Lawmakers update charter of veterans group to include women

An influential veterans group is hailing lawmakers for updating its federal charter to recognize the military service of women.

The Senate approved H.R. 5441, which amends the charter of the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), through a unanimous consent agreement on Thursday.

{mosads}The House passed the bill by voice vote earlier in the week. The bill now heads to President Obama for his signature.

The VFW is “currently an association of men who, as soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen, served the nation in wars and conflicts on foreign soil or in hostile waters,” according to its congressional charter.

Thousands of women meet the eligibility requirement for joining the organization, however the federal charter had not been updated to reflect their contributions to the armed services.

Lawmakers also approved a tweak in the document that replaces the word “widow” with the more gender-neutral term “surviving spouses.”

“We didn’t change our congressional charter to be politically correct,” VFW National Commander John W. Stroud said Friday in a statement.

“We changed it because being an eligible service member or veteran is what’s important to our great organization, not one’s gender, and changing widows to surviving spouses is more representative of today’s military.”

The changes were prompted by a resolution passed by delegates attending the VFW’s national summit in St. Louis earlier this year.

That resolution noted, among other things, that women will make up 20 percent of active duty troops in 2015 and that 800 women sustained combat injuries and another 157 died in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The VFW specifically thanked Senate Veterans’ Affairs Chairman Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and House Veterans’ Affairs Chairman Jeff Miller (R-Fla.) for their efforts to update the charter.