North Texas Daily

Veterans are important to our society and deserve to be honored for their contributions to this country. These brave individuals served their country and sacrificed their own lives to defend our freedoms. Without veterans, we wouldn’t have a strong military and our nation would lack security.

However, some of these veterans have been forgotten and have not received recognition for their service because they are not men. Discrimination is wrong, especially when it’s based on sex and especially when it is happening in our military.

Quite frankly, women veterans should be honored and recognized for their contributions to the U.S. military. Some of these women were in combat and many more of them worked behind the scenes as nurses, secretaries, pilots and in various other positions.

In 1948, women joined the military through the Women’s Armed Services Integration Act. The air force had a program called Women in the Air Force which did indeed bring women into the Air Force albeit at a limited capacity.

Many women became pilots in the Air Force, but they were not classified as active military personnel like their military brothers. Instead, they were classified as federal civilian employees, barring them from receiving military benefits.

Modern women veterans do receive benefits, but they had to fight for access to them. These benefits were inherent for men. Combat roles in the military were not completely open to women until 2015, but they have always been open to men.

The Department of Veteran Affairs is an important resource for veterans who need healthcare services. Unfortunately, the VA doesn’t provide enough resources for women in the military and many women aren’t taken seriously when they visit the VA.

Desert Storm veteran, Eva Fulton, said that North Texas has the largest population of women veterans in the U.S., yet unfortunately, the Dallas VA only has one gynecologist on staff. It is unacceptable for the military to deprive women of access to a gynecologist. Men don’t experience this inequality because the military was built to satisfy their needs.

Civilians can do their part to help remove these inequalities by changing the way we think about veterans. We need to be aware of the women in the military because they’ve been fighting for their own rights while simultaneously fighting for their country. Society has an obligation to make female veterans feel welcome and provide them with an easier transition out of the military, too.

Society can provide support for female veterans by hiring them to work for their businesses and organizations. The media could support them by equally representing them in the news, films and on television shows.

Male veterans should join the women and fight for equal treatment, because those women fight right beside them. If they can join them in combat, they deserve equal access to healthcare and equal recognition for their service. Men need to understand how women have different experiences in the military than they do.

Women need to be treated as equals. They need equal access to healthcare and should not have to beg or look for other special doctors to meet their basic healthcare needs. Female veterans deserve to be equally represented alongside their military brothers because they have fought just as hard as them.

Featured Illustration: Olivia Varnell