Detroit nonprofit uses dog tags to tell others of service by women military veterans

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Alexis Derriso enlisted in the U.S. Army as a 19-year-old in 1980, following a father and brother who had served in the military.

DETROIT (AP) — Alexis Derriso enlisted in the U.S. Army as a 19-year-old in 1980, following a father and brother who had served in the military.

Derriso went through basic training and spent six years in the Army, mostly handling personnel management and other administrative duties.

Today, as founder and chief executive of the 640-member Motown Women Veterans Association, she wants others to understand that women like her sacrificed as much as men, and sometimes more, in service to their country.

Her nonprofit is selling military-style dog tags that read, “Millions of women have served this country. I am one,” to raise funds for a Detroit-area homeless shelter for female veterans and their children. The tags can be purchased for $15 from the organization’s website.

So far, about 2,000 have been sold, but the goal is to sell 1 million, said Derriso.

Women have a long history in the U.S. military, most of it spent as nurses or in administrative and support roles for male troops, though thousands served in the Women’s Army Corps, created during World War II.

In 1948, President Harry S. Truman signed the Women’s Armed Services Integration Act into law. Women were permitted to serve in the regular Army and Organized Reserve Corps, which later became the U.S. Army Reserve and Air Force Reserve, but were restricted to just 2% of service members in the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines. Those ceilings were removed in 1967.

In 2013, a ban on women in direct ground combat roles was lifted. Three years later, the ban was lifted for all military roles.

Women currently comprise about 17% of the more than 1.2 million active duty military personnel and more than 21% of troops in the National Guard or reserves. More than 2 million women are U.S. military veterans, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.

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