Sure.
You're absolutely right when you talk about people coming back from Afghanistan or doing policing work for 20 years. You're not the same person you were when you went in, but I dare say you're probably not the same after 20 years of any profession.
The issues around what police officers do on a daily basis and the feelings we might have are very normal feelings and emotions in regard to very abnormal situations. Police officers, by their very definition, go into situations where everybody else would be expected to head the other way. There has to be a reaction to that. There has to be.
We don't know exactly what that looks like, because there hasn't been a lot of police-specific research done in that area, which I think is really important. Although our CF colleagues undertake a horrendous job during the time they're in theatre, and they're there 100% day in and day out, when they come back. They have their own adjustment issues in coming back to “normal life” and what they do on a daily basis when they come back to base. On every day that a police officer puts on a uniform and heads out to the road, they have the potential of being in that same “firefight”.
After 20 years, that has to have an effect, cumulatively. It has to. But we don't know what that looks like. As well, it won't happen with everybody, because some people have natural resilience, but we don't yet know what that looks like either.