Anchorage honors female veterans, history in ceremony

by Airman 1st Class Tammie Ramsouer
JBER Public Affairs

11/18/2013 - JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska -- The Department of Veterans Affairs hosted the Women Veterans' Appreciation Day ceremony Nov. 8 at the Loussac Library.

The VA hosted the ceremony to honor women who have been in or are currently in every branch of military service as a way to thank them for their sacrifice and service to the nation.

The few women who could join the Women's Army Corps, which started in 1942, were limited to nursing, clerical work and dirtier work like making bullets and guns for Soldiers because they were not allowed to fight alongside men.

"The truth is that women have been serving this great nation since its birth," said Alaska Sen. Mark Begich.

There was a separation of skill sets between men and women.

Men would go into battle while the women tended to the Soldiers who were wounded.
"Many people do not realize that women played an important role in military history dating all the way back to the Revolutionary War who were invisible heroines of the time," said Susan Yager, Veterans' Affairs Women Veterans' Director.

A former Alaska resident, Mary Louise Rasmuson, was one of the women who had an important role in the military.

She served as the commandant of the Women's Army Corps in 1957.

Her contributions to the WAC and her military service inspired the Rasmuson Foundation, which supports non-profit organizations in Alaska as they pursue their goals.

Dr. Mary Edwards Walker was one of the first 1.8 million women veterans who defended the United States.

She contributed to the U.S. Army during the Civil War in 1864 as a surgeon for the Union Army and in 1917 was the first woman to receive a Medal of Honor for her work. She passed away two years later.

Her legacy lives on in the Army's Dr. Mary E. Walker Award.

This award recognizes Army spouses who contribute their time, going above and beyond to make the quality of life better for Soldiers.

The hard work and determination from Walker, created an imprint on future servicewomen and the changes that were slowly incorporated to let women do everything men could do.

"The challenge has been to remove the barriers to those who serve this nation," Begich said. "We have done that, and there are few, if any, barriers for women serving alongside male counterparts."

In January 2013, the Department of Defense lifted the 1994 ban on women in combat, combining the skill sets both men and women can bring to the fight.

The Women's Veterans' Day Ceremony brought veterans an opportunity to understand the services the VA offers, and to commemorate women veterans like Mary Louise Rasmuson, Mary Edwards Walker and Army Capt. Diana Levesque.

"I deployed in 2004 to Kuwait," said Levesque, commander of Company E, 1st Battalion,
207th Aviation Regiment, Alaska Army National Guard. "It was a great experience and it helped me grow as a person and as a Soldier."

Of the many women who have fought in the Global War on Terror, there have been 159 killed in combat according to www.womensmemorial.org.

One of these women was Army 1st Lt. Jaime L. Campbell from Ephrata, Wash., assigned to the 1-207th Aviation.

Campbell was in a UH-60 Black Hawk when it went down near Tal Afar, Iraq, during a reconnaissance mission.

"Women now serve in every branch and every rank in our military," Begich said. "These are the women who have persisted and refused to take no for an answer when serving this nation."

"I believe that being in the military is a great honor, and I think every woman should be in the military," Levesque said. "I think being in the military even if it is only few years, people can have a chance to find themselves."