Women Join Forces : Female veterans group promotes networking between past members of the military as well as active duty personnel.

“Women Are Veterans, Too,” declares a bumper sticker. There were nearly 1.25 million female veterans in the nation last year, according to figures from the Department of Veterans Affairs. And the largest number, 146,700, reside in California.

But many do not bother to identify themselves as veterans. So they cannot take advantage of programs to which they are entitled. And despite efforts begun in the early 1980s to recognize women veterans, many still lack adequate health care and information about their rights and benefits.

In an attempt to identify these women and increase their awareness, outreach programs such as the Oxnard-based Women Veterans Assn. have been created. The association, established in 1985, meets for an annual luncheon, said Capt. Edna Peters, a 58-year-old retired Navy nurse and president of the group.

Membership comes from Ventura County and parts of Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Los Angeles counties. In addition, the association is an umbrella organization that promotes networking with active duty women and several other groups including the Military Nurses Assn., U. S. Navy Waves, Women Army Corps, Women’s Air Force Service Pilots (WASP), Women Marines and Coast Guard Women.

Members of the Women Veterans Assn. represent a variety of experiences and military service. “About 85 to 100 women attend the annual meeting. And we have about 80 card-carrying members who range from veterans of World War I to women who just got out of the service,” Peters said.

Peters, who is single, joined the Navy in 1959 as a registered nurse and served 24 years. “I was on Guam for 19 months in 1965-66 during Vietnam. The wounded were always coming and going. We weren’t in the direct line of fire or on the battlefield. But we were as busy as what you see on ‘M*A*S*H,’ ” Peters said.

“As many women veterans as there are, they all have a story to tell,” she said.

Florella McIntyre Downs, a 69-year-old resident of Ventura, served stateside and in Canada from 1943 to 1944 as a member of the elite Women’s Air Force Service Pilots (WASP). And Evelyn Greenfield, 75, of Camarillo was an Army nurse from 1940 to 1946 and spent three years as a prisoner of war in the Philippines.

“We lived with military, civilians and missionaries. There were thousands of men, women and children. And we had no food or medicine,” Greenfield recalled.

And many veterans like 74-year-old Florence Rockwell, mother of three and grandmother of eight, never talked about their experiences before joining the Women Veterans Assn. Rockwell, a resident of Port Hueneme, thinks she may have suffered post-traumatic stress syndrome from her service as an Army flight nurse in the Pacific during World War II.

“When I came home and we started our home and family, I just put all that behind me. But I did have nightmares for the first couple of years,” Rockwell said. “And it wasn’t until about four years ago when they had a meeting of all the women veterans in Atlanta, Ga.--my daughter said, ‘Mother, you’ve never talked about it. And it’s about time you did.’ ”

So Rockwell and her daughter attended the reunion where she met some old friends. “I had taken notes and pictures during the war. When I got them out, it all came back to me--the good times and the bad. We were the first flight nurses in the Pacific,” Rockwell said. “I’m glad I did it because I think I did some good.”

These local veterans and I recently visited Elizabeth Baker, 93, in her Ventura apartment. At age 18 she joined the clerical pool in the Norfolk Navy Yard in Virginia. While serving from 1916 to 1918, Baker lived with relatives and was thus properly chaperoned.

“I was a yeoman, second class, and wore a plain Navy uniform--very unglamorous,” she said.

But upon examination of her discharge papers, Baker received praise from Peters. “Proficiency 4, sobriety 4, obedience 4. You were what we call a 4-0 sailor. That’s the best rating you can get,” she told Baker.

“Women like Elizabeth, who joined the Navy in 1916, led the way for others into a male-dominated structure,” Peters said. “In 1959 when I joined the Navy, we were still called gentlemen. These valiant women took a lot of risks for all of us. And they did a wonderful job.”

* FYI

* The Women Veterans Assn. will hold its annual luncheon Nov. 14 at the Lobster Trap Restaurant in Oxnard. For information about the organization call 485-0614.

* The County Veterans Service Office, 1400 Vanguard Drive in Oxnard, 385-8500, provides benefits counseling and referral information to veterans, dependents and/or their survivors. On the second and fourth Thursdays of each month outreach services are available in Thousand Oaks and Simi Valley. From those areas call 529-2060, Ext. 8500 for times and locations.

* For information about rights and benefits for female veterans, contact the National Women Veterans Foundation Inc., P. O. Box 10114, Atlanta, GA 30319, (404) 255-0484.

* The monthly DAV (Disabled American Veterans) Magazine is available for $4 a year from DAV National Headquarters, P. O. Box 145550, Cincinnati, OH 45250-5550, (606) 441-7300.

* In 1986 Congress authorized the Women in Military Service for America Memorial Foundation to construct a memorial at the gateway to Arlington National Cemetery that will honor the 1.8 million women who have served the U. S. armed forces throughout the nation’s history. To support the memorial, write to Women in Military Service Memorial, Dept. 560, Washington, D. C. 20042-0560 or call 1-800-4-SALUTE.