Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank Mr. Grenier for joining us today. Your testimony is very important to us because, given your very diverse professional experience, your thoughts on this issue will carry a lot of weight with us.
I congratulate you on the role you are playing in helping us gain a more accurate understanding of post-traumatic stress disorder injuries. I also want to congratulate you on your tour of duty in Afghanistan—where we ran into each other—and on having the courage to talk about Rwanda and the harrowing experience involved in that operation. That's now a bit further behind us, but it's still very relevant when we think about Africa and the international situation. That was a nightmare we do not want to recur.
I would like to move on to a few very direct questions. They are also related to our conversations with other witnesses. Your expertise could be very useful to us.
A great deal has been said about tenacity, resistance and the prevention of mental health issues. Experts and doctors sometimes debate over that. In your experience, how much of a role did that play for people who were being prepared for deployment to Afghanistan or Rwanda? Is it really possible to toughen our soldiers and make them more resistant to sometimes traumatizing experiences they will go through, and to prevent mental health issues through sound training?