Current Soldier Stories

In 2003 I deployed to Bosnia and served as a peacekeeper. In December on my 21st birthday we were on patrol in an unfamiliar area, we decided to check out a mountain road and halfway up the mountain there was a rockslide blocking the road. Three of us cleared the road and proceeded to the top where we found an elderly man, near starving, who had been isolated by the rockslide with no phone or radio; we saved his life, gave him our lunches and ways to contact us if it happened again. In 2008 I deployed again, this time into combat in Kandahar, Afghanistan. It was a completely different  experience, not just because I was patrolling with 200lbs of kit in 50-degree desert heat, but also the reality of active war that was not present in Bosnia in 2003. It was on our first patrol we took casualties, the outgoing PPCLI platoon we were relieving took us out to show us the lay of the land and lost 3 soldiers who were mere days from heading home. Over the course of 7 months, we fought hard and lost more soldiers to insurgents. And, as a reminder of the cruelty of war, on our last patrol we lost two more soldiers who were themselves now days away from coming home. 

I returned home a changed man. I returned home from Bosnia more mature and experienced, but when I returned home from Afghanistan, I knew something else was up. Years later I would be diagnosed with an Operational Stress Injury / PTSD. My mind had become so accustomed to surviving in a high threat environment that it couldn’t let go, I didn’t feel safe even at home, I became angry, and I drank far too much trying to silence the thoughts plaguing my mind; it didn’t, it only made my problems worse. Accepting that I needed help, that I couldn’t solve my own problems, was more difficult than combat, but once I did, I began a journey of healing. I started volunteering with the Legion and other groups to help other veterans like I needed. I became a peer helper, helping veterans get through their trauma, encouraging them to accept that they need professional help, and talking them down from emotional highs and lows. I started speaking publicly about my journey, encouraging others to get the help they need, to overcome the stigma that still exists around mental health. And then a funny thing happened, young soldiers began coming to me for advice, they lamented that they would never be the soldier I was in the way I used to compare myself to my grandfathers because the opportunities I had are no longer available to them; there are fewer chances for deployments and even fewer courses. I was humbled, and now I tell them that a veteran is a veteran regardless of what your service looks like. 

The challenge that I had to overcome was accepting help. In the Army, there is a stigma attached to seeking medical help; usually for those seeking a medical “excuse” to skip difficult parts of training, but the stigma is applied broadly. At first, I refused to accept that there was something wrong, even though I could feel it, I denied it still. Until I had my first panic attack, it felt like I was having a heart attack, it shook me to my core, and I was forced to seek help. Even still, I refused to accept that I was injured, I convinced myself it was nothing. I went to see the doctors but wasn’t putting in any effort into the treatments they recommended. I had trouble accepting help for my injury because I was still comparing myself to others, this time it was those I knew who came home severely injured, or not at all. Despite my non-acceptance, my injury got worse, and it began to impact my career and my family. I lashed out at others, I had become angry and unfocused, and I drank way too much. Until one day, in front of my family, I pressed a kitchen knife against my throat and threatened to end it right there. After that day, I began to take my mental health seriously, I was sent to a full-time trauma recovery program and began a long process of healing. I learned to apply strategies and mindfulness to keep myself calm; small successes at first, then more, and more, and more. Mental injuries are more like physical injuries than we tend to realize. With a physical injury, we stop exercising and rest, we seek medical attention and follow recovery strategies so that our recovery is short and complete. With mental health, we tend to deny it until it blows up in our face, then we try to recovery while still doing the same things that caused the injury. I hope that people will read this and put the work into healing and recovery before they hit rock bottom as I did. 

I left the army in 2019; 20 years after I joined, I took off my uniform for the last time. As I started to deal with the impact of leaving the army, the world was learning about COVID-19 and I watched as my unit deployed to help. Watching from home was painful, I used to be a part of the action and now I wasn’t. I was able to put my skills to work helping the City of Brampton managing a volunteer food packaging project; we packaged 40k meals for food banks to survive the lockdowns. I found purpose again after leaving the army. After Covid, I found new ways to serve, as an advocate I write articles, policy papers, and speak to parliamentarians about my service and the military. It keeps me connected to the military community and I continue to serve my country. Giving back has helped my recovery, and I feel fulfilled hearing from and working with other veterans in the community.