Elizabeth Estabrooks served as the Deputy Director at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Center for Women Veterans (CWV) in Washington, D.C. where she operated as the subject matter expert on women veteran issues, concerns, and needs both within and outside VA, speaking vehemently in favor of changes that improved safety and equity for women veterans. She was the lead on organizational and strategic planning, led development and implementation of new initiatives to support and enhance CWV’s mission and vision, and worked with researchers to lead the production of two Congressionally mandated studies: 1) Study on Unemployment Rate of Post 9/11 Women Veterans and 2) The Prevalence of Intimate Partner Violence in the Veteran Population. She was also the VA lead on development of a first-ever VA woman veterans’ survey to identify and understand low rates of VA benefits and healthcare usage by women.

Prior to assuming her role as Deputy Director, Elizabeth served as the Oregon Woman Veterans Coordinator with the Oregon Department of Veterans Affairs where she brought decades of knowledge and experience gained from her career working on relevant issues that included: domestic violence, (military) sexual assault, peer support services, community safety, gender- and culturally responsive services, and adult learning. In 2017, Elizabeth co-founded the I Am Not Invisible campaign and photo project for women veterans: a project that, due to her efforts, was adopted as a permanent program by the VA Center for Women Veterans in 2018.

Previously, she worked as an independent consultant advising clients that included the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention; Oregon Department of Human Services; Oregon Department of Public Safety Standards and Training; Battered Women’s Justice Project; Mental Health Partnerships of Pennsylvania; and the Edmonton Police Department in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

Elizabeth is a Peacetime Cold War Veteran of the United States Army, serving at Harvey Barracks in Kitzingen, Germany. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Gender Studies and Political Science from Eastern Oregon University where she graduated Summa Cum Laude and a Master of Science in Social Work from Columbia University in New York. She was appointed to the VA Secretary’s Task Force on Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Access in 2021 and the VA National Domestic Violence Task Force in 2012 and was a 2013 Fisher-Cummings Washington, D.C. Fellow.

She now travels and focuses on writing a blog and two books, speaking, and engaging as a freelance changemaker and consulting as a subject matter expert on women veterans.

www.linkedin.com/in/elizabethaestabrooks

https://www.instagram.com/lizzzarde/

https://medium.com/@ElizabethEstabrooks

Trigger Warning: Foul Language

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If you've ever wondered what it was like to be a woman in the military in the 19 seventies, don't miss our next guest story.

She bravely navigated the adversity and trials of a male dominated environment, paving the way for future generations of military women.

Tune in to hear her inspiring journey and the incredible challenges she overcame to make history.

Welcome to Dog Tag Diaries, where military women share true stories. We are your hosts, Captain Kim

and Captain Dakota. The stories you are about to hear are powerful. We appreciate that you have joined us and are eager to learn more about these experiences and connect with the military women who are willing to share their stories in order to foster community and understanding.

Their truth, they contribute to a deeper understanding of the challenges they face and the resilience they demonstrate.

We appreciate your decision to join us today to gain insights and knowledge from the experiences of these courageous military women. Thank you for being here. Joining us today is Elizabeth Estabrooks. She's a consultant, speaker, writer, and author with subject matter expertise on women and women veterans with a focus on equity and policy designed to improve services and outcomes. Thank you for joining us today.

You're welcome. Thanks for having me.

Of course. So we usually start off with you telling us how you were as a child and throughout your childhood.

So my mom always said I was born a feminist because different belief systems I had. One of the first times was when I was we went to Catholic school. It was the seventies when I was in school. 1 of the nuns said to me, and I don't know, 3rd grade, because penmanship was a big deal back then. She said to us that it was important that the girls have good handwriting because that way when they were secretaries or assistants or what have you, they could project a good image for their bosses. And so I got my back up over that, and she said doctors, you know, have terrible handwriting so that their nurses have to have good handwriting. So I got my back up. And so I intentionally set out to have really crappy penmanship.

I love that.

And my mom was so angry because I got good grades across the board, except in penmanship. And she just was kinda her mind was blown by that idea that I wouldn't get a good grade in something so simple. So that was my early foray into, you know, that just doesn't set right with me. We don't have to do something different because we're girls or just be the secretaries or not that there's anything wrong with that. I spent my early years being a secretary, but it was an idea.

Yeah. I love that story.

Isn't it interesting how our mindsets are set, like, upon different eras that we grew up in? And so we've definitely come a long way.

No badminton anymore and no more teachers. Well, I suppose in some areas, maybe teachers still say stuff like that to their students in some areas.

Yeah. And then you ended up in the military. Is that correct?

Yeah. So there were 7 kids in my family, and my mom was a single parent, which was, in the seventies, not an easy thing to do. She was pretty much widely hated. My mom was quite beautiful. So all the women hated her because they thought she wanted their husbands and all. It was kind of a a nightmare. So, anyway, she only had an 8th grade education, and she got her GED when I was in high school. But she made it happen with all of us.

She one of the things she did later with was she found a job at the VA. And my mom, even when she was older, when she we had her her funeral last year

Oh, I'm sorry. Love to your mom.

Thank you. My mom loved veterans, so I grew up with that. Not I don't think it was conscious, but recognizing. And I did I worked at the VA for a year when I was in high school as part of a school program. We didn't hear from my dad after he left. He disappeared, and there was never any child support or anything, so we were were raised in abject poverty. And so I looked out on the world and said, this is not for me. You know, divorce, poverty, etcetera.

So when I was a senior in high school, my boyfriend at the time proposed to me and I said no. And much to my mother's dismay, so I left. And at the year end to college, I believed I knew more than all the professors and everybody, so I left. This was in Colorado. So I moved to Oregon, and it was the late seventies, So it was there was a recession going on. And I had just bought a car. And and so I moved to Oregon. I had a job and I decided to get a different job that paid more.

And I gave my notice. They hired someone else. And a week before I was supposed to start the job, the guy called me and said, hey. Sorry. My best friend's daughter needed the job, so I gave it to her. So so I was stuck I was stuck with no job, bills to pay, and it was hard to find a job because it was the late seventies. So my friend, Ellen Joy, she was also a roommate. She came home one day and she was like, yeah.

I went to the recruiter's office saying, let's join the army. And I said, no. Let's not. So we went to the recruiter's office. She convinced me to just go with her. Well, she was a single parent of 2 children, and a recruiter told her that in order to join, she had to give up custody of her kids Wow. Because single women couldn't be in the military. I mean, it was the seventies, and they they had only start remember, they had only started letting pregnant women stay in the army in 1975, and this was 1977.

And they were pushing women out when they got pregnant. So she said, well, I'm out because I'm not giving up my custody. And I said, well, alright, I'm in. I'll still join. So I was supposed to join in the buddy buddy method with her and I had no buddy because she didn't join. So I joined the army. My mom was proud. My sister, Rita, was unhappy.

She was kinda upset. My other sisters and brothers were like, yeah. Whatever. My dad, when I called him because we were in contact at at the time, was very angry. He was a World War 2 veteran who had he was in during Okinawa and served under MacArthur, all that. But he was very angry with me. He told me that I needed to go to the recruiter's office and tell them I changed my mind. And, of course, I accused him of being a sexist pig.

And he said, no. It's because I know how women are treated in the military, and I'm not gonna have that for you. And I and my response was, it's too late for you to parent me now, so just whatever. So I I went off, and I didn't realize at the time WACs were ending, and I didn't realize that it was a big social experiment, and we were going to Fort Jackson was something completely new for women. So I went in. I was the 2nd wave of women to go through coed under regular army instead of the WACS program.

And what's the WACS program?

WACS, it's not really a program. It was it was the women's army corps. So between 1948 and it was women's army corps. The WAVs were navy, and the SPARS were coast guard. So they dismantled all of that and were integrating women, and this was Carter's idea because Carter was a feminist. And so he wanted more women to join, believe we had a bigger place in the military. And so one of the things that they decided to do was integrate and lift the percentage and so that more women could be in the military and have access to more jobs. Although we still there were still about 3,000 jobs we weren't allowed to do just because for JJ.

Right.

That was good.

And really, that was the only reason. Not that we couldn't, but that we weren't allowed. So I went to Fort Jacks, Jackson, and the reality of being a woman in the military came to rest within about the first two minutes. You know, you get off the bus and they're screaming and yelling at you. And I'm not I don't know if that's the way it is now, but in '78, that was a thing. Because I joined in late December and went to basic in January. So they got us all into that haphazard formation, and the drill sergeant was telling us all, you know, this is your family. Look to your left.

Look to your right. Look to your front. Look to your back. This is your family, your brothers and sisters. They'll always have your back, blah blah blah blah blah blah. And then in the next breath, he said, and for you girls out there, you need to understand that there is no place in this man's army for girls. And if we have anything to do with it, y'all will fail it out of basic training. Wow.

And it was interesting because I never thought about this until later, especially because of the work that I was doing with women veterans and in military sexual trauma and dynamics and foundations. And it occurred to me some years later that in that moment, they issued a very big lesson for the girl the women and the men both. Because we had been on the bus coming from the Welcome Center to Fort Fort Jackson, and we had there'd been camaraderie between the boys and girls. You know, we were a bunch of high school barely out of high school age kids. You know, we were having fun and because we didn't know what was in front of us. But in that moment, we could feel a shift in the attitudes of all those men. We could hear things like, yeah, bitch. And it occurred to me years later that that was the all the training and permission that those men needed to start to change how they viewed us and how they started treating us because we were othered right then and there by that drill sergeant.

We didn't belong there, and he made that very clear and very direct message to the men that we were standing shoulder to shoulder with. And that sort of defined the next 3 years in the military for me. I don't believe that sexual assault and harassment in the military is even close to ending. You know, I talked to a lot of women who have told me stories still. But when I was there, and it was different for other women because I've talked to some women who were like, they didn't experience that. But between I went to Fort Jackson, and then I went to Fort Lee, and then I went to Kitsik in Germany for the remainder of my term and was stationed there at Harvey barracks. And from the time I was in Fort Jackson until literally the day I left, every single day was unending nonstop sexual harassment. They were men grabbing their crotches, calling out.

They would literally hang out the windows and yell obscenities at us. And I remember one day when I was in Germany, we had to walk we were on one side of the base, so we were at a a supply off base. And we had to walk through, and when we got to the end of the base, it was the 115th armored division, and that was a nightmare. It was a whole like, they would form a gauntlet. It was terrible. It was a horrible experience for some young women to go through. But I remember one day, we were walking. I worked with myself and 2 other women in my company, and a Captainwas coming toward us.

So, of course, we saluted, and the men were the men did not stop just because there was an officer there. And the captains returned our salute and looked over and made a big obvious wink to the men. And we had never complained because when we tried, nothing happened. And so it was an unpleasant experience for me at best.

Liz, it sounds the story sounds so disgraceful. And tell us a little bit of how that made you feel being treated like that and that you felt like you had no one to turn to to report the behavior.

Yeah. Thank you. So at the time, it didn't really sink in the effect. It was making them more and more angry all the time. I was some of the women would kind of go in on themselves and walk with their heads down and not look and and just you could tell that how it was affecting them. But what it did to me or for me, I don't know if it was 2 or 4 or both, was it made me more and more angry, and it made me fight, and it made me really find a great deal of distaste in military men, quite frankly. Because even if they weren't doing it, even if they weren't actively engaged in the harassment and the grabbing and the groping and all of that, they were standing by and watching and saying nothing. So in my mind, they were all guilty.

Every last one of them. Friends, all of them, they were all guilty because they just stood there. And, you know, that's why I believe that bystander intervention is so important, but in many cases, like with VA, they did a really crappy job of it, and it's terrible. It's a terrible program. But I think that, you know, I hear a lot of men in my work say things like, well, women need to stop this. No. We don't. If we could stop it, don't you think we would stop it a 1000 years ago? You need to stop it.

You men need to stop this. You need to do your part in stopping this and keeping your traps shut and not staring at us and not opening your mouths and telling us to smile or how pretty we I just wanna go from point a to point b and get my shit done. Alright? That's all I I don't want to be accosted on the way there. And so that experience in the military really soured my viewpoint of men.

I'm so sorry that happened to you. Thank you.

But I had already witnessed some abuse in my before I joined the military. My mom had been married to an abusive man, somebody I knew. You know, I watched her husband backhand her off of the chair. And so I already had these formulated opinions, but not all men. And then when I was in the army and I still struggle with, is it all men? It's a good number of them. There's a reason we choose the bear for god's sake because we can't trust them. And so my view of the world and of men was really colored by that. I remember one day we were standing on the company steps.

The men were doing what the men do, and we had an SEO and an XO in our company and that were women, and they were both useless in providing any support. And the XO, I said something I probably cursed. I cursed really a lot, and it was all anger based. And so I said something to the man, I don't remember what, in anger, yelling at them. And she said to me, you know, Ester Brooks, if you you can catch more flies with honey than you can with vinegar, if you're just nicer to them, they maybe woke to that. And so it was just that one thing after another. And in fairness that our sergeant at our company at our platoon sergeant because I was the first woman in that company, and I was the only woman for about 6 months. And so he went to the men in the company and assembled them and said, no.

You won't be doing this. But he wasn't around all the time. Right? And he didn't control all the other men on base. And the truth is that if I was on base in uniform, it was happening, period, no matter what base I was on. So, anyway, it took me a long time to realize that that harassment because I always thought military sexual trauma was just from rape and sexual assault. So it took me a long time to understand that military for those women out there listening, I heard a woman who was WAVE once said to me she said, oh, that counts as MST? I thought that was just WAVE hate. So we find all of these ways to say to ourselves, that's what happens when you join this man's army or when you join the marines or but the truth is is that it gets in there and it causes trauma. So I have military sexual trauma from that, which, you know, here we are.

Yeah. I love that you said that. Because like you said, a lot of women think that it's rape and inappropriate touching, but so much more than that. And it's the constant harassment day in, day out and having to live with that. And a lot of women don't identify with that, so they feel like they're not validated with their experience.

That's right. And so I always try to make sure. I don't like saying women experienced military sexual trauma. I always fight that phrase. No, they didn't. They experienced harassment, assault, and or rape. What they have as a result of that is trauma. Those experiences, those behaviors from those people caused trauma.

So they didn't experience military sexual trauma. They experienced military sexual assault, assault, rape, and harassment in the military, and now they have MST because of that. And I used to try to talk to the VA all the time and say stop saying stop saying women experience military sexual trauma. Let's change our language so that women are very clear, and men are very clear about the experiences they had that led to their trauma.

Yeah. I like that. That's really good. Well, thank you for sharing your story with us. You mentioned that you are writing a book. Can you tell us more about that?

Yeah. So I'll kinda go back. When I got out of the army, I went and and I tell the story in my book. There were no transition programs. It was, again, it was the eighties. They they weren't doing all that. And so I got out, and I went to the employment office in Seattle where I was living, and she just kinda looked at me like, I don't know what to do with this military stuff. So she completely overlooked that part of my resume and sent me to a job as a as a customer service rep in a in a bank.

Because she didn't know what to do with a woman who had been in the army and been in supply. It was and she just couldn't wrap her mind around that. So she sent me to bank and I got a job there. And I stayed in banking and insurance from 1980 until 1993. And then in 1993, I was invited to join the Baker County Commission on Children and Families. And from there, I was invited to join the board of Mayday, which is the domestic violence crisis intervention center in eastern in Baker City, Oregon. That's where I started my work, and I did that work for the most of 30 years. That's the work I did, something in the field of domestic violence or sexual assault violence against women in general, inequities, you know, and looking through the intersectional lens at women of color and their experiences.

And so and LGBTQ women. And it's funny, when I got to VA, we weren't allowed to add the queue. It was just LGBT. And that was only in 2020. And so I kept adding queue, and I told my communications director, I said, always add the queue. Add the queue until we're told not to. Add it on our faith

loop. Good for you.

Unless because that's how I roll. And so then when the Madonna administration came on, they're like teenagers. They like to think that they did it all. Like, I made that. I developed I I invented standing in lines. And so they started adding the queue, and they acted like they'd done something special because, oh, we invented the queue, and we started adding. So that's the work that all of that informed my work over the years. And I and as a result mom was sexually assaulted from the age of 9 to 15.

So that affected her everything about her as an adult, being So that affected her everything about her as an adult, being that survivor and not having you know, in back when my mom was little, even in some cultures today, it was like, don't tell anyone. Just don't talk about it. So she carried that shame and that guilt and that burden with her, believing it was her fault, all those until she died. And so when I was asked to be on the board of May Day, I started thinking about all the women I knew who had been somehow harmed through an act of violence, whether it was emotional, mental, verbal, or whether it was death, like, that whole continuum. And I realized I had to say yes. I knew so almost every single woman I knew had some experience. And so that was my jump into that field. And I stayed in that field until, you know, even when I was in the VA, I was using my expertise.

They I was the one that they sent the emails to when an email was sent about a woman who had been sexually assaulted or harassed or raped. And so and it was having an issue because we used to get emails from women all over the country about problems they were having with VA. And so I never realized that that was having an impact on me until I went to graduate school. And I was when I got into graduate school in 2011, every single thing I did was about women veterans. I decided to turn my focus because I had never called myself a veteran. I'd never thought of myself. I was just a girl who was in the army. I wasn't a veteran.

Right? And so I started doing all this research. I was just up to here. And in my undergraduate program, my my degree was in political science and gender studies, and so all of my focus on top of the work I was doing was about abuse and assault and women's. And so I had been just deeply embedded in that for a long time. And so I was taught something had happened. I was at the DCVA, and I was sitting in a waiting room. And this old dude and I don't know if you 2 do this, but I know you see a lot of women in the VA who have earphones, and they look like they're reading a book. And my earphones were never turned on because I had to be aware of the situation around me.

And this old dude down to there were, like, 3 or 4 men in this waiting room and myself and this old dude down, like, a few chairs from me said, hey, beautiful. And I was ignoring him. I could hear him, but I ignored him. And he got up from his chair, and there was a guy between us. And he came around. He said, hey, beautiful. I'm talking to you. You wanna get some coffee? And I continued to look down at my book and ignore him.

And I had my feet my legs crossed, and he took his cane and he hit the bottom of my foot. He said, bitch, I'm talking to you. And I put my book down and I took out my earphones, and I said, listen to me, you fucker. You ever touch me again, and I will kill you with that fucking cane. And it was interesting because I knew that the people who worked there could hear this going on because the window was right to my right, and they were ignoring it until I threatened to kill them. Then they came running out like it was suddenly important because I, you know, I made the huge mistake of speaking something to a man who was acting heinously and who had literally hit me with this cane. And they brought me back, and she said, are you okay? And I said, no. I'm not okay.

What do you say? I just was assaulted by a male veteran, and y'all just sat there. And the only reason you came and got me is because I threatened to kill that fucker. I don't experience a lot of sexual harassment at the VA anymore, and I don't know if it's because I'm 65 and they don't care or if it's because it's gotten better. But I still move through the VA with caution and awareness.

That outburst from you shows that that was years of being harassed and that those outbursts aren't just for no reason. That was years of you experiencing that and not being heard or seen. Yeah. Gosh, Elizabeth, how frustrating.

Yeah. So I, I was outside my mind. And I called the guy that I was seeing, and I was telling him, and he said very gently. He was a very kind, gentle kinda guy. He said, I'm just gonna suggest something, and you can do with it what you want or tell me to mind my business. But he said, does it because he knew about my experience in the military. I had shared that with him. And he said, I'm just wondering if between all the work that you've been doing and all, you know, the deep dive you've been taking into military sexual trauma And this combined, do you think you maybe have your own military sexual trauma? And I just that hit me.

Like, it had not occurred to me that that was a thing that I had. And so I did I do anything about it? No. No. I was busy. I I shoved it under, you know, where it belonged, under the rug.

And you kinda normalize it because it's happening, like, on a daily and you wanna you have to stay safe in your environment somehow.

Yeah.

And so, like you said, bearing it and just normalizing it or justifying it and being like, well, this is how I have to kind of live in order to

In order to live. Yeah. In order to live. That's what you do. You bury it. And so I'm working in Oregon as the Oregon women veterans coordinator. And, and I'm listening to these stories that women would tell me, and some of them were exceedingly brutal. And I continued to do my reading and my research, and I was talking about it, and I was training on it, and I was teaching, and it was a constant in my life.

And I'm a workaholic when I'm working, so I was working 12 to 16 hours a day, just constant. It was always in front of my face. And so finally, I was working on adding a the only thing I had as a disability at the time were my flat feet and my knees. And so Gus, who was a VSO at at the time, he's gently suggested that he should also include MST in the claim. And I was like, no. And And he said, let's talk about this. And so I did. And so they rated me at, I don't know, 10 or 30% for military sexual trauma.

And I

Yikes.

Yeah. And so I started seeing a psychologist because I realized that I needed something. I needed there was something going on. And it was for MST. And, actually, it was interesting because, you know, they ask you all the questions when you go in. And did anything ever happen to you? And I had said yes a couple of times, but everybody that I spoke to just literally one doctor literally lifted up my folder and shoved it underneath the folder, my questionnaire. And so I said to the one psychologist I was seeing, I said, you know, I've always answered yes, but nobody has ever asked me about it. And she got very embarrassed and said, I'm sorry.

That's on me. I should've asked. I should've seen that, and I should've asked about it, and I should've done something. And so I just did that, and it I don't know. I wouldn't say it helped. But I think part of it is because I was still so heavily in that mode. So I just kept doing the work, and I just kept doing the work, and I just kept doing the work. And when I got to VA, I was doing other work, but I was reading in May of 22, a woman contacted us because she'd been sexually assaulted at the Atlanta VA twice by a doctor.

And under secretary Rimi, he was still employed there, and she wanted him gone, understandably. And under secretary Ramey told myself and the director at the time that the VA has a policy, and this was 22, as a policy that as long as a provider still holds a state medical license, they will retain their employment at the VA even after being accused of or found guilty of sexual assault.

I did not know that, and what an interesting protocol.

Mhmm. Yeah. You know, all the while that they're talking about how they're trying to improve safety for women in the VA, and my head exploded. The next day, I had to call in sick because I all I could do was cry. I just and I thought, what the fuck am I doing here? Why am I here? Like, I had been used to my whole career in that field, I had been used to wins, to being able to push toward a win and getting that win. And it occurred to me that there was nothing I could do. The VA wasn't gonna change. They didn't care about women veterans in that deeper way.

I mean, I get my care at the VA. I appreciate that having the VA there available for veterans, but it it occurred to me that it was all smoke and mirrors. All of their supposed concern about the safety and health of women veterans was just bullshit. And so I could feel myself just sort of starting to crumble. And then later in, I think it was August, a woman was contacting me, and she was her story was the the worst story in my career that I ever heard. The fact that she lived through it is nothing but a miracle, and that completed my crumbling. I just then there was a thing that happened with my boss, and I shattered one day. And I called my psychologist.

I called my my friend who talked me in off the ledge. I said I have to take a mental health leave. This is a toxic work environment, and I cannot do this anymore. And my psychologist said to me, given your own experiences in the military and your own MST, the fact that you entered this field and stayed there for 30 years is amazing and shocking that you lasted this long. You can never do anything in this field. I know this is your expertise, but you're done, Liz, for your own mental health, for your own safety, physical and emotional. You have to leave this. You can't listen to stories.

You can't do this anymore because it is your undoing. And so when I left, I had met women who had experienced sexual assault and harassment and rape in the military. Then something had improved, or there was something in their life that the VA deemed healthy or overcoming. And so they would either reduce their MST, service connected disability, or they would deny it entirely. And over the years, I had heard stories from women. And I'll give you an example. I met a woman on my travels in the south who had been abused by her husband during their 30 year marriage, and she left him. And they're southerners, and, you know, daddy and everybody thought she should've just stayed.

And so she said to this day, when she because we build up spots over our scars. And she said to this day, one of her family members will make some comment about him, and she should have stayed with him. She can feel that re break, and she has to go away for, like, 3 days and be away from her family and everybody. Till she goes she gets in our camper and she leaves. And so I I started thinking about the idea of being broken in those stronger places. There's a, Japanese art called kintsugi, and I I might be saying it wrong, kintsugi. And it's it was developed 1000 of years ago, and Emperor had a broken vase. And he sent it out to be fixed and nobody couldn't.

Finally, he found an artisan who added lacquer and gold. And so this scar where he where he put it back together, there was a there were gold scars that showed on the outside, and it made the piece more beautiful. And he the whole thing around it was even though it has these now scars, the scars make it more beautiful. They you know, it's stronger in those broken places, and psych the field of psychology developed a whole thing around, yes. Now we can be stronger in our broken places because we've put lacquer and lacquer and gold and add some more lacquer and add some more gold, rinse and repeat. And so what I began to understand was that those stronger places can shatter like they did with me. Because of an incident or occurrence or a series of incidents or occurrences, I had spent literally decades adding lacquer and gold and more lacquer and more gold. And then the VA happened, and I and all those thousands of stories, and there was one or 2 that broke the camel's back, as the old saying goes, and I shattered.

Those stronger places shattered. So the my book is broken into stronger places, and it's about my story, which I rarely tell, my story in the military before. Like, my story and how we need we as survivors, need to understand that, yes, we can go to therapy, and and I believe in all of that. But that doesn't mean that we're safe from that breaking happening again, that that still is a part of our lives and our history. If something happens, if a shattering happens, if that broken place snaps, it's not because of something we've done wrong. It's because it's still a broken place. It's still broken under that under that gold and that lacquer. And so how can we take that knowledge? And instead of punishing people for doing a good job because you're a successful artist and a successful author or because you found a relationship or whatever, it doesn't mean you're okay.

It means that's the thing. That's your golden lacquer. That husband is your golden lacquer or that wife. And if they're suddenly gone, your lacquer and your gold are gone, and it can shatter. If your ability to do your art you know, we don't when somebody has a hearing loss, the VA gives us a disability for that. And, for instance, my brother-in-law had a cochlear implant. He will always have a 100%, because if they remove that cochlear implant, he will be completely deaf. So we need to apply that same thinking to mental health and to trauma that we apply to physical health and physical pain.

That is such an informative and creative way of describing all of that. Don't you think, Dakota?

Wow. Yeah. I'm really excited to read that book. Wow. That's amazing. I'm so glad you're doing this.

Thanks. So my hope is that it'll be done in the fall, and I can find a publisher and get it out there.

Please let us know because we will put that out as well. I I feel like a lot of females need to hear these stories. And, 1, I wanna say that I love how your mom was so influential in your life. I heard you bring her up a few times, and I know you said that you had to bury her last year. But I just wanna give love to your mom because she helped pave this way for this journey for you. And, 2, I love how you took that negative experience in the military as a woman and helped to pave the way for other military women. So thank you from Dakota and I because we're hearing different stories of the women in the military in different generations. And so it just helps to hear the stories, help heal, and know that you're not alone.

Yeah. And I really am excited about your book because, like you said, like, we can do all this work to help ourselves, but that scar is still there. And, like, how do you continue when you do break again?

And I think that's the challenge is how do you continue.

Yeah. Exactly. Wow. And we heard you say that you very rarely share your story. So we really appreciate you coming on this podcast because there was a lot of passion behind your story. And to be so vulnerable, I feel like this is gonna open a lot of doors for a lot of other women to say, yeah. You know what? That wasn't okay. That wasn't okay.

We've lived like this for so long thinking that this is how we're supposed to survive in the military, and you're just not. That that you go into the military to become a soldier, to fight overseas or for our freedom and not to be sexually harassed or sexually assaulted. And so we need to just continue this journey that and this path that you have paved for us. So thank you. And you did some another thing that's amazing, but because of time constraints, we're gonna have to bring you on again.

Okay.

Yeah. You did the I am not invisible project, and so we will put that in the the notes so people can go and see what that's all about. But if you don't mind, we would love to bring you on again for another episode.

Absolutely.

Yeah. I know for me listening to you speak, my blood boiled. I got the chills. I teared up. Like, it's just so powerful, and I really appreciate you coming on because I know, like Kim said, this is gonna be huge, and I think a lot of women need to hear what you've been through.

Yeah. And I hope it doesn't trigger women. So maybe a trigger warning at the beginning because and I think I shared this already. The downside to that for me is that I literally can't be in a room where somebody is sharing their story. And that is sad for me in a number of ways because I've always been that person. And I don't know why, but women have just always come to me and told me their stories. And so I have to be very careful about the spaces that I I won't go to a retreat because of the fear that that will happen. So I would love to go to your retreats.

Well, I can tell you why women come to you, Elizabeth. You're very personable and you're very you make people be seen and heard and loved, and you very accepting. So that's why people come to you and tell you their stories.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

And you get shit done. Like, you advocate, and you make things happen. So yeah.

Yes. You do, and we're very proud of you. So thank you, 1, for your service, and thank you for taking that negative experience and turning it into a positive for yourself and all women military women moving forward. Is there anything you would like to say to other military women that are either in the military now or may think about going in in the future?

So I always tell women not to join. That's I tell women until the military becomes a safe place for you, women should not join. But I know that's my clouded view. But then when women do go, like my niece, what I say is make sure you document, document. I gave my niece a little stack of small, like, pocket notebooks and some small pencils and pens Instead, you write down everything. You write down every single thing. You write down every incident of harassment. You write down all the touching and the drooping and the grabbing.

If you get hurt, if you get like, she was in that MP training and she got, whatever, master at arms or whatever it's in the navy. Sorry. Navy sisters. I don't remember what it's called. She's always correcting me. But you know, if you get an injury, take a picture of it, document, document, document, so that when you get out, when you get out, you can get that benefit easier. And if you've been out and you didn't document, don't let that stop you. The VA continues to use the word, like, proof or whatever it is, but I had no proof.

I had no proof of my military the the harassment and stuff. My sister wrote a letter. My friend wrote a letter that I served with. So there are ways to get it. Don't not do it because you somebody told you couldn't or somebody implied that you shouldn't or whatever the case might be. Find a good VSO. Interview VSOs. People just go to whatever VSOs.

It's like, no, interview them. And if they don't feel like they're going to be the right person for you, find a new VSO and find somebody who's going to advocate for you or fight for you. In Oregon, we're lucky we've got Jessica Bradley, the Oregon women veterans coordinator. We have advocacy groups like your own. So I always tell women, make sure you go for those benefits. You earned them.

Oh, I love this. That is great advice. That is great advice. And thank you again for being on our show. You make a difference. You do. So, thank you very much.

You're welcome.

Thank you for tuning in to Dog Tag Diaries. We appreciate your willingness to listen and engage with these stories as we understand the challenge that comes with sharing and hearing them. Your support in witnessing the experience of our military women is invaluable. These stories are meant to inspire and provide meaning, and we hope they can help you find your own voice as well.

If you or anyone you know are in need of immediate help, call crisis line by dialing 988, then press 1. There are resources available to help and provide guidance during difficult times. Please visit our website, www.reveilleandretreatproject.org, to learn more about the Reveille and Retreat Project, including upcoming retreats for military women and resources. The link is in the show notes. We'll be here again next Wednesday. Keep finding the hope, the healing, and the power in community.