Female troops returning from deployment

Female soldiers are returning from deployment in record numbers, according to Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, they are 15 percent of the active-duty military. Women at higher risk than male soldiers for developing PTSD, they’re likely to have a harder time finding jobs, and they’re also more likely to be single parents with children to support. Female vets face somber statistics such as their risk becoming homeless upon returning is four times greater , and the likelihood that they will commit suicide is twice as high as their male counterparts for women under the age of 50.

We’ll be speaking with veteran Jennifer Crane, who joined us in 2009 for a show on PTSD and Returning Troops, having recently returned from Afghanistan. She now works for the organization that helped her get therapy, GiveAnHour. We’ll also be joined by Tiffany T. Johnson, a US Air Force Veteran who participated in a multi-media art project that explained to healthcare providers, through daily experiences with a video camera, what the needs of re-integrating veterans are in reality.

We’ll also be joined by three experts, Dr. Amy Street, acting Director of the Women’s Health Division of the National Center for PTSD Dr. Briana Nelson Goff, a professor who specializes in working with primary and secondary traumatic stress symptoms in trauma survivor couples, families and children, with specific focus on military and disaster-related traumatic events, at Kansas State University. We’ll also speak with Dr. Janice Krupnick, a research professor and the Department of Psychiatry Director of the Trauma and Loss Program at Georgetown University Medical Center.

We’ll hear from the organization Grace After Fire, a non- profit in Texas whose aim is to provide the means for women Veterans to gain self-knowledge and self-renewal. We’ll also hear from a filmmaker who followed female vets to the middle east and back to make the documentary Journey to Normal. In addition, the PBS special Coming Back with Wes Moore, a story of three vets re-integrating after returning from deployment, including representative Tammy Duckworth, episode 2 airs Tuesday 05/20 at 8 p.m. and Episode 3 airs Tuesday 05/27 at 8 p.m. on WHYY-TV.