August 8, 2011 - They joined for adventure and opportunity, and to escape what they feared could be a dead-end life.
They signed up with the military because times were changing and women were being encouraged to serve. They were promised a college education and a career path.
After a while -- after failed relationships, the birth of children, personal tragedy and substance abuse -- armed forces veterans Sandra Perkins and Catherine Premo found it increasingly difficult to find a job.
Then they had no roof over their heads.
Now they are living at Crisis Ministries, Charleston's homeless shelter.
Perkins, 54, and Premo, 56, are among a growing number of homeless female veterans turning up at shelters and VA hospitals around the country, and they present specific challenges to service providers.
Women account for 3 percent to 4 percent of the national population of homeless vets, which can number about 200,000 on any given night, according to the National Coalition for the Homeless.
The Department of Veterans Affairs also said it expects the number of homeless female veterans to rise dramatically in years to come.
Homelessness tends to afflict veterans some years after they have left the military, according to Crisis read more>>>
8 August 2011 - The "show and tell" table at this gathering of doctors featured contraceptive sponges and female condoms. Life-size rubber pelvises and female breasts covered several other tables at the back of a windowless convention center ballroom. The lectures focused on topics like how to help a rape victim feel comfortable in an exam room.
Not unusual for a doctors' meeting, but these were doctors and nurse practitioners with the Veterans Affairs Department, a cohort of medical professionals who in the past might have gone years without seeing a female patient. But avoiding topics like gynecology and breast exams is no longer possible because of an influx of thousands of female veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan into the VA's system of hospitals and clinics.
Used to treating the men who served in Vietnam or World War II, many of the VA's practitioners are rusty on skills like performing pelvic exams on women and talking about birth control. Some are downright nervous over treating women.
The result has been very limited availability at some VA clinics for gender-specific health appointments for women. Female veterans often had to drive hours to get to another facility, or the VA had to pick up the tab for them to go to a nearby private doctor — if they opted to go at all. read more>>>
No Sacrifice now a decade long added to the previous decades!!
Already known through decades of our brothers and sisters living those false patriotic? meme's and cheap phony symbols of!
But what the demands as we sent soldiers into two more wars of choice, federal monies for religious organizations who aren't supposed to preach but do, and they got it and that continues!
Veterans of these wars and our brothers and sisters of previous, No Demands For Sacrifice now a decade plus added to the decades previous, easier to lay blame on the Agency than look in the mirror while claiming 'patriotism' and waving those flags while laughing at purple heart bandages!!
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