Combat vet is Monroe VFW Post’s first female elected officer

MONROE — She earns a living making eyes look pretty, but she’s still the same warrior inside.

That’s why Jaymie Weber, 37, an eyelash salon owner who spent nine years in the Air Force, joined the Veterans of Foreign Wars earlier this year.

Weber is the first female elected officer at Monroe VFW Post 7511. As quartermaster, she’s in charge of the checkbook at the post chartered in 1968.

“It all started with wanting to socialize with like-minded people,” she said. “I really missed that connection. I was finding myself not being social and becoming extremely shy and having a hard time participating.”

Shy?

That’s not a word that seems to fit this woman with bright blonde hair and colorful tattoos ​who worked with C-130 Hercules cargo planes and served in combat zones before becoming an eyelash fashionista.

Weber, raised in Kent, joined the Air Force in 1998 when she was barely 19.

“My grandfather was in the Navy. My dad was in the Marines. My sister was in the Army,” she said. “I wanted to serve my country and travel the world. I wanted money for education. I figured the Air Force could check all those boxes for me.”

The adjustment going in was easy compared to getting out. Reintegrating into civilian life is challenging, even after being out for 10 years.

Her life centers on her daughters, ages 3 and 4, and on her business, Lashes by Jaymie, crafting fuller eyelashes and brows in a tranquil spa setting. You’d think that her like-minded people would be other moms and makeup artists.

But something was lacking: an important part of her past that she wanted to incorporate into her present.

She missed the military camaraderie as well as the bantering. “We can give each other a hard time. You just trash talk. It’s fun. It’s healing,” she said. “I stare at people’s closed eyes all day long.”

So when she saw something in January on Facebook about a Monroe VFW pancake breakfast, she joined immediately.

“They are a welcoming group of guys,” she said.

Guys is right.

There are only a few other females at the aging Monroe post, where less than half of the 45 members are active. In Weber’s ​leadership role she hopes to add more women as well as men.

“I would love to see the Iraq- and Afghanistan-era vets come out and join us and help us grow,” she said. “There’s this huge gap between Vietnam War-era guys and us in our 20s and 30s. We all come from very different times of war. We can all work together.”

Monroe VFW Post commander A.J. Cruce, a Vietnam War Army veteran, shares Weber’s vision.

“It’s always been a guy thing here, and it shouldn’t be, because now there are so many women in the military,” Cruce said. “They bring a different outlook and it’s good.”

Of Weber, he said: “We had a 5K run and her go-get-‘em attitude really pushed that event through.”

The VFW is more than pancake breakfasts, fun runs and marching in the recent Evergreen State Fair parade (which Weber missed because she was on a cattle drive).

Local posts raise money to help veterans in need and assist with filing VA claims. The Monroe post is selling its own special blend of coffee, “Morning Combat,” as a fundraiser in conjunction with Original Pilot House Coffees. A 16-ounce bag of beans is $20.

“We have chaplains and outreach coordinators,” Weber said. “The VFW is for any veterans who have participated in combat zones. There are difficult situations that people have been in and they aren’t getting the support they need. Veteran ​suicides — there are 22 a day. I feel like everybody needs to rally around each other. They need to know they can reach out and there are like-minded people who have the same anxiety and fears and depression and trouble coping after separating.”

There are about 1.7 million members of the VFW and its auxiliary at about 6,500 posts nationwide.

The VFW website priority list of issues include VA health care, women veterans, suicide prevention, homelessness and transitioning to civilian life.

“In the military you have the job at hand, you have a purpose, you have a focus, you know what you need to do,” Weber said. “Then you get out in the civilian world and it’s completely different. You feel left behind. Your purpose in life and adrenalin​e​ is gone. A lot of veterans just kind of fade out ​because they feel they don’t fit in.”

The Monroe Post is small. And it’s post-less. Members meet in a room at Harry’s on Tye, a taproom restaurant in an industrial complex in Monroe.

“We are happy to have them,” said Doug Roulstone, a retired Navy captain whose wife owns the pub. “I am also a life member of the VFW.”

As quartermaster, Weber oversees the post’s finances and assets. “Everything from our flags, podiums, the bank accounts and where the money goes and preparing for an audit if one comes down the line,” she said.

In the Air Force, Weber did logistics and procurement for aircraft maintenance units. “Everything from nuts and bolts to wheels, tires and navigation equipment. Anything a plane needed,” she said.

She reached the rank of technical sergeant and used the GI Bill for logistics courses.

“I went to work at Crane Aerospace and I thought that’s what I was going to do the rest of my life. I was laid off in the first round of three layoffs. I started doing lashes and never went back,” she said.

“My unit was 98 percent men. I wanted to get back to my feminine side. I feel like now is a good balance.”

It’s a balance she wants to help other female veterans to find.

Andrea Brown: 425-339-3443; abrown@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @reporterbrown.

Meeting

The next Monroe VFW Post 7511 meeting is 6 p.m. Sept. 14 at Harry’s on Tye, 14286 169th Drive SE, Monroe.

For more information, email vfwpost7511@gmail.com.