Forward Assist Launch Specialist Women Combat Veterans Support Service

Women combat veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan carry stories that rarely make headlines, rarely shape policy debates, and rarely receive the recognition or tailored support they deserve. In the United Kingdom, female combat veterans make up a small but growing community whose needs differ in important ways from those of their male peers. Yet many remain isolated, unsupported, and misunderstood. Their experiences do not fit the traditional narrative of the “British soldier,” and because so many veterans’ organisations, public attitudes, and historical assumptions continue to be male-centric, women who served often feel invisible. The result is a cohort of veterans suffering in silence, with un-met needs that remain largely unacknowledged. Forward Assist’s Women Combat Veterans Service is led by Sarah Bushbye MC who knows better than most, how women combat veterans may need specialist support when they leave military service. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-11717615

Despite their participation in front-line roles, sometimes officially, sometimes unofficially, UK women who deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan frequently have their service minimised. Many report that even when their job titles placed them outside the technical definition of infantry, they were exposed to the same threats: indirect fire, IED blasts, small-arms engagements, patrols into hostile areas, attached roles with combat units, emergency medical care under fire. Yet conversations about combat trauma still tend to assume a male context. A woman describing her combat experiences may be met with surprise or quiet scepticism, as though her account disrupts expected norms. This minimisation erodes confidence and compounds the sense of being “less legitimate” as veterans, making it significantly harder to seek help.

Women also encounter unique forms of ostracism. Within some regiments and units during the Iraq and Afghanistan era, military culture was slow to adjust to increasing female participation in operational roles. Many women learned to downplay their gender, to “fit in” by minimising any struggles, and to suppress emotions for fear of being seen as weak or unprofessional. After service, however, this same stoicism becomes a barrier to support. The instinct to stay silent persists, reinforced by a civilian world that often fails to recognise female veterans at all. Many women describe being assumed to be a spouse rather than a service member, or being met with surprise when they mention their deployment history. This misidentification, subtle but constant, reinforces the message that their service is somehow unusual, tangential, or less valued.

Military charities and associations, although deeply committed to supporting veterans, continue to reflect traditions built around male service. Social spaces, support groups, and outreach programmes were historically shaped by the needs and expectations of men, and many women report feeling out of place within them. Conversations often revolve around male camaraderie, male bonding rituals, or shared experiences that exclude or marginalise women’s perspectives. When women do attend events or access services, they may find that their needs are not recognised or that their experiences, such as gender-based harassment, sexual trauma, discrimination, or isolation during deployment, are not openly discussed. This lack of safe and understanding spaces leads many to withdraw, leaving them without access to the peer support that often acts as a lifeline for male veterans.

Mental health needs, in particular, remain poorly addressed. While PTSD and combat trauma affect men and women alike, women frequently experience these conditions in the context of additional, gender-specific stressors: moral injury linked to caregiving roles within units, harassment or assault while deployed, the strain of being one of very few women on a tour, or the pressure to outperform expectations simply to be considered equal. Many female veterans also return to civilian lives where they are primary caregivers, juggling trauma with childcare, employment instability, and social expectations that do not account for military experience. Yet mental-health services seldom incorporate these gendered dimensions. Screening processes may focus on traditionally male indicators of trauma; support groups may be dominated by men; and therapists may lack training in the intersection of gender and combat stress. The result is that many women feel misunderstood or dismissed, and they disengage before receiving meaningful help.

A crucial but overlooked dimension of this silence is the social expectation placed on women to recover quietly. Male veterans who show signs of trauma are often met with empathy and cultural scripts that recognise their suffering as an understandable consequence of war. Women, however, can experience a double bind. They face the stigma attached to mental-health struggles, but also the implicit questioning of their service to begin with. If others doubt that they were truly exposed to combat, their trauma may be trivialised or misinterpreted. This can lead to a cruel cycle where women internalise the idea that they “shouldn’t” be struggling, because their contributions have been socially minimised. Shame grows in the silence, and support remains out of reach.

This invisibility extends beyond mental health. Women veterans may face un-met physical health needs as well. Injuries sustained in combat or on deployment can present differently for women. Musculoskeletal issues may be exacerbated by poorly fitted kit, protective equipment designed for male bodies, or repeated strain in roles where they were expected to carry the same loads without allowances for physiological differences. Reproductive health concerns, including conditions triggered or worsened by deployment stress, are rarely addressed in traditional veterans’ services. Many women simply do not disclose these problems, believing they will not be understood or taken seriously.

Economic and social transitions after service also differ. Some women leave the military abruptly due to pregnancy, harassment, or lack of advancement. Others return to civilian life without the informal networks that benefit many male veterans. Employment programmes can be oriented toward industries where men predominate, and the assumption that all veterans share similar backgrounds or interests often sidelines women’s experiences. The absence of visible female role models in veteran communities makes the path forward feel more isolated.

There is also the broader issue of recognition and honour. Public remembrance, media narratives, and cultural depictions of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars overwhelmingly centre on men. Women who served in those conflicts are rarely interviewed, photographed, or invited to speak. This lack of representation sends a quiet but powerful message: their sacrifices were peripheral. Many women internalise this message, believing their stories are not worth telling. Silence becomes the default.

What unites these experiences is not a single dramatic cause, but a persistent pattern: women combat veterans do not feel acknowledged. Their service is minimised, their needs are overlooked, and the structures meant to support veterans are not designed with them in mind. The consequences ripple across their lives, psychologically, physically, socially, and economically.

Recognising these un-met needs begins with listening. It requires an honest reckoning with the ways in which military culture, veteran organisations, and public narratives continue to assume a male default. It requires mental-health professionals trained to understand gendered trauma, charities that build women-specific programming, policymakers who gather accurate data on female veterans, and a public willing to expand its understanding of who serves and who suffers after war. Most of all, it requires giving women the space, and the encouragement, to speak, and to be heard without surprise or scepticism.

The women who deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan carried the same weight of war as their male peers, often under conditions of deeper isolation. Their silence is not a sign of absence, but a sign of neglect. Until their un-met needs are acknowledged and addressed, the United Kingdom’s veteran community will remain incomplete, and the cost of war will continue to fall unfairly on those who served with courage but returned to a society unprepared to recognise them.