Jackson County Chronicle

A Jackson County mother’s attempt to purchase a Veteran’s Day card for her daughter serves as a reminder that not all veterans are men.

Beth Darst of Alma Center visited a local chain store in Black River Falls prior to Halloween to purchase a Veteran’s Day card for her daughter, Christie Mathews.

Mathews, along with other members of the 1158th National Guard Transportation Unit, spent nearly a year in Iraq in 2004 and 2005.

In her search for a Veteran’s Day card, Darst found only five.

“Four of them were for men,” she said. “That’s out and out sexist. It’s not like we went over there and just did the cooking.”

While deployed overseas, Mathews and the other 280 members of the 1158th performed convoy missions, as the unit drove their M1070 Heavy Equipment Transporters throughout Iraq.

Mathews, who celebrated her 19th birthday in Iraq, certainly was not the only female to serve in the 1158th.

“There were quite a few,” she said. “If I had to guess, I would say a third were female.”

According to the U.S. Department of Defense Web site, 24 million veterans recently celebrated Veteran’s Day.

To Darst, five Veteran’s Day cards to choose from are simply not enough.

Mathews, a Lincoln High School graduate who is now a freshman at UW-Milwaukee majoring in business, shares in her mother’s frustration regarding the lack of greeting cards for female veterans.

“I feel offended. I feel frustrated,” she said. “It’s kind of like we are ignored. We certainly don’t ask for it, but we deserve that recognition.”

Darst feels the lack of Veteran’s Day cards is only a small part of a bigger problem.

With the conflict in Iraq ongoing, Mathews hopes those who are currently serving and who will serve in the future are not, and will not, be forgotten.

“There is still a war going on and it feels like the country has forgotten about it,” Mathews said. “It has become such a political issue, but people still have to go there and need support.”

Margaret Garvin, a veteran of the navy who now works at the Jackson County Veterans Service Department, said it is hard to say if female veterans are overlooked.

“I know a lot of women who want the extra attention, but yet there are a lot of women who want to be treated equally,” she said.

Gundel Metz, an army veteran, serves as the Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs coordinator for women veterans’ issues. She has been participating in Veteran’s Day activities “for years.”

“There is still a ways to go, but we are making headway in recognizing women veterans,” she said.

Gundel noted Wisconsin held its first ever statewide Women Veterans Conference on Sept. 29 at the Wisconsin Military Academy at Fort McCoy.