Jennifer Jackson
Jennifer Umland is used to being invisible. When she and her husband go to community events honoring veterans, people come up to him and shake his hand.
“Everywhere we go, they thank our husbands for their service,” she said of women veterans. “Being visible is a constant struggle for us.”
Jennifer is a retired U.S. Army specialist and adjutant of Clinton’s VFW Post 1894. She is organizing the post’s first “Ladies Military Support Event,” scheduled for Oct. 22, and hopes women veterans, their families and women in active service will show up.
According to the National Center for Veteran Analysis, Missouri has more veterans than any other state, 416,000, of which 40,000 are female.
“I’m searching for sisters,” Jennifer said. “I’ve got lots of brothers.”
The goal: To get the word out to women veterans and military families about the services available. There are more than 2 million living female veterans in the United States, but as of 2019, less than half of them were enrolled in the Veteran’s Administration health system.
The event, on Saturday, Oct. 22 from 9 a.m. to noon, will feature Jenny Rosales Wolfgeher, a service officer from the Veteran’s Administration (VA) in Columbia, Mo. VA mobile service trailers are coming from Kansas City and Columbia.
Jennifer put together care bags for the first 50 female veterans in attendance, and draw-string back-packs for the first 100 people who attend. Female veterans will also receive Challenge Coins, with the logo, “She wears boots, too.” Door prizes will be given out during the event.
At 10 a.m., a Quilt of Valor will be presented to a local woman veteran who has been affected by war.
Forty vendors of products and services for veterans, or by woman veterans, and four food trucks will be on site. Finding Freedom Service Dogs, which provides service dogs to veterans and children with autism, is coming from Sedalia with a service dog. A company offering phone amplifiers for veterans with hearing impairments will have a table, and there will be information on other resources and military support options for families.
Women veterans who own businesses coming to the event include a woman who breeds Dalmatian dogs. Soldier Girl Coffee Company, founded by a woman veteran, promotes coffee with attitude, as does its line of clothing, caps and coffee cups.
The logo on a Soldier Girl tank top: “Every GI is not Joe.”
The idea for the Ladies Military Support Event has been percolating for several years, Jennifer said. It started when a friend who had a daughter in the military told Jennifer about her attempt to get a power of attorney for her grandson while her daughter was in Marine boot camp. They didn’t believe her, that the daughter was in the Marines or at boot camp, Jennifer said, so they had to say she was in jail.
The perception that all veterans are male isn’t just prevalent in the civilian world. According to a VFW survey, the VA continues to confuse older women veterans with spouses or caregivers, or challenges their veteran status. Women have qualified for membership in the VFW since serving as nurses in World War I.
Originally from Oak Grove, Mo., Jennifer graduated from Oak Grove School in 1986 and enlisted in the Army. With her unit, the 101st Airborne, she served in Honduras and Egypt. She now works as a hospice nurse in Clinton, and has volunteered at medical facilities in Iraq and the Ukraine.
The Clinton VFW Post has an auxiliary with several male members, including her husband, Jennifer said. She hopes the Ladies Military Support Event will bring out enough women veterans to form a support group.
Jennifer is part of the post’s honor guard that fires gun salutes at veteran’s funerals, and is in charge of placing flags at the cemetery on Memorial Day. Jennifer is also a speaker at local schools for Veteran’s Day programs.
Although there are several female members of the VFW Post, which she joined in 2011, she is just now feeling like they are accepted, she said, for which credits Bruce Tarleton, post commander.
Sponsors for the Ladies Military Support Event are Hawthorn Bank, Henry M. Adkins & Son Printing, Dr. Amy Etters of Golden Valley Memorial Healthcare, and Dr. Laura Briseno-Kenney of Leeton.
At community events honoring veterans, when people come up to her husband to shake his hand, he points to Jennifer and says, “No, it’s her.” The hands immediately drop, she said, but it’s not because people are disrespectful, it’s because they are surprised.
The VFW Post, at 510 W. Allen St. in Clinton, meets on the second Thursday of the month. Jennifer’s goal: to have women veterans recognized in their communities.
“I want everybody who comes through the door to be asked “Are you a veteran?”
