The official blog of American Veteran Magazine, the national quarterly publication of AMVETS.

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

VA Appoints AMVET to VA Committee on Women Veterans

Last week, VA announced four new members appointed to the VA Advisory Committee on Women Veterans, including Nancy Kaczor, a life member of AMVETS.

Kaczor is a retired Air Force colonel who currently lives in Franklin, Wis. During her time in the military, Kaczor served in Kosovo, Kuwait, and Iraq. She is currently an active volunteer with a variety of veterans' and civic organizations, including AMVETS Post 60 in Oak Creek, Wis.

Established in 1983, the advisory committee is comprised of experts who can advise VA on issues and program affecting women veterans, making recommendations to the secretary for administrative and legislative changes. Appointees hold their positions on the committee for two-year terms.

In addition to Kaczur, this year's appointees are Jack Phillip Carter, Jr., a retired Marine lieutenant colonel from Bradenton, Fla.; Nancy Glowacki, a former Army Reserve officer from Silver Spring, Md.; and Terry Moore, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel from Stetson, Maine.

"Throughout history women have played essential roles in the military," said VA Secretary Eric Shinseki in VA's announcement. "It is VA's responsibility to anticipate and prepare for the evolving needs of women veterans, their families, and survivors."

According to VA, women veterans are on the fastest growing demographic groups within the veterans' community. Today, approximately 1.8 million American women are veterans and women make up nearly five percent of all veterans who utilize VA health care services.

While VA estimates that the total number of veterans will decline over the next twenty years, the number of women veterans will actually increase by more than 20 percent over the same period.

For the last two years, AMVETS has listed issues facing women service members and veterans as a top legislative priority. At the 2010 AMVETS Symposium for 21st Century Veterans, the female veterans panel also identified current shortfalls and unintended consequences in VA's newest care models for female veterans, which VA said they quickly addressed.

To read AMVETS' recommendations to better serve today's women veterans in AMVETS 2011 Legislative Priorities, Click Here.

March is also Women's History Month and American Veteran will continue to publish stories of extraordinary military women and their contributions to the force, as we have done in years past. Check back regularly for updates.

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4 comments:

  1. I have been trying to navigate through these organization as a female veteran who is homeless and pregnant at this time; searching for some kind of help, all I get is well we can't help you because you don't have some kind of substance abuse and since you are pregnant you don't qualify for the rest of the program we offer or we don't have that much program for women vets but if you were a male we would of been able to help. I hear of so call help for women veteran where is that who are they and what happen to women vets who are pregnant who don't fall in these obscene rules that makes it impossible to get help to those of us that don't fit the norm. I have been trying since I gotten pregnant now I am 9 months pregnant and all I still get is unfortunately we can cant help with your current situation,or there are no program out there for people like you in this situation. It looks like to me what these program are made for is not help those of us who just need a little help to get on our feet, to wait for you to loose all hope, self respect, pride, self-worth before they say well OK now we can help you since you no longer feel like a human being.

    West Palm Beach, Florida.

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  2. Dear Anonymous in West Palm Beach, please call me so I may help connect you with some local resources.
    Jay Agg, AMVETS National Communications Director
    (301) 683 4035

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  3. i never knew that there were women veterans in the forces. That is pretty neat like performing a phone number lookup to find out who owns a number as well. But yeah, keep up the great work.

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