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Excerpt from Women Veterans News
Hunter Holmes McGuire VA Medical Center
Excerpted from Volume 6, Issue 1 - March 2003
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                           WOMEN VETERANS NEWS
                        "Our Invisible Veterans"
By Ellen Mercer Diming

On October 19, 2002, we celebrated the 5th Anniversary of Women in
Military Service to American Memorial.  The Memorial was built to honor
those women who, as volunteers, have served our nation in war and peace.

As early as 1939, General George Marshall saw the possibility of women
serving in the military forces to free up stateside manpower for combat
duty overseas.  His plans were shelved until our casualties in Europe
and the Pacific began to mount in the years after Pearl Harbor.

Approximately 350,000 women served in the US Military during WWII, all
as volunteers.  In those days, the Armed Forces were segregated by sex
as well as by race.  Women were not allowed to serve in combat, and only
the WACs and Army and Navy nurses served overseas in war zones.  We of
the WWII generation volunteered out of a sense of patriotism and were
proud to serve our nation in whatever roles we were assigned. Our
service during that war paved the way for granting permanent status to
women in the Armed Forces, and today young women serve all over the
world in all branches -- on land, in the air and on the sea.

As older veterans (whose numbers are fast declining), we are proud of these
younger women who have served in the Korean War, in Vietnam, during
Desert Storm in the Persian Gulf, in Bosnia, and today -- either
stateside or overseas.  Let us recognize them for their patriotism and
their service, that they may no longer be "invisible veterans".

Ellen Mercer Diming
Pres-Virginia Blue Ridge WAVES
Unit #57 of WAVES National
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Items of Interest to all Veterans:

l.  Presently, over 200,000 women make up 15% of the Armed Forces.

2.  35 - 44 is the average age of women veterans treated at VA Hospitals.

3.  A list of the best hospitals offering comprehensive care to women veterans
includes:

Boston,  Durham, N. C., and Tampa, Florida.
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Webmaster's note:

Ellen wanted to remind you that she still does research on the history
of women in the Navy;  if you, or anyone you know gets stumped, she will
be glad to try to find the answer.
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