Women are particularly confused by expectations on returning home. "How can you behave lovingly with your kids when you've had to push kids off your Humvee and watch them be run over because they could be the enemy?" Salvano asks rhetorically. "Riddled with guilt and shame, how do you get to the point of forgiving yourself so that you can begin to heal?"
Paula J. Caplan, a research psychologist, addresses many of these issues in her 2011 book, When Johnny and Jane Come Marching Home: How All of Us Can Help Veterans. She points out, for example, that women vets often experience complex states of anxiety "because striving to act in traditionally masculine ways in order to prove they deserve to be in the military can conflict with any wish they have to act in traditionally feminine ways."
Kari Granger, formerly in the Air Force and now a consultant with Sunergos, a global performance and leadership development firm, understood these issues and wanted to do something to support returning women vets. With three other former military women, she developed a program called "Leading with Resiliency and Grace" which supports military women as they envision a meaningful future and helps them "bring their full capacity to whatever they are dealing with in the present."
Other women are also helping returning female vets. New York filmmakers Marcia Rock and Patricia Stotter produced a multi-platform documentary, Service: When Women Come Marching Home that offers an intimate view of women vets returning home through narratives shared in their own words. In a legislative attempt to help all vets traumatized by MST, Congresswoman Jackie Speier (D-CA) has introduced legislation designed to combat sexual assault in the military.
"As increasing numbers of women join the military and enter combat zones, the sexism that pervades our entire society helps shape what happens to them," Paula Caplan says. The Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Department of Defense are beginning to realize the extent of this reality and seem poised to take steps to address the complex needs of military women and women veterans. But much work remains. The bulk of it, it seems, will fall to grassroots women's organizations and individuals who understand the experience of "Janes" who come marching home.
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