Female veterans deal with unique difficulties

Contra Costa Times

WALNUT CREEK, Calif. — When retired Army Staff Sgt. June Moss returned from Iraq, she had to explain to her children why she couldn’t hug them. Any embrace longer than two seconds made her skin feel like it was on fire.

“When I got back, my kids were really clingy,” Moss says. “They wanted affection. But what do you say to a child?”

At night, sleep never came. Instead, Moss baked cupcakes until dawn. At playgrounds, surrounded by the noise and chaos of crowds, Moss felt like her chest was going to explode. Worse, she was afraid she’d hurt someone.

“I wasn’t the same person when I came home,” says Moss, who returned from Iraq in August 2003 and now lives in East Palo Alto, Calif. “I was different. I was cold.”

When imagining a struggling war veteran, it’s likely few people picture a young woman such as Moss, who was eventually diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. But women make up 15 percent of active-duty military members, and the Department of Veterans Affairs estimates that by the end of 2020, women will represent 10 percent of the nation’s veteran population.

And though military and congressional policy says women can’t participate in direct ground combat, women carry guns, and use them. They drive humvees hit by improvised explosive devices. They interrogate, and they witness bloodshed. But for women, there is a major difference. They come home to a society that for the most part doesn’t understand — or accept — that they’re serving in the line of fire.

As a result, the feelings of isolation can be even more overwhelming, especially since a woman is often one of few in her unit, says Natara Garovoy, program director of the Women’s Prevention, Outreach and Education Center for the VA Palo Alto Health Care System.

Complicating matters, some female soldiers live in fear of being attacked by one of their own. In 2008, the VA reported that one in five women screened for military sexual trauma had been sexually harassed or assaulted by a fellow soldier.

Reconciling identity is among the biggest issues Tia Christopher sees in her work with female veterans. As the women veterans coordinator for Swords to Plowshares’ Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans Project, Christopher helps homeless and low-income women obtain medical care, housing and job training upon returning from war.

“So many of my female clients who were in Iraq put up with things, even injuries, because they don’t want to be that girl [who complains],” she says. “They soldier on and silently bear that burden. But you can lose a certain amount of your femininity.”

Sgt. Myrna Hernandez, of Concord, Calif., wasn’t diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder for years. She didn’t seek help because she didn’t want to admit something was wrong. When Hernandez, who served as maintenance support for Pittsburg’s 870th Military Police Company, returned from Iraq in 2004, her mood was sour. She was anti-social, she says, and turned to drinking. On good nights, she got three hours of sleep.

She also was nervous about reuniting with her 6-year-old son, Zen. Hernandez had two opportunities to come home, but she chose to stay away.

“It was pretty rough,” recalls Hernandez, who was 26 at the time and one of six women in her company. “But I thought it would be too difficult for him to see me and have to say goodbye again.”

Meanwhile, at the base, Hernandez was dealing with more difficulties. She was one of three women who accused their commanding captain, Leo Merck, of peering beneath a shower wall and snapping nude photographs of them at Abu Ghraib. In a deal to avoid a court-martial, Merck resigned from the National Guard in November 2003.

“For most people, [the experience] would turn them against the military,” says Hernandez, who did prisoner processing and other duties similar to military police. “But I can’t let the actions of a few people ultimately change how I feel about my service.”