Operation HerStory aims for 2nd mission to bring women veterans to Washington, D.C.

Operation HerStory celebrates women’s military service and seeks to connect women who served in the armed forces with the opportunity to see Washington, D.C., landmarks and be recognized for their service.

The group took its first flight, a day trip, to Washington in 2021, and is working on plans for a second, multiple-day flight and experience for women who served. The group collaborated with Honor Flight to coordinate the logistics of the trip, but the two organizations are distinct. Honor Flight has a long history of providing trips for veterans to see military memorials.

The first Operation HerStory flight was made up primarily of veterans who served from 1940 to 1975. One of the organizers, Ginny Narsete, said it was the first all-women flight out of Illinois. Narsete herself is an Air Force veteran.

The organization offered a day trip out of Chicago to Washington, D.C., in 2021, which had been postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Out of the roughly 90 veterans who were aboard the flight three were McHenry County residents: Rita Gorman of Algonquin, Karen Meter of Crystal Lake and Loretta “Lolly” Peters of McHenry.

The day of honor for the veterans consisted of an early-bird flight to Washington and seeing various military sites in the area before returning home to the Chicago area in the evening. Among the stops were the Military Women’s Memorial, located inside Arlington National Cemetery; the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier; and World War II monuments.

Peters served in the Army from 1976 to 1983. Peters happened to be the youngest veteran who participated in the 2021 trip. Her companions included a 102-year-old World War II veteran.

In the Army, Peters served in personnel and did office work, stationed in Korea and then in Fort Lewis in Washington state, an Army hospital in Denver and Fort Bliss in Texas.

Peters had been accepted to the Honor Flight but then learned about Operation HerStory and switched to join that flight. She said the group had to be at the airport at 3:30 a.m. the day of the flight and it was a long day but “it was wonderful. It was a great day.”

The women’s museum, where the group spent “quite a bit of time,” stuck out, she said. She recalled a glass ceiling at the museum that represents the women who broke through barriers and the many contributions women have made in the military.

Meter served as a Navy Corpsman in the Vietnam era, leaving for the military on Oct. 7, 1965. She went to Maryland for training camp and served at the Naval Hospital in Beaufort, South Carolina, and later at Naval Station Great Lakes in Lake County.

Meter is known in the Pritzker Military Museum orbit and she appears on the museum’s oral history website. In the history, Meter talks about her family and her brother who was also a Navy Corpsman. Meter’s boot camp picture also appears on a flier for the museum.

Meter’s son is an employee at the museum in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and that’s how Meter learned about the Operation HerStory trip. Chris Meter is currently the range manager at the Mission94 firearm education center nearby. Karen Meter said her son joined the Marines and is an Iraq vet.

Among the sights she saw while participating in Operation HerStory was the women’s memorial inside Arlington National Cemetery. Meter said she had visited Washington in 1993, while fundraising for the memorial was underway. According to the Military Women’s Memorial website, the monument opened in 1997.

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier stuck out to Meter. She said the tomb is “sacred,” peaceful, spiritual and “very, very special.”

That was the first time she saw the memorial completed and she said she was a charter member of the memorial. The group also saw the Vietnam Women’s Memorial, for whose dedication Meter was present in 1993.

During the 2021 trip, Meter said Pentagon personnel stopped by in the morning at the Military Women’s Memorial for a group picture. The Department of Defense wrote an article about the trip, and Meter said everyone received physical copies of the group photos when they got on the plane to go home.

On the plane ride home, everyone got an envelope with “mail call.” She said she got letters from grade school children and also got one from a former boss, who was also the former National VFW Commander.

Locally, Meter said she served as commander of the American Legion in Crystal Lake in 1994. She has since followed her son to the Highwood American Legion.

“Military’s always been part of my life,” Meter said.

Donations enabled Operation HerStory to take flight in 2021 and the organization is still raising funds for the second trip, which organizers hope to make an overnight trip. For more information about the plans, people can contact Narsete at gnarsete@gmail.com.