Rep. Carla Piluso (D-Gresham) has introduced a bill to establish a Women Veterans Coordinator at the Oregon Department of Veterans’ Affairs. The coordinator would help female vets and their families access their benefits. Out of the 331,632 veterans living in Oregon, 28,483 are women. Vets are entitled to a variety of medical, educational, housing, and other support services, but many female vets are not taking advantage of these. In 1994, Congress established the Center for Women Veterans, and today almost all states have State Women Veterans Coordinators, according to the US Department of Veterans Affairs.
Lady WWII pilot shares her story
Review of “My Piece of the Sky” by Oregonian, Anna Louise Flynn Monkiewicz, a WWII aviator.
Review by Naomi Inman
Oregon Faith Report
Anna Louise Flyyn Monkiewicz grew up outside of Boston, MA in the smaller town of Natick, MA. She had two sisters and a brother. Anna remembers the day she first wanted to fly. She was 8 years old and Charles Lindbergh had just made his historic flight.
“I decided way back then that I wanted to fly,” she remembers. “I told my family that I wanted to fly, and they all thought I was a little crazy.” Mom and Pop answered, “You’re not old enough and you’re not rich enough.”
“I knew that others considered women fliers as out of the ordinary, however, I didn’t see flying as a gender thing anymore than swimming or dancing could be a gender thing.”
Shanghai Diary
Ursula Bacon fled Nazi Germany with her parents in 1939 and landed in Shanghai, China, along with more than 18,000 other Middle European Jews. The family spent most of the war years in a Japanese-controlled “designated area,” often referred to as the “Shanghai Ghetto.” She came to the United States in 1947.
She has written a book about her experiences, Shanghai Diary, A Young Girl’s Journey from Hitler’s Hate to War-torn China.