1.3 - Military Times: Secretary
promises VA will be more ‘welcoming’ to women veterans (7 September, Leo Shane
III, 2.1M uvm; Springfield, VA)
WASHINGTON — Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie said his department "needs
to be more welcoming to women veterans” and promised improvements at the
bureaucracy in months to come.
"We are on the cusp of a great change,” Wilkie told veterans attending the
inaugural meeting of the Military
Women’s Coalition in Georgia on Friday. "This is not my father’s or my grandfather’s VA.
It is now your VA. We have
to change how we do business, and that means making the institution more
welcoming.”
Wilkie did not offer specifics on policies or programs to "make sure the needs
of our fighting women are taken care of,” but he did acknowledge that women
veterans are the fastest growing demographic group under the department’s
watch.
About 10 percent of the veterans population in America today are women, and
that number is expected to rise above 17 percent in the next decade. Wilkie,
who previously served as the Pentagon’s top personnel official, said more than
250,000 women service members are stationed throughout the world today.
"And the VA has to change
to respond to America’s changes,” he said.
The coalition, which includes more than 40 separate service women’s advocacy
groups, held the event to discuss "continued structural and cultural barriers
women face during and after their service.”
That included discussion of a inspector general report released earlier this
month that VA officials may have improperly denied benefits to thousands of
military sexual assault victims in recent years, due to paperwork and
procedural mistakes.
The department has come
under criticism in recent years for its slow response to complaints about a
lack of exam space and health expertise for female patients, as well as
administration officials’ refusal to reconsider changing the VA motto of "To
care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his
orphan" to less gender-specific language.
Wilkie, confirmed to the top VA post in late July, said he recognizes more work
needs to be done and promised that "the department will be walking with you into the rest of the 21st
century.”
He also noted that several new leadership officials at the department are
female veterans, including Chief of Staff Pamela Powers, whose 30-year Air
Force career included a deployment to Kuwait as Chief of Staff to the 9th Air
Expeditionary Task Force.
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