You Served Transcript – Podcast Episode #25
[audio begins]
Male Announcer: Thanks for joining us for another edition of the You Served military podcast with your host CJ Grisham.
[intro music]
CJ Grisham: Welcome to the You Served radio show and podcast. My name is CJ Grisham. I am a blogger with a soldier’s perspective. I have my co-host here. Troy?
Troy Steward: Hello, everyone. My name is Troy Steward. I am a blogger writing on VAMortgageCenter.com’s blog site, plus my own, at bouhammer.com – actually, now it’s blog.bouhammer.com.
CJ: All right. We both blog at the youserved.com website or VAMortgageCenter.com/blog, and you can go to the You Served blog any time. Before we get really far into it, let’s get into our disclaimer.
Male Announcer: The views and commentary from the boneheads you are listening to are based on personal experiences from Iraq, Afghanistan and other exotic, tropical paradises.
The opinions expressed on the You Served radio show are solely those of the hosts and contributors and not those of any agency of the United States government – expressly including but not limited to the Department of Defense or any branch of the military.
Neither do the idiotic statements of these rambling buffoons reflect the views of youserved.com or the VA Mortgage Center. If they knew what was good for them, they would find real talent as quickly as possible.
The site is not designed, authorized, sanctioned or affiliated by or with any agency of the United States government – expressly including but limited to the Department of Defense or any branch of the military. Listeners accept and agree to this disclaimer and the use of any information accessed from this podcast.
These guys served to protect your freedom. If you don’t like what they have to say, exercise it and leave.
CJ: All right, we’ve got a great show for you coming up today. I realize that this is the crappiest audio in the world. I used to do a radio show, Troy. Every time I get ready to intro, I want to say 88.3. Even after all these years, it’s still a habit.
Troy: Yeah. We need to come up with I don’t know – youserved.com just doesn’t roll off the tongue as easily as call letters.
CJ: [laughs] What do we have coming up?
Troy: We have as you mentioned a great show tonight. It’s kind of interesting; this show has turned into something that I think both of us didn’t realize. But, great minds think alike, especially first sergeants.
Next month – March – is Women Veterans Month; I believe is the exact title. Tonight the first guest is going to be Eve Chase. I’ve known Eve for awhile. She writes a blog. She’s very active; she’s a soldier. She’s a veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom and a great friend of mine and my wife.
She is doing a law up on Capitol Hill with IABA and a lot of stuff up there with them. You can check it out at stormthehill.org.
She is also trying to really kick-start a group on women veterans’ issues to help out and get support and resources for women veterans and the unique things that they face as veterans, the female race does. We’ve got her on first. I think we have some more on that kind of tie-in with the Women Veterans Month coming up in March.
CJ: Absolutely. For today’s operation tribute to freedom, we actually have another female soldier, Sergeant First-Class Angela McKenzie. She is going to come on and talk. She is a 12-year army veteran and frequently goes by Mama McKenzie.
We’re going to talk a little bit about her. With Women’s History Month coming up and as a strong female leader in the military, we’re going to give her some props and hear her story as well.
One of the other things I want to bring up, as a programming note, is that for those of you who would like to quote some of the things that you hear on this program, the youserve.com blog that we pretty much also support and write on will begin, after this show, carrying the show transcripts.
It’s funny, because I don’t know how they’re going to do that Troy. I really pity the fool who, every Friday afternoon or morning, comes in and just listens to us for two hours.
Troy: Well, not even two hours, because unless they type really fast, they’ll probably have to listen to some parts over and over to make sure they catch every word.
CJ: Oh, yeah, probably like a four hour ordeal… Listening you and me for four hours, can you imagine? I’d go crazy.
Troy: [laughs] I don’t know. Hopefully they have software or something that does it. But, yeah, it will be up here like you said. If people want to peruse through what was discussed or look up an exact fact without trying to replay it, they can go to that blog entry, search, and look for something.
Oh, CJ talked about this or Troy mentioned this – they can look for it right there. It’s another added service.
CJ: Exactly. If it’s something that you remember that we talked about, you can go, do a search through that and get the exact quote that we said, instead of trying of wrestle through two hours of audio.
Troy: Now, the bad thing is that if we say something and someone wants to throw it back in our face later…
Eve: [laughs]
CJ: There goes any chance for election.
Troy: Yeah, but you know? There are a lot of politicians that go, “I honestly do not remember saying that, “or “I do not remember being in the room with Miss Lewinsky.” We can simply play that card and say, “I’m sorry, to the best of my recollection after all of the IEDs that have hit me and the TDIs that I have, I don’t remember,” and I’m excused from making that comment.
CJ: That’s right. For the rest of our lives, as combat veterans, we can pretty much get away with anything. You just blame it on PTSD, TDI or your combat experience. All the explosions and memory losses, it’s perfect. [laughs]
Troy: I can play that card quick.
CJ: I’ve been avoiding the hospital; I have some documented PTSD but not memory issues, yet.
Troy: Unless Emily accuses you of something, and then you better play that card quick.
CJ: Yeah, yeah.
Troy: All right. Don’t get me in trouble with her. We also have a couple of good topics. We’re not really filled on guests tonight, CJ, like we normally are with four or five guests. We have a couple of announcements. And, we have some really interesting, current topics that are happening this week that I think we’re going to be discussing. Hopefully, listeners will be calling in to discuss, too.
CJ: Yeah, that’s what I’d really like. I’d like to bring in the audience this time, to call in and partake in these things. It’s not very often that you and I get to actually talk about things going on around the country as they relate to military topics, the wars and things like that.
Some of the things we’re going to talk about: A question was asked by Ed Henry of CNN during Obama’s first press conference. That question was about allowing the media to view the flag-draped coffins as they come in through Dover, Delaware.
Troy and I have some very unique and differing – as well as similar – ideas about it. We’re going to hash that out, and we’d like to hear your opinion. We’re also going to have a Gold Star mom call in and weigh in on that topic as well.
We’re going to talk about the recent obesity report. Those of you who don’t know, the army is packing on a lot of weight. Must be all of that lobster and steak the soldiers are eating at the FOBs there in Iraq. I remember when I was in Iraq, I was lucky to even get a chance to eat. I lost, I think, 15 pounds when I was there.
Troy: Well, it was that way if you’re out and about doing missions. But with the amount of FOB that’s in a kit of KDR. You know, midnight chow…
CJ: Yeah.
Troy: It’s…
CJ: And you can practically eat 24 hours a day over there, so…
Troy: Yeah, yeah.
CJ: We’ll talk a little bit about that. Also Troy is going to talk a little bit about the “At War” movie, which is going to be screened next week, where?
Troy: Ft. Brag, Ft. Brag, North Carolina.
CJ: That’s right. I’m going to try to be there for that. Troy’s going to hook me up with some coordination there. And I’m going to meet Scott Kesterson there and we’re going to probably – hey. Who knows? If I’m there Thursday evening, I can even do the live blog from there.
And finally, if we can get to it, I want to talk about this run on guns. I’m an avid Second Amendment guy, as you are, I think. And I recently bought a pistol, in November when I realized that things were going downhill. And it’s been hard to find ammunition for that pistol. And not only that, but the run on black guns, the so-called black guns, which are the AR15s and the 12-gauge shotguns.
Troy: Assault rifles, yeah.
CJ: Yeah, what the liberals like to call assault rifles.
Troy: So you’re having a hard time finding ammo for your pistol?
CJ: Oh, my gosh. Yes. I can’t find any hollow-point rounds for my 40. So I’ve been buying, which is not a bad thing, because when I buy the rounds they’re cheaper, but all I’ve been able to buy are the full metal jackets. And even those…
Troy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, my gun shop up here you can buy them by the box of 1000.
CJ: What?
Troy: Yeah, you can buy a box of 1000.
CJ: Yeah, you used to be able to do that here. And I went to go do that, and they were all sold out.
Troy: But hollow point, too. What we’ve got there, I don’t know if I can hook you up with any. But you can definitely get them. I’m not sure… You know, you’re down in Alabama. And people up there are probably stockpiling a lot more than they do here in New York. So maybe that’s the difference.
CJ: I’ve got a whole drawer full of ammo now. I’m just not going to say which drawer.
Troy: Well, you know, they’re saying now that you should spend – ever since November you should spend $2 to $300 a month on ammo to be stockpiling properly. I don’t know. That’s what I hear from some of my people.
CJ: Well, every paycheck I’m buying about 100 rounds. So every two weeks I buy about 100 rounds. And then as I have extra money, whenever we’re out and about, I’ll buy another box or two of rounds. I’m definitely trying to stock up. And I’ve got a couple thousand rounds of 22 rifle ammo, so my son’s got my back.
Troy: That’s good. That’s really good. I’ve got to say, this whole steamless building going on. What they should really do is take some of that money and put it towards the ammo and gun industry. Because there’s such a demand for guns and stuff right now, since November 4th that there’s such a supply, they really should meet that demand.
People would spend even more if they put some of that money into the ammo and gun industry. It’d be a good thing. I would create jobs, because people are trying to buy ammo faster than they can make it.
CJ: I think it’s very interesting that – I guess we can just talk about this, since we’re on that topic, but out of order. All these businesses are going out of business. And a lot of bankruptcies being filed.
And yet the gun industry is on fire. Everyone is saying that there’s no money, everyone’s hurting for cash, and we can’t pay for gas and we can’t pay for this and we can’t pay for that. And I’m telling you. These guns aren’t cheap.
Troy: No. And they went up so much. “A shotgun News” is like a newspaper periodical that my son, my middle son, has a subscription to because he’s such a gun fanatic. A year or so ago, a year and a half ago, you could buy AR10, AR15 lower receivers in there $2 to $500.
And they would have the price and it’d be nothing, and now everything’s call for price. And when you call, they run $800 to $1, 000 depending on the manufacturer and that kind of stuff, if it’s reputable or it’s kind of generic. They won’t even list the price anymore.
Not only is it $800 to $1, 000, they’re a two to three month wait.
CJ: Cheaper than Dirt.
Troy: They can’t make them fast enough.
CJ: Yeah, Cheaper than Dirt is the exact same way. As a matter of fact, in this week’s – if I have it here. I think I left it at work. But in this week’s catalog from Cheaper than Dirt, which is where I buy a lot of my stuff, there’s even a thing on the front of it that talks about the Second Amendment being in jeopardy.
You look inside and sure enough, like you just said, everything is call for pricing, call for pricing.
I was going to buy; I’ve been looking at buying an AR15 myself, with the collapsible stock and the short barrel and everything. When I first started looking at them back in October, when it became more and more clear about what was going to happen in November, these guns were running about 750 bucks.
And the exact same gun now is about $1, 299. We’re talking almost double, well, it’s a $500 increase. So a 40% increase in the price of these guns. And the pistol that I bought has gone up almost $100 in the last three months.
Troy: And you bought a Springfield, right?
CJ: I did. I bought a Springfield Army XD 40.
Troy: Yeah. You got the compact, the four-inch barrel?
CJ: The subcompact.
Troy: Oh, you got the subcompact, the three and a half-inch barrel?
CJ: Yep.
Troy: God. We’re just too much alike. That’s exactly what I have. I have the Springfield XD with the one picatinny rail slot, the subcompact. That’s one of my guns, should I say. But I have the same exact one, 40 Cal. Good shooting piece, and with the right hollow points will make nice big holes in bad people.
CJ: Oh, yeah. I like to use four and eighty ammo.
Troy: Yep. On my LCP, I also carry an LCP, which is 380, but it shoots 95 grain hollow point. It’s a pocket pistol, but if you put 95 grain hollow point in it, the idea is you’re not that far away if you have to use it in any way. So it will still put a hole in your.
CJ: One of the great things, I don’t know if people know this about Alabama. I’ve got a friend up in Kentucky who I was talking to, because he’s getting a concealed carry permit. And I’ve got mine here. And I was asking him, he’s like, “Yeah, I’ve got to get my concealed carry permit that I’m saving up for.”
And I asked him, I said, “Well, how much is your concealed carry permit?” He said, “It’s about 190 bucks.” I said, “$190?” “Well, yeah. Because it’s $175 for the class, you’ve got to go through a class.” And then it’s about another $15 or $20 to get the license.
Here in Alabama I paid a complete total of $20 for my concealed carry permit. And I had to go through no training.
Troy: Yeah. Well, I won’t even talk about how bad New York was. It would make you sick. Especially in my county, Erie County. But it takes forever. It doesn’t cost a whole bunch, it just take upwards almost of a year to two years to get your permit.
Not concealed carry. Regular carry, restricted carry to take back and forth to the range and for hunting and target practice. I takes, I know people it’s taken two years to get a permit.
I got mine in nine months. It was fast-tracked. But it’s sickening. It’s almost illegal, and it goes against the New York State Penal Code to take that long. But they just do what they want to do.
So on to that. I see we have our first guest dialed in. And are you ready to go on to Eve?
CJ: Bring it.
Troy: All right. We’ve got Eve. Hello Eve. How are you doing?
Eve: Good. How are you guys.
Troy: Good, good. I see, Eve. You just texted me too, I see. I’m all over it, Eve.
Eve: I’m on hold. That’s awesome.
Troy: Hello. And Eve… welcome to the Blog Talk Radio You Served Radio Show with myself and C. J.
Eve: Thanks.
C. J. Grisham: Hello. Welcome.
Eve: Hi there! Thank you very much. You guys will have to excuse me. I am so exhausted. So if I seem a little scatter-brained and a little hoarse it’s because we’ve been busy storming the hill all week.
Troy and C. J.: Nice.
Troy: She’s been running up and down the halls and the stairs of the Hart building and probably everywhere…
I’m just assuming the Hart building.
Eve: Yes, Cannon. Yes, there’s a few of them in there. Let’s see. I’ve been in and out of the Cannon House building, the Rayburn House office building, the Longworth House office…
Yes, it’s been crazy. And in heels.
Troy: Well of course, because you’re a classy lady and…
Eve: That’s right. I wore heels all four days.
Troy: None of those other guys there with you on Team Charlie wore heels, I bet.
Eve: No, they didn’t.
Troy: So when they complain about how tired they are you just look at them and say, “Don’t even go there.”
Eve: We had two infantry and a Marine so I think they were pretty good to go. They probably could have worn heels and still done it.
Troy: That’s probably so. I’m going to take my shot here while I can. The Marine probably has the force so who knows?
[laughter]
Troy: I’m waiting for Martha or somebody to call in and say, “Hey, I’m going to the chat room.” But anyway, we have Eve on as I said at the very beginning in the introduction. I’ve known Eve for a couple of years; good friend of myself and my wife. We love her to death. Great girl. Great soldier. And, a hell of a patriot.
And Eve, as you know, I asked you to be on without realizing when I asked you that next month was Women’s History Month.
Eve: I did.
C. J.: So what are you going to do to make history?
Eve: You’ll just have to watch and see.
Troy: It works out well and actually later on in the show we have another female soldier as part of our Tribute to Freedom series who is doing a lot with Women’s Veteran Missions. She’s an E-7. So it works out that tonight is our Women’s History show.
Eve: Awesome.
Troy: Eve, you are in the military, right?
Eve: Yes, I am.
Troy: You and I have talked so I don’t need to go into all that you do. I’ll just say that you and C. J. have very similar branches in Alexis.
Eve: Yes.
Troy: You’ve had some great strides and some great accomplishments recently in the military too, right?
Eve: Yes, I have. I just got selected for Warrant Officer.
Troy: Ah, you’re leaving us! She’s not really going to the dark side. She’s going to the gray in-between side.
C. J. and Eve: Yes.
Eve: That’s true. I want to be the CW-3 with my feet up on the desk, drinking coffee, telling everybody else what to do.
Troy: If you work in my company you don’t have to wait until you’re a CW-3 to do that apparently.
Eve: Awesome.
Troy: Are you a Spec-4 doing that, C. J.?
C. J.: Oh, no, no, no. All my Warrant Officers are doing that.
Troy: Are your spots in W-1? All right. So that’s great. I just wanted to congratulate you on that because I know you’ve been working hard towards that. And to get selected is a big thing. I’ve known a lot of people that have been selected for Warrant Officer and they rarely get it on their first time. And it is quite an accomplishment to make that selection.
Eve: Thank you. Thank you very much.
Troy: I want to get into what you’ve been doing. There are a lot of soldiers in the military that have, as you know, no shortage of opinion on how politics and the country should be run. But you’re doing something about it. I was curious, what exactly have you been up to? I know you’re very involved with IAVA, and more recently with this Storm the Hill group. Is that a component of IAVA?
Eve: IAVA is the one who coordinated it. They brought veterans from all over the country into Washington, D. C. and we joined up on teams and then we called it Storming the Hill because for four days, all day, we did nothing but meet with congressional members and some of the committees to discuss veterans’ issues.
So we call it Storming the Hill because we’re all charging up Capitol Hill and we have an objective and a mission to accomplish which actually it seems like we did today.
It’s been historical for me. I will never forget this for the rest of my life; to have been a part of all this and seen how it works. The organization, itself, is really doing incredible things for veterans and will continue to do so.
I’ve been a spokesperson for them for a while, so this is one of those things, I got to actually be a part of because I kept asking them to put me to work. So they did.
Troy: Yes, they did, running all over on high heels with that.
Eve: Yes.
C. J.: Was Paul Reikoff wearing high heels, too?
Eve: No, he wasn’t.
Troy: Paul and C. J. have a history.
Eve: I have a visual memory or visual mind so whenever people say really strange things I just visualize it. Paul in heels is just…Yes. Yes.
Troy: He’s not a good friend of yours, is he, C. J.?
C. J.: Paul and I have a history. Yes. In fact, he denied my Storm the Hill application.
Eve: Ah.
C. J.: I thought we had buried the hatchet, but apparently, when I got my application denial we hadn’t.
Eve: I will tell you that I know that they had a significant number of people apply; that they had not anticipated that many. They were very careful in who they picked and they picked people who had stories that could talk to the legislative agenda they had on board this year.
I can’t say anything about the people that didn’t make it, but the people they brought on board here for this week are phenomenal. I think I’ve made some lifelong friendships through working with them and observing them and hearing their stories. It’s definitely inspired me to become even more active if that’s possible.
Troy: That was all this week? Or, pretty much the last four days. Is that right?
Eve: Yes.
Troy: Did you take time off from work and just take vacation and say, ” I’m taking a week off and running up and down Constitution Avenue” or what?
Eve: What happened was I actually had drill last weekend so I had to fly down to Texas for drill. They started on Sunday, but I came back Sunday night. Then Monday morning I had to cram all my information and then all week long I took unpaid leave from work to do this.
Troy: OK. That’s pretty awesome. I looked at this Storm the Hill site and for those listening you can check out Eve and the many other veterans that have been part of this at http://stormthehill.org.
You’re on Team Charlie, right?
Eve: That’s right. It’s funny it’s works out that way but I’m always on Team Charlie.
Troy: That’s just the way you got picked? I saw some of the pictures of you guys worn out after eating burritos and storming the hill….
Eve: Actually Kay Hagan saw that photo too. She loved it. She was like, “I wish I could do that; just put my head down on the table.”
Troy: Did each team go forward with certain issues or topics that each one was going to try to address or did you all have a whole set of them and each one of you just went after different legislators?
Eve: Basically – I could be wrong about this – what I observed was that the people who came from various states or districts or if you’re a constituent of a certain senator, then they would try to schedule an appointment with that person so that you could talk to them.
And it makes a little bit more of an impact, I think. But what happened with the, see I’m losing my train of thought. This is my memory loss issue.
[laughs]
Troy: It’s alright.
Eve: So they get us all in groups, and we run around to different appointments that we have. But we talk to all the issues. If you go on IAVA.org website they have the 2009 legislative agenda, and they have the top priorities in the beginning.
And what we basically all focus on predominantly was the advanced appropriations portion of the legislative agenda. And personally, I think that one was more significant because if we get some of that taken care of, then a lot of the other things can be addressed.
It’s the whole show me the money concept, you know? I mean, VA administration and the VA health section, they can’t really do anything until they know what their budget’s going to be. So, if you look on that site, the legislative priorities are laid in there. And they have everything laid out from mental health, to homecoming, to health care benefits, to government accountability.
But the one we focus on is advanced funding of veteran’s health care. And that was just to ensure timely funding of the health care and to fully fund the VA, the department of VA health care budget a year in advance as opposed to always being late.
It’s been significantly late, I think they said in the last 20 or so years has been late, I think 90 percent of the time. And that’s just uncalled for and inexcusable for our veterans to have to wait to get appointments because the VA doesn’t know what their budget is.
It’s like, you know, you and I trying to budget our families, a monthly budget for the next three or four months or a year even and not having any idea how much money we’re going to have or when it’s going to come in.
So that was my understanding about it. And it makes sense, I think, to get that issue drafted. I don’t know if you’ve followed on storm the hill, but Senator Akaka and Senator Filner drafted the bill today with a number of co-signers. So it was the first time, I think, in history if I’m not mistaken where all of the veteran’s service organizations actually got together on this one issue and said this is what we want.
So, it’s kind of a historical event, and it really culminates all of the hard work that the veterans who came here and took time away from their homes and their families to storm the hill. It just was a great feeling for everybody to sit in on that reading and that press conference that we had today at two.
Troy: Right, that’s awesome! And, you know, to know that you and all your efforts and everything you’ve been working towards this last week paid off.
Eve: It did.
Troy: You know, they’re not giving you lip service, saying oh we might get to this and try to introduce this when the time is right. You saw them do it today.
Eve: Right, it’s so amazing because you have this idea in your head of what politicians are supposed to be like, or what they are like, and you know. I imagined when I went, when I first started, that I was going to walk into their offices and they were going to smile and nod their heads, you know.
Or we were just going to get to talk to staffers and the staffers aren’t going to really know or really care.
But I have to tell you that that was not the case. I mean, they were genuinely interested and speaking to us. We saw a number of senators and congressmen, representatives, you know, Senator Filner stopped us on the front steps while we were getting our picture taken on the first day and just had an impromptu meeting with all of us and talked to all of us.
So it’s just been amazing that they really followed through on what they said, and it doesn’t really seem like that stereotype that you think in your head when you think of politicians.
They really care about veteran’s issues. And I don’t know if you guys know or anything, but there’s this crazy crisis with the budget and, you know.
[laughs]
Eve: You know what I mean? They have some CEOs on the carpet, and some other people that were there. But they took time out of in between votes, and in between sessions to come and meet with us. I mean, we were really their priority, so it was amazing. I can’t say enough.
Troy: So where does it go from here? Is it just going to be something that the storm the hill is going to be a yearly thing, you think? Or will it carry onto other hot topics when another really important issue pops up? Will they try to reenact this?
Eve: Well, my understanding of what the IAVA Washington D.C. office does is really focus on research among their member veterans, they have 125, 000 veterans online. So, they do as much research as possible. They also have local meetings, where they’ll bring, like we came in and talked about women’s veteran issues over some pizza and Coca Cola, just to really kind of get a feel.
And then they developed these priorities as needs, these materials and they gather resources based off of what veterans are telling them. You know, what we need or we want. And they did last year the same thing, they did it a storm the hill last year in their main focus was the GI Bill, and everybody said that it wasn’t going to happen.
They were crazy and they weren’t going to be able to get it done and they did, and along with some of the other VFOs.
That was a huge task, that was a big one and they got it and it cost a lot of money. And this year the main priority was advanced appropriations for veteran’s affairs, the VA health care system. And what’s amazing about this one this year is that it doesn’t cost anybody extra money. You know, they’re not asking for extra money, they’re just asking for it to be budgeted a year in advance.
So it was an easy thing to go do and then next year, who knows what it might be. Some of the other information you’ll find on the site that we took around with us for these policy notes, I guess is what they call them.
But there’s one, we called invisible winds, it’s about the psychological and neurological injuries, confronting our veterans today. Another one’s coming home; it’s about the housing crisis and homelessness and then another one’s called career after combat.
These are three brochures that Aaron Mohan and Vanessa Williamson did all the research on, and they’re here local in DC. And then they cited everything in the end notes in the back, so if you pull statistics out of it you can look right in the back and find out where that statistic came from.
But these things are gold and they’re amazing, and they have so much information in them about what veterans are saying, are there real issues, and I really think that one of those three may possibly be what we come to the hill for next year. You know, to raise awareness and maybe get something else in place, I’m not sure.
CJ: Yeah, that’s awesome. This is CJ. I went out a couple years ago, or maybe it was last year, with Vets For Freedom, and we did the best on the hill thing as well. And I think it’s great that IAVA is doing it because we really, our congressmen really need to hear straight from the mouths of veterans.
Exactly what it is that we’re going through, what it means and it’s not just these robotic trained to kill people that we’re talking about here; we’re talking about husbands, wives, sons, daughters, and flesh and blood people.
Did you find that while you were up there at Vets For Freedom, what was the general, you said that the reception was pretty good, they took time out of their days to meet with you. Did you have any issues with anyone that you were supposed to meet with?
Eve: You know, we saw so many people, I want to say there might have been one meeting that got pushed back because of all the stuff that was going on in the hill in reference to the budget. There were also two meetings that got pushed up for the same reason, but I honestly don’t think, there was anybody that completely cancelled.
In fact today when they gave the press conference at two we had an appointment at two and we were able to reschedule it for this evening at five thirty.
So like I said everybody was more than willing to meet with us. I almost wander if they were maybe wanting to talk about something other than the…. You know because this is a good cause and it’s a noble cause and it’s an easy cause to get involved with.
It makes sense. Nobody wants to do their budget late. And today during the press conference a couple of the senators spoke and said that they had had different experiences.
One worked on a school board and said yeah we had this same problem you can’t start new programs and forecast out and work on getting rid of the back log if you can’t hire people.
Our team didn’t have anybody that was at all rude. Everybody was… in fact sometimes they would tell Todd, who was our IVA rep but was also a marine, they would not listen to him and then want to talk to the three of us veterans, the other veterans.
C.J: Yeah because, you weren’t necessarily the spokes people you were the grunts so to speak.
Eve: Right.
C.J: Well at least for my part I’ll turn it back over to Troy. Just tell Paul I’ve forgiven him and it’s OK to like me again.
Eve: I will. I will tell him.
Troy: Now Eve I want to chat about what you are trying to do or what you are working on and trying to get it off the ground.
Are you trying to start an organization that focuses on women veterans issues or are you just trying to raise awareness, can you kind of go into some of that? [inaudible 34:27] haven’t had a chance to really digest it all.
Eve: Absolutely, I started to really envy what IVA does for veterans and I really believe that they, you know they’re one point seven million veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan.
And such a small percentage of that is women veterans. We are kind of a gross minority if that makes any kind of sense.
But I think because of that our issues; I mean veteran issues are also our issues as well.
The women have unique issues and on top of that we’re also I think kind of really separated sometimes because there is so few of us.
We tend to be more surrounded by the guys and our brothers in arms.
So, what I really wanted to do was bring women together and do some professional and social net working.
And interestingly enough when I started talking to people about it everybody was like you’ve got to do this.
There has been so much support and then on top of that has come this inundation of like I’m inundated almost with all of these requests and emails and people wanting us to take on advocacy and we really hadn’t considered doing advocacy and becoming a full blown VSO like IVA or the VFW.
But we’re in the development process and I’m doing my research with as much time as I have to spend on it.
I’ve been looking at some of the other women veteran organizations that are out there and kind of finding out are they successful in their mission and vision.
Are they doing what they said they were going to do? Are they able to be accessible to all women veterans?
And I haven’t found too many that are somewhat similar to IVA in any way, shape, or form, or even similar to what I kind of envisioned.
And we’re still working on developing our vision and our mission and doing research and talking to women veterans.
I’m still trying to get an idea built of what we really want to tackle and what we really want to take on.
I’ve met some incredible women both in the business world as well as in the veteran community who are very interested in someone taking this role on.
I even had a woman tell me the other day she said you realize you’re going to have to quit your day job and I looked at her and said oh yeah I’ve considered it.
She looked at me and said no, no, no you’re going to have to quit your day job and soon, and I was like wow wait a minute I didn’t sign up for that.
So it’s kind of taken off. It’s a little scary but.
Troy: Well you said you found other women veteran organizations is it that they just have not really moved forward like they thought or is it just that they’re focused more on a niche.
They’re not necessarily broad you know women’s veterans in general.
Eve: I’m probably going to get virtually stoned after saying this but I come from a unique group of women veterans.
A lot of us are, you know my generation around early thirty or younger, a lot of us are not married or have children.
And then a bunch of us women who have signed on to the phase book stage do come from those backgrounds.
So it’s interesting because we are all professional career women and we’re looking for that bond and that kind of niche.
Now in my research I did contact a couple of women organizations and just ask them OK this is what you say your vision is and this is what you say your mission is and how are you accomplishing that.
The responses I’ve gotten back from one particular organization, which is Women Veterans of America, they have state chapters.
So when they say they’re doing advocacy I just emailed them and said I haven’t seen you guys around the hill and I haven’t heard of you until I started doing some of this research so can you tell me more about your organization?
And what you think works and doesn’t work and how you’re structured and why don’t you have a DC or Virginia chapter?
The email was sent out to some of the state chapters and basically I think the way that it was explained to me in the states that do have chapters they are doing advocacy from a grass roots up within their states.
And the women have taken on various roles in their communities to help advocacy and awareness.
But there’s nothing on kind of a national scale in this district, in this area that’s working from this way down if that makes sense.
I don’t know if we’ll be able to fill that niche or not or to fill in the spaces there a couple of other organizations, for lack of a better way to explain it, seemed kind of victim oriented.
There are a lot of severe issues facing women, especially now with military sexual trauma and combined with post dramatic stress disorder and depression.
We’re having more and more homeless veterans that are women and women with children even. So those organizations I think really cater to and assist as much as possible with those issues.
We want to be a resource for all of them. We want to reach out to as many women as we can. We want to do professional networking and just bond together.
I think there are a lot of women veterans who don’t want to pick up the phone and call for help. Or don’t want to necessarily have regular visits with a psychiatrist.
Troy: So we were talking about what you’re doing and the last thing I asked, and if you already answered that’s fine everyone already heard it, was about what you saw different from other women veterans groups.
Eve: Right.
Troy: Just tell me it sounded like you were getting close to that they were very compartmentalized, and they were more state focused and not really nationally focused.
Eve: Yeah I think probably because of all the.
[cuts off]
