The navy has a history of being away from home a lot without it actually being called a deployment. In the old days of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, it was common to be away from home for six to eight months of the year, and that was just business as usual. Typically you'd come ashore, and then you'd be on a career course, usually in Halifax, away from your home port. So it was a very tough life for families in the navy.
There have been more and more so-called operational deployments with the navy. In Operation Apollo, from 2001 to 2003, folks were literally going on deployment a year after they had come back. They had a very heavy load, because of course the navy is much smaller than either the air force or the army, at just less than 10,000 sailors. It was a heavy load on those folks, especially when they started getting ill or burned out. People who were supposed to be in shore billets suddenly did a pier-head jump back to sea.
From a health services perspective, right now our greatest challenge is that our physician assistants are being hired in droves by the civilian world, primarily Manitoba, Alberta, and Ontario.