BUILDING OF STATUE HONORING WOMEN VETS STARTS. ORALE!

By Juan Montoya

It's been a long road, but the efforts to honor women who served in the United States Armed Forces is one step closer to becoming reality.

Workmen started Tuesday by bringing in the wooden forms to pour the concrete that will form the pedestal where a statue of a female veteran will one day be displayed. On Wednesday, they buttressed the form in preparation to pour concrete.

A group in the University of Texas at Brownsville started the movement and planned to fundraise until local car dealer Charlie Clark was approached by the organizers and pledged to foot the entire bill.

Arlene Laboy, president of the support group Veteran Females United, told the local news daily that the process of bringing a female statue had been a dream of their group. Laboy said the statue will be placed in Veterans Park next to the Brownsville Public Library on Central Boulevard.

“So far we have a sponsor and I have permission from the city,” Laboy said of the project.

Laboy said she has also received confirmation from Brownsville Parks and Recreation to begin the process.

The group told the reporter that they hope to unveil the statue either on Memorial Day of by the Fourth of July.

Most of the women in the group just recently got out of the military, Laboy said.

“We were wondering how come there is no statue or anything here (of women.) A lot of people don’t even know that women can join the military,” she explained.
According to data from the 2009 American Community Survey, 1.5 million Veterans in the United States and Puerto Rico were women. Women represented about 8 percent of the total Veteran population in 2009.