“It was frustrating. I had a very purpose-driven job, and when I got out, I went to a community college and waited tables,” Grenier said.

Grenier participated in the transition classes offered by the military, but to her, they were ineffective and unhelpful. She searched job portals and worked as a bartender to support her education. Not having children afforded her flexibility that other women veterans might not have, she said.

Grenier is not alone. More than 30,000 women leave the military every year. There are 2 million women veterans in the U.S. and Puerto Rico, according to data from the Department of Veterans Affairs. By 2040, the VA expects women to make up 18 percent of the veteran population.

As more female troops transition from active duty to civilian life, they face unique challenges. Lack of a community of fellow female vets, lack of child care assistance for single mothers and financial instability due to lack of financial literacy are all issues women veterans face, experts say. While some of these challenges affect all veterans, the issues are compounded for women because of cultural stereotypes and the gender pay gap.

“Civilians often fail to recognize women as veterans, leading to mistrust between women veterans and their counterparts,” said Grenier, CEO of Foundation for Women Warriors, an organization that assists women veterans and their children.

About 67 percent of women veterans find their financial transition from the military difficult, compared to 47 percent of men; and more women vets experience “loss of income” as a key transition challenge compared to male vets, according to Maureen Casey, CEO of the Institute for Veterans and Military Families at Syracuse University.

Women veterans also have different social and psychological experiences than women who are private citizens. When transitioning into society, these differences can upend the expectations people normally have about women.

Dawn Fitzgerald started serving in the Navy right after high school. She transitioned out of active duty in 1998, and worked her way up from a janitor at Merck to a senior specialist in that company’s supply chain division in West Point, Pennsylvania.

“When you have strong leadership skills, sometimes, people don’t like that,” Fitzgerald, 44, said. “I have been told many times that I am intimidating.”

The military encourages a direct communication style that many civilian workplaces might not understand, according to Kayla Williams, senior director at the Center for a New American Security. Many veterans talk about the need to change their communication style when they become civilians; the societal penalty for directness is higher for women than men, experts say.

“Women can pay a higher penalty for not conforming to some of those expectations,” Williams said. “It is a jarring transition and can take some real recalibration of your presentation style if you are coming into a significantly different work environment.”

Fitzgerald, on the other hand, uses her “strong leadership” style to mentor younger women starting out by telling them it’s okay to be called “strong” and “assertive.”

“Women get called bitches when they are assertive and strong, but men are called leaders,” she says. “It’s hard.”

Less transition support

The Center for Women Veterans started offering exit seminars for women, but its main focus was making women veterans aware of health care resources. However, experts say that women veterans also need training on social and psychological skills to cope with the transitions. “It took the Army 17 years to get me to the rank of major, so there is no program that is going to be three to six months that is going to prepare me for civilian life,” Jas Boothe, who founded Final Salute Inc, said. “America needs to carry the torch, and go beyond the handshake and ‘thank you for your service.’ We need a boot camp that is longer and effective.”

Child assistance

More women vets are likely to be single parents than male veterans, experts say. In such a situation, planning for financial stability and housing becomes imperative.

Further, finding affordable child care while pursuing education becomes a major obstacle. “There are subsidized programs, but when you are working and in school, your income is just over the threshold, and it becomes an issue to get subsidized child care,” Grenier said. In California, the average weekly cost of care for an infant child is $211, compared to the subsidized rate of $60 a week for a single active duty E-4 at a Child Development Center on a base, according to Grenier .

Financial instability

Financial instability can be a major challenge post-service, Casey said. There is a lack of awareness in the women veteran community, and making them informed is also a challenge, she said. “The instructors in transition assistance don’t necessarily know all the services themselves,” Casey said. “The real opportunity is how do we create public-private partnerships, where agencies can come together to provide a complete picture of the opportunities available.”

Lack of peer networks

A lack of a natural peer network where women can freely share their experiences leads to isolation during the transition. “Though the number of women veterans is increasing, there are still so few that they lack a natural peer support network, which can be an emotional challenge,” Grenier said. Grenier’s organization holds workshops to connect veterans with the community.

Here are a few of the organizations that help with the challenges mentioned above.

Foundation for Women Warriors

Connect with the community: The foundation provides one-day, professional development workshops that bring women veterans together with leaders in business and academia to teach about negotiating salary, self-branding, and creating a sense of community.

Child care assistance: They provide childcare stipends for daycare (children ages 0-5) and spring, summer and winter camp assistance for working or student veteran mothers.

Final Salute Inc.

The programs have assisted women veterans and children in over 30 states and territories.

One program, called H.O.M.E., provides a full range of transition services like housing, food, clothing, child care assistance. Their other program, S.A.F.E., offers financial education to help with financial planning.

Institute for Veterans and Military Families

At Syracuse University, the IVMF works with communities and non-profits across the nation and has a variety of veteran programs.

Onward to Opportunity

This program run by Syracuse’s Institute for Veterans and Military Families that provides certification, professional mentorship and connection to a vast network of over employers for placement service.

America Serves

A coordinated network of organizations dedicated to serving the military community by connecting them to resources for their specific needs.

Over the years, Iran has expanded control in the Middle East region by investing heavily in Iraq, according to Joan Polaschik, deputy assistant secretary for the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs at the State Department.

The U.S. spent $20 billion between 2003 and 2011 on the Iraqi military, but it wasn’t enough to stop the rise of the Islamic State group and its attacks against Iraq, which required spending another $5 billion, Michael P. Mulroy, deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He noted that expenditure on U.S. troops in Iraq had gone down from $150 billion a year in 2008 to $15 billion in 2019.

“Everything we are doing right now is more toward the economy of forces and also towards normalization,” Mulroy said. “We are moving toward a traditional country team model. And we will start standardizing, modernizing and normalizing our spending as we do that.”

In May 2019, U.S. diplomatic personnel were pulled out of Baghdad temporarily amid escalating tensions with Iran.

Committee Chairman Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, said the diplomatic personnel need to return to “support the government in the enormous challenges that they have.”

” I encourage the administration to be up to date with intelligence on the assessment of Iran’s threat and restore full diplomatic presence as soon as possible.”

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said that it was hard to imagine that today’s threat is higher than at the height of the ISIS insurgency.

“I would hope that we return to political functionality soon. If we don’t, it is an invitation to ISIS to emerge,” he said. “The risk of a long-term political withdrawal from Baghdad can cost many more American lives than we are saving.”

Philip Smyth, an expert in U.S. and Middle East relations at The Washington Institute, stressed the importance of a U.S. military presence in Iraq.

“Having a force on the ground sends a message that Iranians can’t do what they want,” he said in a telephone interview.

Smyth, said the focus of the U.S. military in Iraq is not only to counter insurgents and support the government but to provide a show of force against Iran’s expansionism.

Polaschik said that America’s policy in Iraq is focused on immediate stabilization needs like humanitarian assistance, even as infrastructure challenges remain.

“We are putting efforts in regulatory reforms to create an inviting business environment,” she said.

First Sgt. John Farritor, spent 30 years in Corps ― 20 on active duty and 10 in reserves, the Union-Tribune reported. He is one of the few surviving Marine veterans who in September 1942 marched 55 miles from Camp Elliott in San Diego to the newly opened Marine base near Oceanside, California.

Celebrating his birthday in his dress blue uniform, Farritor was joined by a group of Marines from Camp Pendelton, California, July 9. Friends, senior center residents and Marines listened to Farritor’s Marine Corps experiences in a slideshow presentation by friend and a local historian Linda Dudik.

Farritor sang along to his “Happy Birthday” song and said, according to the Union-Tribune: “I enjoyed the first 100 years. But I don’t know what I’ll do from here on out.”

Farritor was 20 when Germany invaded Poland in 1939. He was taken by the look of the Marine Corps uniforms and its “first to fight” mission. A year later, he left his family ranch in Nebraska and enlisted, the Union-Tribune reported. He arrived for boot camp at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego in July 1941. He subsequently was stationed at Camp Elliott and finally Camp Pendleton, where he served in the 3rd Marine Division field artillery.

He described the 1945 battle of Iwo Jima in Japan as one of the deadliest battles he was in. Farritor recalls rising at dawn the next day to make sure the U.S. flag was still flying, the Union-Tribune reported.

In 1950, Farritor was part of the defining Korean War battle at the Chosin Reservoir. As Marines fought their way over 17 days in an impossible escape to the seaport at Hungnam, Farritor suffered his only war injury: a hand wound from flying shrapnel, to which he refused a Purple Heart, the Union-Tribune reported.

“When I hear people calling me a hero, I say I’m not,” he told San Diego Union-Tribune. “All of the real heroes were buried over there.”