BARGERSVILLE — Blythe Potter is many things to many people.
She is a wife, a mother, a wellness shop owner, an employer and an advocate.
She's also a veteran.
Potter enlisted with the U.S. Army in 2002 as a military police officer.
Her assignment took her overseas, serving as one of 19 personal security officers for commanding General George Casey in Iraq.
She calls it an "amazing experience."
Today, Potter shows she is proud to have had the opportunity to serve her nation by sporting an Indiana Veteran license plate on her car.
Often, however, she says people assume her husband is the military veteran. Not her.
"Why would you make that assumption?," Potter said goes through her head.
Potter admits, it's the way we are conditioned to think.
"If I think of someone who is in the military, the first thing you think of is a male," Potter said. "It's just what our brains are programmed for, so I understand it."
So, now, Potter is on a new mission with other women veterans to collect enough signatures to petition the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles to offer an Indiana female veteran license plate.
"Having something that signifies that the woman driving the vehicle is a veteran also, it's a cool distinction." Potter said. "Maybe some other little girl doesn't know what she wants to do with her life one day and sees all these women veterans plates and thinks 'maybe I do that, maybe I join the military sometime.'"
There is a catch. Not just anyone can sign the petition.
Only women veterans can do so.
For years, Air Force veteran Lisa Wilken has been navigating the state legislature, to add a license plate for women veterans to the options offered at the BMV, to no avail so far.
WRTV and WRTV.com has featured her efforts in 2021 and 2022.
"What this plate does, is it gives women veterans the opportunity to celebrate our service and designate ourselves as a veteran," Wilken said. "And it also gives us the opportunity to educate the public."
The Indiana Department of Veteran Affairs says there are more than 33,000 women veterans living in the Hoosier state.
Wilken and Potter are hoping at least 500 of them sign the BMV license plate petition, as more women veterans learn about this latest call to action to highlight their service.
Potter says she would be one of the first in live to obtain one for her own vehicle.
The deadline to collect signatures and turn them in to the BMV is April 1.
If you'd like to sign the petition, you can email votingveteranindy@gmail.com.
Once the BMV receives the petition signatures, the agency will consider the application and make a decision.
