Mother’s Day has a way of bringing certain kinds of service into focus.
Some of that service is easy to see. It shows up in family gatherings, phone calls, flowers, photographs, and the simple effort to make sure the women who raised us, guided us, protected us, or stood beside us know they are remembered.
But there is another kind of service that deserves room in that same reflection. It belongs to the women who wore the uniform, carried the weight of military service, and then carried the weight of family, community, and responsibility in ways that often went unseen.
Women have served this country for generations. Some served when their presence in uniform was questioned. Some served before they were fully recognized for what they had done. Some served in hospitals, motor pools, communications centers, aircraft, ships, field units, headquarters, and combat zones. Some came home and raised families. Some raised families while serving. Some never came home at all.
Their stories are part of the American military story.
During World War II, hundreds of thousands of women served in uniform. They worked as nurses, clerks, mechanics, pilots, drivers, administrators, and leaders. They filled roles that helped keep the force moving, the wounded cared for, the mail delivered, the aircraft flying, and the mission alive. Many did this while the country was still debating what women should or should not be allowed to do in service.
Esther Blake, remembered as the first woman in the United States Air Force, began her active-duty military career during World War II after both of her sons entered the fight. When she learned her oldest son had been shot down over Belgium and was missing, she joined the Women’s Army Corps. Her service was not separate from motherhood. It came from the same place many parents understand: a desire to do something, to carry part of the burden, and to help bring others home.
Oveta Culp Hobby helped lead the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps and later the Women’s Army Corps during World War II, opening doors for thousands of women to serve in uniform. Her work helped shape a path that future generations of servicewomen would continue to walk, often with little fanfare and plenty of resistance.
In more recent history, Army Specialist Lori Piestewa, a Hopi woman and mother of two, was killed in Iraq in 2003. She became the first Native American woman in the U.S. military to die in combat. Her name is a reminder that the service of women is not symbolic. It is real. It is costly. It reaches families, children, communities, and generations.
There are many others whose names are not as widely known. Mothers who deployed. Mothers who stood watch. Mothers who missed birthdays, first steps, graduations, and ordinary nights at home because the mission required them elsewhere. Mothers who came home different, then kept showing up anyway. Mothers who balanced duty to country with duty to family, often without asking anyone to understand how heavy that balance could be.
The Veterans Phalanx believes those stories belong in the line.
Not as an exception. Not as a footnote. Not as a special category set apart from the rest of veteran service. They belong because women veterans have always helped hold the formation, even when history was slow to admit it.
Today is a good day to remember that service does not always look the same from the outside. Sometimes it looks like a uniform hanging in the closet beside a child’s school picture. Sometimes it looks like a mother sitting quietly at a ceremony, carrying memories she does not often explain. Sometimes it looks like a veteran who served, sacrificed, came home, raised a family, and kept serving in ways no award citation ever captured.
That kind of service deserves respect.
For the women who served before the country was ready to fully recognize them, we are grateful. For the women serving now while carrying families, careers, and communities on their shoulders, we are grateful. For the mothers whose military service shaped their children’s lives in ways both difficult and beautiful, we are grateful. For the families who carry the pride and cost of that service, we are grateful.
The line has always included them.
And today, we remember that with respect.
