An Orlando exhibit honoring women veterans opened this week, showcasing contributions that are a sometimes overlooked part of military history.
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“I witnessed firsthand how women transformed the military, even when our skills were not fully recognized,” said Daila Espeut-Jones, who retired from the U.S. Army in 2004 as a first sergeant. She was inducted into the Florida Veterans’ Hall of Fame in 2020, recognized for her advocacy on behalf of active duty members, veterans and their families.
“We stepped into roles once considered off limits,” Espeut-Jones said.
She was among about 40 visitors, many wearing white polo shirts studded with pins and patches from their military service, crowded into the Women’s History and Cultural Center on Wednesday for the exhibit’s opening ceremony.
The “She Proudly Served: Women in the Military” exhibit, hosted by the Girl Scouts of Citrus Council, will run through September. It was timed to coincide with the nation’s 250th founding anniversary next month.
The exhibit holds glass cases full of folded flags and military pins, and the walls are decorated with mounted notebooks, packaged rations and goggles. A row of mannequins display combat camouflage and military formalwear, which faces a separate historical timeline of women in service from the Revolutionary War in the late 1700s through the Iraq War that ended in 2011.
Susan Aungst, a regional advisor at the Florida Women Veterans Advisory Council, donated her kevlar helmets for visitors to try on, and a mannequin sports one of her uniforms, a dress resembling a tuxedo.
The Sumter County resident served two decades as a U.S. Air Force communications electronics officer and is now part of the Tri-County Women Veterans, a nonprofit with members from Marion, Lake and Sumter Counties. Other members also offered memorabilia for display.
Florida houses the second-largest population of women veterans in the nation, which totaled to over 170,000 as of 2023 — and the group is rapidly growing, according to the Florida Department of Veterans’ Affairs.
“I don’t think a lot of people know that,” Aungst said. “When you say numbers like that, it’s like people go, ‘What?’”
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Almost 100 portraits line the building’s staircase, and she anticipates more will be added, recognizing the achievements of other women who served.
“When a woman veteran sees her name on a… placard on the wall and her picture, it gives her a whole new feeling of, you know, I made a difference,” she said. “My story matters.”
The four-month long showing highlights “just how significant an impact our women veterans have on the sanctity, the security and the freedom that we celebrate in this country,” especially ahead of the upcoming 250th celebration, said Jennifer Wilcox, CEO of the Girl Scouts council, which spans six central Florida counties.
Women veterans, from left: Deloris “Dee” Quaranta, Daila “Dee” Espeut-Jones, Susan Aungst, Sue Roper, and Lorraine Holland are pictured during an opening ceremony at the Women’s History & Cultural Center in Orlando on Wednesday, June 17, 2026. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel)Raising awareness of women veterans’ accomplishments also underscores the need for social services tailored to their challenges, said Deloris Quaranta, another 2020 Florida Veterans’ Hall of Fame inductee. Women face the same roadblocks as men and often more, she added, including domestic violence and discrimination.
Quaranta is a retired U.S. Air Force technical sergeant, who served for two decades. After retiring in 1998, She later founded Women Veterans Ignited, a nonprofit that provides women-centered support programs.
“Whatever you’re doing for the men, you need to be doing for the women,” she told the crowd.
The exhibit is located at 341 N Mills Ave., Orlando FL 32803 and will be open 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Thursday.
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