When I look at my rank and see “Master Corporal”.... At that point in time, we knew we were getting shortchanged, and we knew it would have lifelong impacts, but we still did the missions anyway. We weren't fully cognizant or aware of the scope or breadth of the change. As a matter of fact, nobody was. Nobody was aware of how much of an impact the NVC would have on those suffering from injuries, whatever they were, or the need for care after service. The impact of that wasn't known until recently.
I don't really have an answer for that, other than what I just said. If we had known what we know now, which we should have known then, it would have been dumped, but for someone, somewhere, there was a benefit. For someone, somewhere, it sounded like a good idea. As I said, for the Canadian government right now, the impact for everybody here is that you're seeing these changes now. You're seeing that there's a recruiting problem for all uniformed services, but for national defence, it is a big, big problem. You're getting a hard turnover, and when you get a hard turnover, you get a lot more brain drain. You're less able to have that experience to go from one mission to the next, from one war or conflict or whatever it is to the next, and take those experiences to keep the casualty and injury rates low.
The Gulf War was a phenomenal success because you had people with 30 years of experience who went in and led that stuff and did these things. How many years of prior experience did Mr. Summers go in with? Imagine someone going in with only 10 years of experience and leading a whole combat team or brigade or division. You're going to have a lot of casualties regardless.
Again, this new veterans charter is having an effect. We're seeing long-term effects on recruiting and morale.
Does that answer your question, sir?