someone that can take them at any point in their time so I mean it's building that rapport with that person to say here's what I am having what can I do should I call what is a number four immediate help and they should be able to find someone that they partner with in the community or within VA to take care of that immediately and also after hours VA emergency room is open there is a case worker and a social worker in the VA emergency room so you can just go there I'm Sandy Franks I'm from Louisiana for the Women's Memorial I have a women veterans group in Louisiana and I have 300 women veterans email addresses that I work with every month I'll never see all 300 but I'm constantly pushing information out so I told them they are public affairs officers and so we have a business card so every time we have a meeting if you are out and about we meet a women veteran in our office or restaurant you give her the card it's got your name it has our mission on the back and it invites her to the next meeting so now she has a connection we do an annual seminar where we have about 120 to 150 women it's done at no cost because the community supports us one of the community events that we got involved in is we work with our rape crisis nurses that go to the emergency rooms if a woman is brought in not necessarily a veteran woman they take all of her clothing and they send her home in a hospital gown so we have purchased under clothing sports bras t-shirts jogging pants flip flops so they can at least leave the hospital in clothing instead of something paper we also partner with HRL Tree Court which is the area that we are in we have created three houses for disabled veterans we sponsor homeless families at Christmas time we partner with an American Asian compost and we provide them with gifts for their kids gifts for them and enough food to take them and one of the ladies came back to us last year and she said my kids were so excited to have pancakes on Christmas morning and the other thing that you do is every so often we let those ladies sing their service songs because we do that at our cinemas and we did it on Friday night I thought they were all going to boot me out the door and go no we're not doing this we're getting the word so they could have some assistance when Lady came to me the morning after she was teary-eyed a older lady and the oldest lady that we have at our conference is 83 so she came to me with a little teary-eyed and she said if I don't learn anything outside of this conference thank you so much for letting me sing my service song last night because I haven't sung it in 20 years and it just was just really things like that which is make your heart so happy that you have to look at those women and what is it that they need get their feedback to you not what you said they need you get them to tell you what they need and I'm the conduit from them to the VA medical center there's a problem, I'm the one and the VA knows me well because I work there as their public affairs officer so those are just a few things that we've done in our little Louisiana little Louisiana and just having that contact with the community living center especially our aging women veterans there might be only one or two you know wards so don't forget them my name is Casey Johnson I'm the past state commander for the state of Wisconsin and let's make a comment it certainly reflects a lot of the women in this room the power of authority they could achieve when they joined the VA so I strongly encourage you when you bring these women into your chapters into your department remind them hey you have room for growth we have women state commanders women past national commanders it's an excellent opportunity for them to grow in your chapter in your department so it's a normal membership thing but it's astonishing how women can advance in the DAV and positions of authority thank you great state of Wisconsin commander and also third vice state commander my colleagues are in the room today and I just wanted to say thank you for being here and continue to raise our profile in society I used to be the Wisconsin women veteran coordinator and when I was the women veteran coordinator I got invisible to the state of Wisconsin and now we have 3.0 so the VA photographers went to our state 3 times to photograph we have probably over 250 women now in our collection and so that was the way that we raised our profile the more people are more involved we're going to be at the NFL in the fall the Green Bay Packers our display will be out and I know a lot of people in this room may not have been connected to the kind of invisible project but it's a great way to raise the profile of women veterans because at a lot of these events we have like a few women sharing stories about their experience and also being a participant in the exhibit another thing that we've done in Wisconsin is we helped some of the VA's pledge and we were one of the first veteran service organizations in our state to have all of our executive leadership and our commander all the way down to you know rank and file the members who are said yeah we want to do this so last year at our summer convention there was over like 300 of us that took a white burden pledge and we continued to stand strong that we're not intolerant any sexual harassment or assault not only at the VA but at our chapter homes too because we have zero tolerance for that crap because a lot of women want to come out and be part of certain service organizations but they've had bad experiences in other places and I say we do not tolerate that crap and I even show pictures like our leadership is on board with us and I also let them know it's just not a women's issue it happens in that as well it happens everywhere but we want to be the leaders of the veteran service community to stand up against sexual harassment so I'm proud of being from our state thank you for sharing that wrapping up here today one was from the VA's office and regarding the white ribbon it's got the information about the anti harassment VA's policies it's got the brochure used to the QR code there look at the letters that went out make sure you're one of them the manager who asked us that more brochure to have everybody take the white ribbon take the pledge and make sure that you know when you talk about that issue the other one knows what it is the other thing the other hand that we had for everyone was just a short guide so today was just a little taste but I really want to thank the women on our panel here today whether you're starting small or thinking big everything is great just taking one step at a time with your shift in your department chapter you will be successful and this is just a little guide that we put together for you if you don't know what to do you get a point in or somebody else just got a point in this should just give you the very basic and then you've heard lots of information today so I hope you'll share that you'll be inspired to do the things that some of the women here have done so thank you for joining us for the summer