Veterans Affairs committee  I think in most cases within the district office, things are pretty well squared away. However, then you go from the district office, say out of Saint John, and you go to the one—there's none in Charlottetown anymore—in Halifax. Well, they may have another take on certain services.

Veterans Affairs committee  For the most part, the case managers are not too bad with the veterans. They usually understand what they're going through. The difficulty is with the people he has to go through to finally get to that case manager. For instance, about 10 years ago, the first time I went to the Saint John office in New Brunswick to give a briefing, it had a nice little foyer, chairs, a coffee table.

Veterans Affairs committee  I understand the need for some security, but it's a them-and-us thing when you walk in there. I gave this country 30 years of my life, and I had my leg blown off and my head screwed up. You'd think I'd be getting the Cadillac treatment, not getting shoved around. It's the indifference to the cause that's frustrating.

Veterans Affairs committee  The military briefs its members on a lot of things in the run of a year. It's a continuation training on things like general awareness, harassment, first aid, quitting smoking, and things like that, but oddly enough there is no formal briefing or discussion of the mental health side of things, none at all, and I can't understand why.

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you. It's great to be able to present on behalf of the veterans and soldiers who are still serving about some of their concerns. I spent 32 years as a soldier, and then I was employed by the operational stress injury social support program for 10 years. I've seen service delivery before and after the new Veterans Charter.

National Defence committee  Just on the first one, I have two things on the fact that we can't find professionals out there. An OSI clinic opened in Fredericton two weeks ago. Psychiatrists, psychologists times three, social workers times two--found, hired, and in that clinic. VAC found them. Why can't DND find them?

National Defence committee  Could I just add to that? One of my tours was a year long. I was a military observer in Sarajevo during the war. To be honest with you, if you're on any tour of more than six months, as the doctor said, you're going to start having symptoms. I actually started having symptoms of PTSD, but I didn't realize it, nine months into my tour.

National Defence committee  The thing is, one of the key things about this injury is the first word in it, “post-”. The numbers probably ramped up radically after Dr. Passey put his study out. It would be great if it were “pre-”, because then we could screen them so they wouldn't get this illness, but it's “post-”, and the post can come six months, four months, ten months, four years, five years after.

National Defence committee  Yes. Things have changed radically. One of the biggest changes is that the people who are in those desks now have served in those places. The fellow I saw was a sailor, a navy guy, and he had done all those clinical things, so he had no idea what I was talking about as far as I was concerned.

National Defence committee  I don't think we're actually here as a group.

National Defence committee  My name is Fred Doucette. To start with, I'm here as Fred Doucette, former soldier, not as a DND employee. As the questions go along, I guess we can segue into the work that I do. I joined the army in 1968 and served until medically released in 2002 with PTSD. I did not meet the universality of service, in that I could no longer deploy outside Canada.