Reservist speaks at 2008 Women Veterans Summit

  • Published
  • By By Tech. Sgt. Amaani Lyle
  • 459th Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs Office
WASHINGTON - A Reservist from the 459th Air Refueling Wing discussed deployment and reintegration issues at the Women Veterans Summit hosted by the Department of Veterans Affairs at the Westin Hotel June 21.

Tech. Sgt. Susan Mayer, 459th Air Refueling Wing Military Equal Opportunity non-commissioned officer in charge, also spoke as a recent Metropolitan Police Academy graduate and officer in Georgetown at the fourth quadrennial event.

Speakers, facilitators and exhibitors packed the three-day meeting with information on a wide range of topics to help ensure women veterans know about the benefits and health care they have earned from their military service.

"As an Air Force Reservist, I returned from Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar, last year and as a civilian, I spent almost eight months in the Metropolitan Police Academy," Sergeant Mayer said. "Even as a panelist here, there's still so much that I didn't know about VA benefits and assistance in the reintegration process."

The summit's objectives were to update participants on current Federal initiatives addressing women veterans of all eras, identify issues of current concern to the women veteran's community, and offer them an opportunity to shape a plan for future progress on women veterans issues.

"With more women than ever serving in our armed forces, this public forum will bring visibility to the issues important to women veterans of all eras," said Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Dr. James B. Peake. "Today, women are important contributors to the military and valued members of the veterans community."

Center for Women Veterans Director Dr. Irene Trowell-Harris said VA has created a comprehensive array of benefits and programs to recognize the valor, service and sacrifice of America's 1.7 million women veterans. 

VA also has a multitude of services and programs to respond to the unique needs of women veterans, offering pap smears, mammography, and general reproductive health care, substance abuse counseling, counseling for sexual trauma, evaluation and treatment for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). There is a women veterans program manager at every VA medical center, a women's liaison at every community based outpatient clinic and a women veterans coordinator at every VA regional office.

"We not only wanted to educate women about benefits they've earned, but note and take action on the issues they were experiencing once they came back from deployments," Dr. Trowell-Harris said. "We took the top issues that people kept writing about on our Web site and really addressed those issues at length here." 

Women veterans are entitled to the same benefits and medical care as their male counterparts, including health care, disability compensation, education assistance, work-study allowance, vocational rehabilitation, employment and counseling services, insurance, home loan benefits, nursing home care, survivor benefits and various burial benefits.

Today, over 200,000 women are serving in the armed forces. About 11 percent of the U.S. forces currently serving in Afghanistan and Iraq are women.

More information on the Fourth National Summit on Women Veterans Issues can be found at www.va.gov/womenvet. For more information about VA benefits and services, veterans may contact their local VA regional office, medical center, or vet center. For questions concerning VA benefits call 1-800-827-1000, for questions concerning VA health care call 1-877-222-8387 or visit http://www.va.gov .