Mr. Bouchard, you can imagine the stigmatization amongst civilians with regard to mental health issues. We have already made up our minds. Each of us has our own prejudices in this regard. So, imagine someone belonging to an organization in which every day you have to show your courage, your determination, your ability to endure stress and be a positive force in situations and who, suddenly, is no longer able to deal with that, not because that individual has lost his arm or has a bad back, but because something between his ears is not working properly. The worse thing is that it's already hard to try to make the injured person understand that things are no longer working properly. If we fail to encourage people to be aware of the fact that they suffer from this injury, they will automatically fear having to ask for help.
Furthermore, there is no doubt that such injuries create uncertainty within the chain of command. As you saw, soldiers arrive in theatre and start to shoot. So we can wonder whether an individual will do his job or panic and run away. This is an operational factor. In fact, we are at war, and it's not like during the Cold War, a period where troops went to train in Germany while waiting for the Russians to arrive. Today, we have a field army that sometimes returns to the garrison to try to heal its injuries.
In that context, commanders have a greater tendency to ask themselves whether regarding an individual, they will take risks or not. This puts pressure on individuals, who then feel an even greater need to control themselves. Those who are injured will not necessarily identify themselves. It's not because they fear that their boss knows or because they're afraid of being seen as a coward: it's because, as individuals, they feel a responsibility to the group. They know that the commander is counting on them and they don't want to be seen as not giving 100%. Maybe they could give 90%, that would be enough, but that's not the maximum.
In light of those two factors together, it is absolutely essential that professionals spend a lot of time seeing those individuals upon their return. The most vulnerable people are, for example, radar technicians from small towns who are sent over there for a certain amount of time but then who go back to their own bases and are alone. These people don't have any experience in theatre. There are also the reservists.
My regiment is the 6th Field Artillery Regiment of Lévis. Two weeks ago, 18 members of that group came back: one seriously wounded and 17 others in good shape. Their families came to the parade and the dinner. Simply by looking at an individual's ability to communicate, you can determine in two minutes if they have a problem. The proactive method is not yet sufficiently developed to save some of these people.