BILL NUMBER: ACR 158	INTRODUCED
	BILL TEXT


INTRODUCED BY   Assembly Member Yamada
   (Coauthors: Assembly Members Cook, DeVore, Huber, Lieu, V. Manuel
Perez, Salas, and Saldana)
   (Coauthors: Senators Cedillo, Wiggins, and Wolk)

                        APRIL 14, 2010

   Relative to Women Veterans Recognition Month.


	LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST


   ACR 158, as introduced, Yamada. Women Veterans Recognition Month.
   This measure would proclaim the month of May to be Women Veterans
Recognition Month.
   Fiscal committee: no.



   WHEREAS, The August 2009 California Research Bureau report,
"California's Women Veterans: The Challenges and Needs of Those Who
Served" made all of the following findings; and
   WHEREAS, Dr. Anita Newcomb McGee founded the Army Nurse Corps,
which the Army Reorganization Act of 1901 permanently established. In
1908, the pioneering team of 20 Navy nurses became "the Sacred
Twenty." The Army and Navy did not commission these women as
officers. Nevertheless, that act marked the first time a reserve
corps of the Army and Navy included women; and
   WHEREAS, Women entered the Armed Forces when Congress established
the Women's Army Corps in 1942 and Women in the Air Force in 1943,
which commissioned women as officers and paid women the same benefits
as men including pay and protection; and
   WHEREAS, During the Vietnam War, approximately 7,000 women were
deployed as nurses, medical personnel, and as general support
personnel; and
   WHEREAS, During the Persian Gulf War, the federal government
deployed approximately 41,000 women who flew combat aircraft,
operated missile placements, served on ships, drove in convoys, and
performed other roles in a combat environment; and
   WHEREAS, In the early 1990s, Congress and the Department of
Defense lifted restrictions that prevented women from training for
and working in over 260,000 military occupational specialties; and
   WHEREAS, Women make up 13 percent of the troops deployed during
Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom which is the
largest wartime deployment of women in history; and
   WHEREAS, Eight percent, or nearly 167,000 veterans living in
California, are women, which is the greatest proportion of female
veterans in the country; and
   WHEREAS, More than 200,000 women are serving in the military as
truck drivers, convoy security, gunners, medics, military police, and
helicopter pilots as well as working in intelligence, maintenance,
communications, and other logistical and operational support areas;
and
   WHEREAS, There are 3,326 women serving in the California National
Guard, which is 15 percent of the total number of men and women
enlisted; and
   WHEREAS, Women veterans reluctantly seek care in Veterans Affairs
hospitals, a mostly male patient environment where physicians do not
practice healthcare specific to women; and
   WHEREAS, Eighty percent of servicewomen have reported being
sexually harassed or have suffered military sexual trauma (MST),
which the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, defines as
"sexual harassment that is threatening in character or physical
assault of a sexual nature that occurred while the victim was in the
military, regardless of geographic location of the trauma, gender of
victim, or the relationship to the perpetrator"; and
   WHEREAS, In 2007, 46,000 women veterans reported MST. Although one
in three women was sexually assaulted while in the military, women
underreport MST and few cases get to military court, in part, because
survivors must continue to live and work with their perpetrators.
Some women veterans were assaulted by their superior officers; and
   WHEREAS, Women veterans who have suffered MST are nine times more
likely to develop Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) than women
without sexual assault histories; and
   WHEREAS, Women returning from Operation Iraqi Freedom and
Operation Enduring Freedom are at a higher risk for depression than
men. They are also more likely than male veterans to have experienced
serious psychological distress; and
   WHEREAS, Women veterans are four times more likely than their
civilian counterparts to become homeless. Many veterans' homeless
shelters do not accept women veterans with children even though this
demography is growing; and
   WHEREAS, California's women veterans need recognition and respect
for their military service; and
   Resolved by the Assembly of the State of California, the Senate
thereof concurring, That the Legislature hereby proclaims the month
of May to be Women Veterans Recognition Month; and be it further
   Resolved, That the Chief Clerk of the Assembly transmit copies of
this resolution to the author for appropriate distribution.