Your first question is an excellent one. We have noted that our soldiers, like our police officers, are people who often want to help, and who have a particular vision of war. When they arrive in theatre and they see that their vision of war is nothing at all like what is really happening, that is a significant factor. Some soldiers tell us that they cannot understand how human beings can do that to others, that they have difficulty seeing children being killed and killing others. This should be part of the first intervention, meaning preparing soldiers prior to their departure.
Many soldiers have also told us that if they had known, before they left, what a dead body smelled like and known the barbaric acts being committed in theatre, things might have been easier for them. Our challenge will be to determine how to properly prepare them before they leave, and then, to test our therapeutic interventions. It's all well and good to put interventions in place, but we also have to ensure that they are effective.
Our problem is that many soldiers want to defend their homeland. This is their ideal. We have to remember that they have very strong personality traits. However, it is considered a sign of weakness to talk about managing stress prior to a trauma, and to talk about PTSD.
During the training I gave at Valcartier, clinicians told me they wanted more in-depth training, but they also pointed out that, when soldiers consulted them, they had to climb the stairway of shame. The entire base uses this expression to talk about having to go to the mental health centre.
I would invite your committee to ask Dr. Christiane Routhier, a specialist at Valcartier in the pre-departure program, to appear. This is all she does. She prepares military personnel before their departure, from a mental health standpoint. If you want more information on her preparatory work and its effectiveness, I would encourage you to invite her here.
Would you be kind enough to repeat your second question, please?