All across America and around the world, this is Veterans Radio.
This is Veterans Radio.
Welcome to Veterans Radio.
I am Jim Fossone.
I'm the officer of the deck today.
We've got some great programs for you.
I think you'll find very interesting.
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We want to welcome to VeteransRadio today US Army retired Lieutenant Colonel Tracy Farrell.
We're going to talk about the Wounded Warrior Project and women veterans in particular.
But Tracy, welcome to VeteransRadio.
Thanks so much, Jim.
I appreciate the opportunity to talk with you and all your listeners.
Well, let's talk about your Army career.
How did a nice girl like you from Notre Dame, the University of Notre Dame,
with a Bachelor's of Science in Mathematics end up in the US Army?
Yeah, so I come from a line of individuals who served.
Both my grandfathers served in World War II.
One in the 8th, it was the Army Air Corps at that time, later the Air Force, and one in the Army.
And then my father served 22 years as well.
Field Artillery, and then he did operations, kind of like stop work more so.
And I'm the oldest of five.
So I had to find a way to make for college.
Fenced an ROTC scholarship to Notre Dame.
And then from there, I thought I was going to do four years and get out as most of us do.
Maybe not most of us, but many of us do.
You know, we all think...
Oh yeah, nobody goes in to be a lifer.
Yeah, yeah.
Very few people think they're going to be livers.
And then at every point in my life, it was just so many great opportunities were presented
through the military or through assignments that I ended up staying 22 and a half years.
Well, let's...
And as we talked earlier, I had some amazing, amazing assignments.
Well, let's talk about those because they...
This ties back into one of the findings in the report, which is about, hey, would you recommend joining up to folks?
And one of the reasons people would is you get this great opportunity in terms of leadership responsibility
and travel.
So tell us about yours.
Yeah.
Yeah, I ended up my first assignment was in Germany.
And then I've also ended up in Korea.
And I had battalion command in Hawaii.
And I ended my career in D.C.
And of course, there were some iterations of training deployments and spent some time in
Hungary, Croatia, as well as Iraq.
But just for me, I think I look at the person I was when I graduated college and the self-confidence,
I think I was lacking at that point.
And then how I progressed over the 22 years and who I am today.
And I can't say I wouldn't have been that person had I not joined the military.
The military definitely had an amazing impact on my confidence, my knowledge, my ability
to lead others and just allowed me to see the world and other cultures and even other
portions of the United States.
As you might know, each portion of the United States is a little different as well.
Well, you know, those of us who never got a duty assignment in Hawaii love how you just
slip that in around everything else.
But you know, we are all jealous of a duty assignment in Hawaii.
So I think each of us have somewhere we're jealous of.
I always wanted to come to Colorado Springs.
So then after I retired from the military, that was the place I chose to move to.
And I've lived here.
I call Colorado Springs my home in the first place I ever chose because the rest of my
life I was following my father or following the military or following a job.
And Colorado Springs I chose and this is now my home and I love it with all my heart.
Well, that's great.
And along the way, I should mention she picked up a master's from Long Island University
and leadership.
So I got to be at West Point for a while and as a tactical officer and that was part of
the job requirement and it really was a great opportunity.
And that word keeps coming up opportunity.
And again, this will factor back into some of the findings of the report we're talking
about that's been issued here this fall in 2023.
But Tracy, for those who maybe don't really understand what Wounded Warrior Project is
or maybe have just seen TV commercials, which may or may not be informative, tell us a little
bit about Wounded Warrior Project and the efforts that it undertakes.
Sure.
So Wounded Warrior Project is an organization that has over 240,000 registrants members.
Nationwide and we're even in Germany at Launstall where there's a medical center, as you know.
And we serve warriors and their families who were injured or ill as a part of their service
to the military.
And that doesn't have to be physical injuries.
I think that's the biggest misconception.
Even though we have these ongoing dialogues about traumatic brain injury or post-traumatic
stress or anxiety as a result of service, a lot of people think that Wounded Warrior
Project focuses on the physical injuries and we do, absolutely do.
But making sure that somebody who transitions from service is able to thrive in their communities
in a holistic manner, whether it be focusing on their financial needs, their mental health
needs or their physical needs or even just societal, wanting to connect with others,
that is the focus of Wounded Warrior Project.
And the key thing is that due to the generosity of the American public, it's at no cost at
all to the warriors and family members who participate.
And it's huge.
It's been 20 years now, which is absolutely amazing to me.
But this is our 20th year anniversary and we're going strong and we're still looking
ways to be innovative with the population that we have dedicated ourselves to serve.
And I should mention that Tracey Ferrell is the program partnership and operational vice
president for the Wounded Warrior Project.
So we're talking to somebody at the top of the food chain, which is always good because
you get the real deal of what's going on.
And what was interesting to me and I wanted to make sure we got this out to a wide audience
for Veterans Radio is that you released the Wounded Warrior Project, W.W.P. released
its Women Warriors Report, which highlights the sort of unique experiences and challenges
of women veterans.
So why don't you go ahead and tell us about this survey and some of the results from it?
Sure.
So just to provide a little bit of background, Wounded Warrior Project has been doing surveys
of our population for years now.
And a few years back, we acknowledged that women represent the fastest growing population
in both the military and veteran communities.
We were seeing some disparities between the results of our male population and our women
population.
And so we launched this initiative to try and dig into the information and the data that
we have about women warriors in particular.
And so this report that was released in September is based on the responses of 5,000 women warriors,
as well as roundtable discussions that happen both virtually and in person across the United
States.
And what we've found is that wounded women warriors, and you have to remember this is
our population, the wounded women warriors, we face unique challenges while we serve in
the military and then as we transition to transition into civilian life.
And those could be with regards to financial wellness, access to care, mental wellness,
social health, military transition, and military sexual trauma.
And so this report, which is absolutely beautiful, not only in its layout, but in its information,
that only gives those statistics and that data.
But it gives some quotes from women warriors and it gives some recommendations on what
we can do as a society, not just legislatively, not just with the VA, not just with veteran
service organizations, but what all of us working together can do to better serve women
warriors as they transition.
Yeah, I think that there's a couple of points here.
One is we all relate to anecdotal stories where somebody we know or in this instance
in the report, the female veterans there and there's generally a quote or a story you
can relate to.
But it helps, it really helps in thinking these things through when you have the data.
You begin, you talk to 5,000 folks, you've got a big data set and you're going to get
real solid information out of that, aren't you?
Definitely.
And I think what resonated the most with me just because of my service was the conversations
around the military to civilian transition process and how we might enhance it and include
ongoing support.
I think probably a lot of the listeners know I approach transition as like this singular
day or month in my life.
I was just going to get out of the Army, take off the uniform, put on something in my closet
and be absolutely successful after that.
And it's a process and ensuring that the support is there through TAPS, which I know
both DOD and VA have been looking at this, the toll transition assistant program and
what we can provide through that, but also afterwards, who's there in the community that
has reached back and you can ask questions and you can connect with, for women warriors
in particular, who can, who's in your community that you can connect with and ask questions
about that really resonated with me, as well as the challenges with accessing care and
the VA healthcare system.
The VA has been doing an amazing job in expanding their women's healthcare.
It's not across the United States and there's still some opportunities to leverage community
based resources and even telehealth to address some of the barriers of care that we're hearing
about from our women veterans.
And it's those kinds of key findings based on data and based also on stories people can
relate to, they help policymakers, don't they?
You did a stint in Washington, DC.
You did a stint on a congressional hill.
This information has a role to play in shaping policy, doesn't it?
Oh, 100% and not just from, let's give you the information, but in twofold.
One in the efforts that our government and community relations team does in working with
members of Congress to develop legislation based on the data, based on information that
we've got from the VA, but then also just the opportunities for our women warriors to
go to Capitol Hill and talk about what they're experiencing and then show the data behind
that.
When we released this report back in September, we brought 50 women warriors together and
we had them go to Capitol Hill and talk with the representatives and talk with the staff
members there and share their experiences, but also share the report to make sure that
it's not just me talking about myself, it's me talking for women nationwide.
One of the other, and that's so important, and one of the other findings that was in
New York here is dealt with financial wellness, which I think is worth exploring some because
people don't really talk about it.
They talk about transition, how hard that is and it may take years to find the job you
really want to be doing.
But financial wellness is such a change.
When I'm in the military, that paycheck shows up every time.
My expenses are kind of covered.
There's not the same sort of market driven financial pressures.
So talk to us about how that manifested itself to become a key area.
So we have found that women warriors have a higher education rate.
They pursue college, they pursue advanced degrees at a higher rate than their male peers,
but they have higher unemployment rates as well.
This report specifically identified 10% of women warriors were unemployed by 6.3%.
And the reason for this for many of them was that childcare and family responsibilities
are the top barrier to their employment.
Another fact that was really saddening for me was that nearly half report living paycheck
to paycheck.
And two out of five lack the confidence to cover a $1,000 emergency.
And as you mentioned, these are women who had the support systems and had financial
assistance and had paychecks coming in every month.
And so we think a couple things can help.
One, there needs to be a little more research into why this is so.
It isn't just societal.
We can't just say, well, women are behind men in every aspect of employment because
that's not true right now.
So where are some areas that societal wise we can look at?
But also we need to invest in mentorship and transition support services for women veterans.
And these can be through organizations such as the Department of Labor or grants to community
organizations, focused specifically on women's career planning and employment and not at
the point of transition that I mentioned earlier.
Early on, early on financial management.
Prior to launching oneself into being a civilian, we should be thinking about things like this.
Yeah, I think that was a, you know, that sort of popped out as an issue where like people
don't really talk about that.
But it's you hear about it kind of quietly, sort of buried in the transition problem.
It's really maybe a financial problem.
One of the things that we've talked about here on Veterans Radio, and we're talking
to Tracy Ferrell, who's the VP at the Wounded Warrior Project.
We're talking specifically about a recently released Women Warriors report.
Tracy, one of the things we find is that on Veterans Radio, when we talk to folks is,
when you're in the military, you have a network.
You've moved from base to base.
You know people from this here and there.
But when you transition out, you don't have maybe that network.
And you have to create a new network.
Is that the social health issue that your report found as a key area?
Yeah, absolutely.
So let's just do the numbers real quick.
So right now, 10% of the population are women veterans, right?
Or 10% of the veteran population are women.
Excuse me.
I misquoted that.
And then less than 1% actually serve these days.
And so while we find that there will be a growing population, and it's going to be up
to 18% by 2040, our veterans are women, we don't find that women veterans wear their
status on their sleeve as much as male veterans do.
And part of that is because they don't feel that society acknowledges their service, right?
A little story.
I actually went somewhere that was military oriented and showed a card that said veterans
were to get in at a reduced rate or a free rate by myself.
And I was asked where my husband was.
Yeah, yeah.
Where the veteran was, right?
We have to stop that question from coming out of people's mouths.
We have to acknowledge that both men and women serve in the military now and are proud of
their service and should stand up for being a veteran and connecting with other veterans
through opportunities that are offered within our communities.
And some groups are better at that.
Women's Marine Association, WMA, is really a pretty robust group because they're a pretty
small, hearty group.
But I don't think our VSOs in general are that well at welcoming folks.
But you can just see how that network needs to be there.
And you've got to be able to know where the other people in the network are.
You do.
And you have to know how to look for them, right?
It's just, and that was another one of our recommendations was actually through the transition
process to have a women focused leg of it to tell what health system VA offers you, where
you might find other women in your communities that are veterans if you wish to reach out,
and what specific issues and solutions women veterans have come across during their time.
We have to do that because we need to recruit more women.
We need to recruit more men.
And there's a big recruiting problem in the country as a whole.
I guess it comes and goes right after 9-11.
All kinds of people join up after a 20 year war, people are the voluntary, military's
having a tough time, every branch hitting the recruiting numbers.
So making things better for women veterans is really making things better for women to
enter the military.
And actually that's a national security issue.
Times have changed a lot since you went in and I think it was 1994.
But there's a lot more to do and you mentioned, and I don't want to pass over, military sexual
trauma, exposure to toxins and other problems that are in the news today.
What do you report, find about those sorts of things and how they're impacting women
veterans?
There's quite a bit of attention on military sexual trauma and ensuring that when anyone
who has experienced military sexual trauma transitions from the military to the VA that
they don't want that they have a smooth transition, whether it be through a peer leader helping
them through that process or in the sharing of the information between DOD and the VA.
What we hear most of the times right now is that as women in transition between their
providers, whether it be a mental health provider or a medical provider or some other sort of
PC, primary care provider, they're repeating their story over and over and over again.
And retraumatization is a big thing.
And so we need to find a way so that women and men don't have to do that.
They don't have to keep on reliving or repeating their story that is captured somewhere and
shared across that and that they're escorted through the process of benefits and healthcare.
Yeah, and I think this is where the VA would step in and say, hey, we hear these stories,
we know how to handle them.
We don't want you to have to repeat them.
But maybe you're a private practitioner, this is all brand new to them.
So there's an interesting issue of where you'll be most comfortable getting your medical
care and receive the best medical care.
So those are challenges as well that are kind of floating through your key findings.
There are.
And the VA and Congress is very interested in that topic and has proposed legislation
and solutions.
And so my hope is that we will see movement in that in the next one to two years for sure.
We're talking to Lieutenant Colonel Tracy Ferrell, US Army retired, who's vice president
with Wounded Warrior Project about the women warriors report that was just issued.
And what's great about the report is that it not only does this great big data collection
and identifies issues, but then makes these recommendations that we've been talking about.
But one of the things that I want to highlight is how women warriors reacted to the idea
of would you recommend, and I always ask this question, would you recommend to a family
member or friend, you know, to join up?
And that's really the question you guys were kind of getting asking folks and their responses
are interesting.
Can you talk about them?
Yeah, I think it's so when we have to remember that the women who are part of Women Warrior
Project or Wounded Warrior Project, sorry, too many W's, let me just say that right off
the back.
What is this warrior project?
Are those who have been injured as part of their service?
And so their perception may be a little different.
But many of them actually said yes, I would still recommend service because of what it
taught me, what we talked about at the top of this.
Right, this ties right back into your experiences.
Yeah, right back into the person that the military made me, even despite the injuries
that I have experienced or the trauma that I am still living through.
I believe that this was a good organization for me at that time of my life.
And I'm always heartened to hear that.
I think for me, especially having been a battalion commander, I really wanted to make sure that
the men and the women who joined my organization felt welcomed and that they had the ability
to grow in the direction that they chose.
And with military police, many of them decided, FBI or their local community policing or some
other sort of investigative careers after they left the military.
And I just, I'm happy to hear that many of the women who served during the same time
I did felt that within their units as well.
Well, it's interesting because the reason for recommendations are really pretty, it's
a long list.
It's not only the benefits package and the equal pay, but things like the GI bill that
gets you more education, which certainly you get to take a part of while you're in service,
but even more importantly for some is after, which you're developing all these skills that
you've talked about in terms of leadership.
We've talked about the travel that goes with it.
So there are a lot of very positive aspects of military service beyond being part of something
bigger than yourself and serving your country, aren't there?
Yeah, and I think a lot of times we focus on the leadership aspect, but there's some
skill sets that are learned as well.
You know, I think of my mechanics, right?
I think of my logistic specialist that helped me along the way or even the intelligence
specialist that were part.
They may not have been, you know, they may have done one term and not have gotten to
a leadership level aside from pure leadership, but those skills that they, I would hope that
those skills that they earned and acquired while in the service assisted them in finding
out what they wanted to do later in life.
Yeah, they'll certainly have value that you have to realize that and put it forth.
You mentioned the situations that you've been in and the trauma that you're still kind of
going through.
Talk about why being a part of a wounded warrior project and particularly if you're a wounded
women warrior, this is something you ought to take a look at and explore.
I think it goes back to what we talked about earlier, Jim, about finding your community,
right?
About finding people who have been through similar experiences that you feel comfortable
about talking about your experiences with and feel that there's a safe space where you
won't be judged.
In every single one of our face-to-face programming, whether it be physical health alumnus, alumni
that's focused on connection and social opportunities, or our project audits, which are mental health-based
adventure programming, there is a focus on a cohort about meeting people in your community
who have experienced what you've experienced that you can feel comfortable with, whether
it be you need to cuss about something because sometimes we put filters on ourselves.
If you need to let that aspect out, if you want to talk about a personal moment or if
you just want to talk about what you saw in Hawaii, Germany, Iraq, Korea, and have these
key points of your lives be discussed, that's what you find in a VSO and that's definitely
what you find in a wounded warrior project.
Through those connections and through that examination of your own life, we can lead
to better healing.
If there's a veteran out there or a family member, a veteran who thinks, maybe my guy
or gal ought to get a little more into this, it might help on the social front and a lot
of other things.
Can you give us the website and how they get themselves involved?
Sure.
So the website is www.woundedwarriorproject, all one word, it's long, I know,.org.
And on there you will find information about the organization, specific programming we
offer, the opportunities that there are, and to register, all you need is to call or do
it online and all you need is proof of service.
And from there we will help work with you to make sure you're connected with a resource
in your community.
It's really a well done professional website.
You'll find it helpful with information.
So I'd tell folks to go poke around, it's www.woundedwarriorproject.org.
It's War Your Singular, not at, no S, www.woundedwarriorproject.org.
And it's worth looking into.
And Tracy Farrell, we really appreciate the time that you've given us today to explore
the report and data that you've done on women warriors and really appreciate you talking
to the veteran radio audience.
Thanks, Jim.
I'd just like to point out, if anybody wants to look at the report, it itself is online,
as well.
And so if you want to dig into one of the areas we talked about, please do so.
Thank you.
And I want to thank everybody for listening to Veterans Radio today.
I am Jim Fossone.
It's been a pleasure to be your host.
I'm a Veterans Disability Lawyer at Legal Help for Veterans.
And you can reach us at 800-693-4800 or legalhelpforveterans.com on the web.
You can follow Veterans Radio on Facebook and listen to its podcasts and internet radio
shows by visiting us at veteransradio.org.
That's veteransradio.org.
And until next time, you are dismissed.
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They're experts in handling cases before the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims.
Their number again, 1-800-693-4800.
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And until next time, you are dismissed.
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