Welcome to AND

Military women:

We’ve got your back!

We’re AND — a positive voice for American military women.

Military women have earned our nation’s gratitude and our support.

Women have served in all American conflicts. It’s been 60 years since women became official, permanent members our military services.

Today, women are a vital, irreplaceable part of our all-volunteer forces. They have served — often in harm’s way — with distinction alongside their brothers and, unfortunately, all-too-many including those represented in our Gallery of Heroines have made the ultimate sacrifice in service to our country.

Who We Are

A non-profit, tax-exempt educational organization comprised of veterans from all service branches and concerned civilians, AND collects the facts and figures – factual, thoughtful, objective information – on US military women and provides them to scholars, the media, national decision makers and the public.

Where we stand

We believe:

A full partnership between women and men strengthens America's military.

Military readiness and mission accomplishment are of critical importance.

Excellence in performance is required from all who serve in the armed forces, regardless of gender.

What We Do

AND covers the backs of military women, encouraging and promoting the vital role of military women in our nation's defense.

AND brings organizations and individuals together to continually monitor the accomplishments of American military women and the level of support they receive from their services. And we spread the word so everyone can better understand their sacrifices and the often unique challenges military women face in their services and in their lives.

We hope you will find this site a valuable resource on the status of and issues effecting military women.

We hope you will learn, join in discussions and make this site your personal resource.

Be part of AND

AND is a member-supported organization and we invite you to join with us in supporting American Military women with your time and money.

Again, welcome to The Alliance for National Defense.

News from AND

Welcome to AND

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Top AND stories

· AND mourns Gen. Holm

· DOD releases sexual assault report

· Ninth Conference on Women in the Military

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Military Women

in the News

· IAVA releases a groundbreaking report on female troops and veterans: "Women Warriors: Supporting She 'Who Has Borne the Battle.'" Click here for a copy of the report.

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BE A MENTOR IN THE VETERANWOMEN

iMENTOR PROGRAM

We all hear about the struggles of returning veterans…here’s your chance to make a difference in the life of such a veteran…a woman veteran. Consider becoming an online mentor to a woman veteran seeking employment. AcademyWomen is a proud partner of the Veteran Women Project, a program designed to provide a variety of services to assist women veterans in Southwestern Washington state find employment. A core element of Veteran Women is an online mentoring program that pairs women veteran clients with volunteer women veteran mentors (regardless of previous rank or current location) for 6-month or one-year online mentoring relationships. Mentors are responsible to develop a mentoring relationship with the mentee and to support her in her job search or preparation for the search via weekly emails sent through the online mentoring platform’s messaging tool.

If you are interested in becoming a mentor in this exciting program, you may apply at the https://pic.imentorinteractive.org/survey/intake/mentor/ or call the program director, Emily Stoutsenberger at 360-696-8417 for more info.

AND urges DOD to end ordering/permitting

U.S. military women to wear the hijab

The Alliance for National Defense has urged the defense department to direct commanders to neither allow nor order military women to wear the hajib head covering while performing their duties in Afghanistan.

While expressing understanding for cultural sensitivities, the letter to then-Defense Secretary Gates cited three telling arguments against the practice:

· Personal safety: Substituting the hajib for a regulation helmet might place the service members at undue risk;

· Uniform regulations: the hijab is an unauthorized item and should not be worn with the U.S. military uniform whether it is apparent or covered;

· Force cohesion. Improper wearing of the uniform or wearing unauthorized items undermines the discipline of our military.

The letter, jointly signed by the Alliance and the Women’s Research and Education Institute, points out the despite cultural sensitivities, military men are not authorized to wear the turbans or keffiyehs of the host country while in uniform.

Click here for the complete letter

Women in the Military at the Crossroads

Ninth Conference on Women in the Military

October 27-28, 2011

WIMSA

Arlington, VA

Combining Real-world Experience and Academic Insight

AND partnered with the Women’s Research and Education Institute (WREI) to create and implement this important conference. With its unique combination of presentations by senior officers who create or implement policies, junior officers and enlisted with front line experience, academics who study and quantify policy implications and advocacy groups who often speak for the voiceless, the conference played a valuable role in furthering AND’s mission supporting military women and the men who serve with them.

To learn more about the 2012 gathering, please click here

To learn more about this year’s gathering, please click here

When Capt. Pat Gormley, JAGC, USN (Ret.) was diagnosed with a particularly pernicious form of cancer, she opted for an aggressive – and aggressively uncomfortable -- treatment regimen.

Taking a leave of absence as Alliance for National Defense president, Pat vowed that when her treatment was completed:

“I will recover enough to return and be mean and difficult!”

Few doubted she would do just that.

After all, beating the odds and winning unwinnable battles again and again was what Pat Gormley did… as a Marine and Navy lawyer and as the military legal advisor to the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services (DACOWITS).

After her retirement from the Navy, she continued fighting the good fight at the Department of Veterans Affairs and at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as the Director of Affirmative Action and Equity at the University of New Hampshire, as a United States Administrative Law Judge for the Social Security Administration, as the Co-Chair of the Legal Redress Committee on the Executive Committee of the Seacoast [NH] Branch of the NAACP, and at the New Hampshire Advisory Committee of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

But for Pat, Mission One was working to make sure military women – and men – got the fair shake that she had to fight for, often against daunting odds, during her military career. In pursuit of that goal, she directed the Women in the Military Project of the Women’s Research and Education Institute (WREI), held a leadership position on the Maine Commission on Gender, Justice and the Courts and served on the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services (DACOWITS).

At the Alliance for National Defense, Pat Gormley spearheaded AND’s wide-ranging activities to provide a positive voice supporting military women, advocating a full partnership between women and men that strengthens America's military, working for a high state of military readiness and demanding excellence in performance from all who serve in the armed forces, regardless of gender.

Under Pat Gormley’s leadership, the Alliance was at the forefront of efforts to eliminate vestiges of military gender discrimination that hold women back from attaining their full potential in the armed forces and prevent the armed forces from employing the full potential of all its members.

Sadly, Pat did not beat the odds in her final battle. With her daughter and son at her side, she died Feb 21.

She will be remembered and sorely missed by her colleagues at AND and by the thousands of U.S. servicewomen for whom she advocated for 40 years, many of whose career opportunities and advancement are due, in no small part, to the courage, brilliance, and determination of this remarkable woman. More

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To honor Capt. Gormley and to arm the Alliance with additional resources to pursue the objectives for which she fought, we have established, the AND Pat Gormley Leadership Fund.

Learn more here

Remembering Pat Gormley

Lt. Gen Janet C. Wolfenbarger, vice commander of the US Air Force Materiel Command at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio and the highest-ranking female officer in the Air Force, has been nominated for the rank of general.

If confirmed, she will become highest ranking woman to ever serve in the Air Force. She is the second woman in the U.S. Armed Forces to earn a fourth star. Army Gen. Ann Dunwoody became the first female four-star general in 2008.

Gen. Wolfenbarger began her career in the Air Force as an engineer, and holds a bachelors in engineering science as well as two masters degrees in aeronautics and astronautics, and national resource strategy. In addition to her post at Wright-Patterson (which she inherited from the previous highest-ranking female officer in the Air Force, Lt. General Terry Gabreski), she is responsible for “research and development, test, production, and modernization of Air Force programs worth more than $40 billion annually.” She has also earned the Legion of Merit and the Meritorious Service Medal.

Gen. Wolfenbarger was graduated from the Air Force Academy in the Class of 1980, the first graduation class after women were admitted to the academy in 1976.

Janet C. Wolfenbarger Nominated as

First Air Force Female Four-star

AND Now on Facebook

The new Alliance for National Defense Facebook page is now live. While this website will remain the Alliance’s primary communications vehicle, Facebook is an effective tool for getting the word out quickly on issues and pending events.

Click on the icon below to check out and (please!) ‘Like’ the AND Facebook page.