 Hi everyone I'm Matt Sancing with DAV and I'm here at Arlington National Cemetery at the Military Women's Memorial where Phyllis Wilson a DAV member and a 37 year Army veteran gave us a clinic and a history lesson here about all the contribution service and really sacrifice of women veterans going back to the Civil War before that the Revolutionary War. Phyllis what can you tell us about what's it like to visit the memorial? Well I tell you I've worked here now for three and a half years and after as you said 37 years in the Army which I absolutely loved but I found out in my time here at the Military Women's Memorial I didn't know a lot of our own history not just women's history but our military history from the Revolutionary War till today so every time I get to walk towards this building and come inside I realize that our job is to help tell the story of the three million women that have helped to defend this nation as you said from the Revolutionary War till today and I will tell you that in the last 30 years more women have served and defended this nation than all the women from that time 30 years ago all the way back to the Revolutionary Combined. Wow. It's a huge new number of American women in just the last 30 years. Yeah and I think you know it's women's history month and I think one thing here is people assume it's women's military history but this is really military history we're just shining a light on all the contributions of some people who maybe didn't get their due when they were serving in uniform unfortunately and I know you were a linguist military intelligence and retired as a CW-5 chief warrant officer 5 for non-army veterans out there that's a big deal. What really drew you to the running this memorial? Well I had heard that they had a vacancy and they were doing a search a national search for the next president of the memorial and foundation and I heard about it but I thought I'm a soldier not a woman's soldier for 37 years I was hard proving I was a soldier jumped out of airplanes did everything the army would permit me to do but I thought I don't really get why you have to have a separate place but as fate would have it during that window of opportunity while the application could still be submitted I was thinking about it but yeah not probably not but as fate would have it I parked in a veteran parking space at a grocery store and I hop out and the gentleman in the parking lot goes excuse me that is veteran parking and I said yes I know and then the next one was is your husband with you and we had a conversation turns out we both served at Fort Bragg at the same time we both did many of the same kind of things and I thanked him for a service he did not reciprocate and I thought okay but I went in to pick up my groceries and as it was doing that it wasn't really upset but it caused me to think about it I knew that three million of us have served and I thought when does it stop what what do we have to do to tell America what our contribution has been and I knew that this was the only major national memorial in the entire country to tell that story and I said okay I hear you I felt like it was a God nudge and so I put my put my resume and my application in and went through the vetting process and be careful what you ask for because now here it is three and a half years later but it's a job I absolutely love and I love being able to help tell the stories and even though the Army Museum is just down the road from us it tells a story in a different way and I think this is America's history if you read it and it was being told about a guy you wouldn't think oh it's interesting from a man's perspective but when we tell it from a woman's perspective somehow it has a unusual ring to it but we're getting to the point where hopefully it will just be commonplace if we're telling it from a woman's standard absolutely the rest is history women's history and military history and again this is the Hall of Honor we have all the state flags here behind me there are all of the military flags even the space forces there and this is a very special place here you have the books of consisting women who were killed in the Iraq and Afghanistan war has all of them the Iraq war one is a little longer has more of folks in there and today is actually the 20th anniversary of the Iraq war and Naomi who's on our legislative staff in DC as well as I as well as Phyllis are as well as Kevin our cameraman here are Iraq war veterans now Naomi you serve there you're quoted in the article in the D.A.D. magazine what do you think about today well I want to really make sure that it gets across to people that you know check on your your veteran friends this is a very important week you don't know if you're okay until you know you're not okay and so if you're not a veteran and you have veteran friends check on your veteran friends if you are a veteran check on your battle buddies and also check on the ones that seem to be just so strong and if you are a veteran and you are in crisis I think that it's very important to also get across to please dial 988 and press 1 but you know when we talk about just as Phyllis just mentioned when we talk about women's contribution and just in general I am a veteran period dot point blank I did everything that the that the men were were expected to do as well and we were all in that fight together and continue to be down in the trenches together absolutely and again you're in a legislative staff so I want to take the opportunity to kind of ask you about some legislation that does specifically pertain to women veterans last year we had the Mamo and a service acts become law what would these laws do for the nation and for women veterans well one thing that it'll do is one of them will do is expand the mammogram services for veterans that were exposed to toxic substances and allow it kind of takes away the age requirement for a mammogram also it starts a pilot program for telehealth for mammograms and that is really key when it comes to our rural veterans who really don't have access to the facilities or the facilities are too far away it will also expand mammograms the mammogram facilities within the VA medical centers to include 3d imaging and so that's that's very key we also had other legislative victories such as peer support and you know fixing the process of doing the military sexual trauma claims and and so on so we're very excited with with everything that's passed and the reason these bills came law definitely had to do with engage DAV members sending alerts to their elected representatives they can do so at DAV can dot org the stands for commanders action network where you can go and take action by two clicks you can go ahead and send have your voice heard to your elected official for veterans yourselves and your battle buddies thank you so much for tuning in today