Women Veterans Need Each Other, Not Programs

by Sandee Rodriguez | Aug 10, 2026 | Invisible Warriors

Women Veterans Need Each Other, Not Programs

When you think about what you actually need, it rarely shows up on a benefits form. It’s connection. Someone who has stood where you stood, carried what you carried, and come home to the same strange quiet. Someone who gets it without the long explanation.

That’s harder to find than it should be. Plenty of women have served, but they’re often not seen as veterans at all. People assume you’re the spouse, the daughter, the one who tagged along. You can sit in a room full of vets and go the whole time without anyone acknowledging you wore the uniform too. The camaraderie that held you together in service doesn’t follow you out of it, and it’s hard to rebuild when the people around you don’t recognize what you carried. For a lot of women, it just goes quiet right when you need it most.

"She stopped feeling like the only one."

The Most Underrated Support

Peer connection is the most underrated support in this whole space. It’s easy to overlook because it doesn’t look like a service. There’s no intake form, no billing code, no tidy number to report at the end. But ask a woman who has sat at a table with others who served, and she’ll tell you it did something no pamphlet could. She stopped feeling like the only one.

Beyond the Uniform

That’s the idea behind our Beyond the Uniform retreats. Four days, a small group of women veterans, and time built for exactly this. Coffee and honest talk in the morning. Meals shared as a group. A campfire, a movie, room to say the hard things to people who won’t flinch. No one is there to be fixed. They’re there to be known.

"No one is there to be fixed. They're there to be known."

Connection like that doesn’t happen on its own. Someone has to build the room and hold it open, and then you have to walk through the door. That second part is the one only you can do.

Our next Beyond the Uniform retreat is September 24 through 27. Registration is open now, and you can find the details at InvisibleWarriors.org. Come be in the room with women who already know what you carried.

Women Veterans Need Each Other, Not Programs

Invisible Warriors

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Memorial Day: From Parades to Wreaths

by Domenic Rodriguez | May 26, 2026 | Invisible Warriors

Memorial Day lives in my memory as something sacred and communal — a day when we went downtown to watch a parade of bands, military reserves marching in step, a few floats rolling past, and then a ceremony at the park where the fallen of wars past were honored with a 21-gun salute and a slow walk to the cemetery, carrying wreaths of bright, defiant flowers. Afterward came the picnic, and then the rounds — visiting every cemetery where relatives rested, planting flowers in memory of lives fully lived.

As I grew older and moved away from home, those traditions grew faint. Like so many, I let the day drift into the comfortable rhythms of backyard cookouts and laughter with friends — meaningful in their own way, but quieter in their honoring.

Since marrying Ed and founding Invisible Warriors, I have found myself returning — not just to tradition, but to something deeper. Working alongside veterans and their families has renewed in me a reverence for what this day truly asks of us: to remember, to honor, and to refuse to let the cost of our freedom become background noise.

For the fifth year, we gathered at Veterans Memorial Park for the ceremony of laying wreaths at the base of the war monuments — a living tribute to every American who has fallen in service to this country since its founding. It is always a profound privilege to be part of this. And for the second consecutive year, Invisible Warriors placed a wreath among the others, a small but deeply felt act of collective gratitude.

The morning had brought rain — the kind that makes you wonder if the sky itself is grieving — and we were not sure the program would go on. But minutes before the clock struck eleven, the rain stopped. The show went on.

What followed was solemn and beautiful. Music. Singing. A crowd dressed in everything from uniforms to shorts to Sunday dresses — a cross-section of our community, just like our country itself — standing and sitting in quiet, dignified respect. Tears appeared. Salutes were rendered. No one needed to be told what this moment meant.

"The ceremony closed with God Bless America rising from our voices as the American flag was raised from half-staff to full. It was slow and deliberate — the flag lying flat against the pole as it climbed, inch by inch, toward the top. And then, at the very last moment, the wind picked up. The flag broke free and flew — bold and full, high above all of us."

The ceremony closed with God Bless America rising from our voices as the American flag was raised from half-staff to full. It was slow and deliberate — the flag lying flat against the pole as it climbed, inch by inch, toward the top. And then, at the very last moment, the wind picked up. The flag broke free and flew — bold and full, high above all of us.

It was a God moment. There is no other way to say it.

The day is over now. But I carry a hope — a genuine one — that the memories, the reverence, and the prayers for those who are gone and those who continue to stand watch will not simply dissolve into the coming week. May they last. May we carry them forward until we gather again.

Same time. Same place. And all across this country.

Want to know more about Invisible Warriors? Sign up for our newsletter to receive regular updates. Contact us HERE.
Or click the button below to schedule a meeting with Founder Nancy Becher!

Schedule a meeting with Nancy