Lora Thompson, a Cincinnati veteran, served in the military for over 38 years. It wasn’t until 2018, a year before she retired, that she discovered the Greater Cincinnati Women’s American Legion Post 644, an all-female post dedicated to women veterans.
“How in the world do you go 30-some years without knowing about an all-women's post that started after World War II?” Thompson said.
Female veterans are a historically underserved group, both by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and in local community support. One of the biggest challenges with ensuring these women receive medical care and community support is reaching them and spreading awareness about existing resources.
According to the VA, women are the fastest-growing demographic in the military. By 2040, women are expected to make up 18% of all veterans.
This growth only emphasizes the importance of medical programs, psychological support, community groups and additional resources for women veterans.
Zooming in on Cincinnati, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, 11% of veterans in Hamilton County are women. Thompson told CityBeat that there were an estimated 67,000 female veterans in Ohio in 2022.
“What we have is a lot of little organizations out there that help women, but, in my opinion, we could do a better job streamlining the process and making it more efficient and helping each other,” Thompson said. “So that's one of the areas that I'm working on.”
Thompson is now the Post Commander of Post 644. From bringing donuts and coffee to the Cincinnati VA Medical Center to sponsoring baby showers for women veterans, the group does crucial community-building work for female veterans.
Thompson is also campaigning for a temporary housing and support facility for women veterans in Ohio with the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, an organization dedicated to eradicating veteran homelessness.
“My passion is to have a state-of-the-art facility for women veterans to go to that is kind of an in-between place where we help them find their housing and help them get their appointments,” Thompson said.
Post 644 also helps women veterans connect with the VA to get medical care, including care for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and military sexual trauma (MST).
“One of the reasons that we have low numbers of women registering [with the VA] is because they've been told falsely that their service didn't count unless they were an infantry person, or for whatever crazy reason,” Thompson said. “All of that is bogus. We have to take away that lie and tell them that if you have a 214 [form] in your hand, you're entitled to care.”
Dr. Kathleen M. Chard is the associate chief of staff for research and the director of the Trauma Recovery Center at the Cincinnati VA Medical Center. There, she helps run one of the leading women’s treatment programs in the U.S.
Patients travel to the medical center from all over the country, she said. However, it’s also about treating veterans close to home.
“At any time, Ohio ranges from the fifth-most to seventh-most women-deployed veterans in the United States,” Chard said. “Ohio is a big contributor to the military, and so being able to have services for the veterans here is really, really important to me.”
According to Chard, the Cincinnati VA Medical Center was only the third women’s treatment program in the country at its founding.
“In Cincinnati, we were one of the first VAs to say that it doesn't matter whether your PTSD is from childhood experience or the military sexual assault,” Chard said. “We're here to treat you. We treat all of your trauma.”
Chard has been at the Cincinnati VA for about 20 years, and since her arrival, she’s developed two residential treatment programs. One is specifically for female veterans.
The program brings together cohorts of women to receive treatment over the course of three or seven weeks. The program employs evidence-based treatment, including cognitive processing therapy, to help veterans work through PTSD, MST and any other trauma they may be experiencing.
“There's still old ‘mythology’ that you can't treat PTSD. People still use language like, ‘You just manage the symptoms,’ that you'll always have it,” Chard said. “I always say, why, if we are built naturally to recover, should we subject you to a life of misery when it's just about getting the body to do what it's naturally meant to do?”
For both Thompson and Chard, spreading awareness about their offerings is one of their top priorities. They are both dedicated to reaching women veterans of all different backgrounds, they said.
“We tell [members], ‘You guys had aunts, you had grandmas, you had wives, you have sisters and daughters who served. Hey, we're out here.’ We want to be a part of who they are,” Thompson said.
For Thompson, providing community for female veterans is a crucial piece of the puzzle. She told CityBeat that women veterans have an unbreakable bond.
“There's a true community, especially with women, when a lot of them have been told that they don't matter and they don't count,” Thompson said. “[This is] a group of women that just need to be reminded of what they've already done and what they have the power to do in community going forth.”
