I didn't have closure. The funny thing, as I mentioned in my initial oral submission today, is that after the events of Somalia and the opprobrium we had faced nationally because of the events, a lot of us didn't really speak. It wasn't a topic of conversation we wanted to get into.
I was misdiagnosed in 2000 and released from the military with some sort of funky arthritic disease called ankylosing spondylitis. I never had it, and I proved the misdiagnosis in 2015 and corrected that. However, in 2000 I was released for this hereditary disease I didn't have and I asked myself what I would like to do. I always liked teaching and had done some instructional work at the infantry school prior to my release. So I went to East Asia. I taught English for a few years over there and then settled in Toronto in 2005, not around any military members. I was out of the picture and didn't even understand what was going on. I never kept in contact with people. I fully transitioned into the civilian world. The same goes for mefloquine. So I didn't know.
However, I didn't have closure from the events in the bunker. Now, the very smart woman I had married, Anna Zacios, has a degree in psychology from York University. She could see that I had certain things I needed to find closure with, and one of them was most certainly the experience I'd had with Kyle Brown in the bunker. So in late 2008 or 2009, I took her advice. I went and saw a counsellor. I was then diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. I went to counselling to deal with the memory loss and all of those other things, including the survivor guilt I felt from the experience.