Therese Agnes Hughes

Baby-sitting money allowed me to purchase my first camera. It was a KODAK Instamatic. I was fifteen. My pictures memorialized our home and yard.

My adult resume includes advocating and policy making around health care issues. I served my AmeriCorp-Vista year at the Venice Family Clinic in Venice, California and; worked as a Senior Staffer in the District Office for a Member of the House of Representatives. Taking pictures was my hobby.

In 2010, I realized growing up in a Navy family where both parents were Veterans made me comfortable with military service members. I wanted to raise awareness of our women Veterans and encourage young women to consider a professional career in the military. My mother was a Veteran. She never mentioned her service. She died when I was in my twenties and I lost the opportunity to ask her, “why she joined and what it meant to her.”

Across work and volunteer experiences, I learned how it is powerful for young women to see a female who looks like them or has lived in a circumstance similar to theirs. That female becomes their role model. I believe photographs and interviews of our women Veterans will provide young women that role model vision and will help bridge the women Veteran visibility gap.

I created a business plan, networked and obtained vetting and support to pursue a photograph and interview project about our nation’s women Veterans. The Military Women: WWII to Present Project is this effort.