Saturday, June 28, 2008

WACs And WAVEs Getting Whacked

Bill would improve health care for female veterans read the headline. It tells that the Senate Veteran Affairs Committee has approved a measure to improve health care for female veterans. I was astounded.

We know, if we watch any news or read any paper, how ill served our veterans are when it comes to their health care, but I never dreamed women were getting an even shorter shrift then the men!

With the new military providing more and more opportunities for women, they can be pilots, they can be mechanics; they can be, if I may, all that they can be. So why the inequality in health care? It seems to me if the planning went into increasing their role as active duty personnel, why not planning for their needs afterwards?

I've thought for a long time this administration is totally dysfunctional. It seems it is dragging the civilian lead military down to its level. For a female veteran to be made to feel uncomfortable and the response slow for a mammogram or a pap smear is unconscionable. These are procedures that go to the very basics of women's health!

It's not that women in the military is a new concept! Look at the ladies in the picture! I remember back in the '70s meeting a lady at a cocktail party who told me she had served in the Navy during WWII. When asked where she served she told me Iowa. I guess that's why I remember it so clearly. Serving in the Navy in Iowa was difficult to envision.

Think about who next will be commander-in-chief. We talk a lot about the old politics versus the new. Maybe we had best consider, too, the old military versus the new.

1 comment:

Word Tosser said...

Half of the women in the service during WWII and surely the Vietnam group, were nurses oversea in M.A.S.H.units. Being blown up just as much as their male counterparts.
To be treated any less is disgraceful...