National Defence committee  If I could add just one more thing to that, bringing it up one more level, in June of this year we're going to have the second annual army what we call after-action review, where the commanders from all levels--rifleman, tactics--are out in Wainwright, and the lessons learned.

National Defence committee  I can start with this one just from a commanding officer's perspective, and it's exactly as General Grant has laid out. There's--again I'll use the term--a social contract, but it's more than that. It's laid out in regulations that the medical community or my medical officer is bound to give me the limitations of employment of the soldier under his or her care as well as potential return-to-duty dates.

National Defence committee  I'm not sure who you mean by the engineers. We had engineers integrated with us who were military engineers. Our modus operandi was not to do the work that we could engage Afghans to do, and that process is still continuing. You may have read of a road that's been constructed that could have been done a lot faster by hiring big pieces of machinery, but they chose to hire local Afghans to do it by hand to encourage economic development at the lowest level.

National Defence committee  In my time there I did not, but again, as is recognized and as is implied by the name, post-traumatic stress comes after the fact. I still keep in contact with the team I was with, and we look after ourselves. General Grant, as many know, was close to his time to return home when his vehicle was attacked by a suicide bomber, and there was a CIDA representative in the vehicle with them.

National Defence committee  Not at all, sir. You ate at the PRT. You know the food there.

National Defence committee  In my current position I can see some of the additional measures we've taken to assist those soldiers. For example, on providing assisting officers to the injured, if a family is uncomfortable with a certain assisting officer and they know of another military member they would like to be an assisting officer, we've been able to facilitate that.

National Defence committee  If I may add something, my current position is one of record, and you can see it there. I'm the executive assistant to the army commander. I will say that I've lived through this, and this is how it works. I get calls from Minister MacKay's office, the military assistant's office, to say that someone has approached a member of Parliament and they have since gone to Mr.

National Defence committee  I'd like to add, not so much from my role in Afghanistan, but as a commanding officer of a regiment in Petawawa before deploying and as a commissioned officer in the Canadian Forces, that I'd take action to look after the care of my subordinates when I hear there is an issue, and that's not just me; it's public knowledge, because it's in the newspapers, that General Hillier himself has entertained the families of those who may have fallen through the cracks.

National Defence committee  I completely understand your question, sir. I stay in very close contact with my civilian counterparts with whom I served in the PRT. In fact, as recently as last night we were out discussing this. I think what needs to be considered, and I'm sure it will be, is being able to provide to those civilians the same degree of care and consideration for their mental health as we provide for our soldiers.

National Defence committee  You're asking me to speculate a bit, and obviously I'd rather not do that.

National Defence committee  If I could start, I'd like to say that we, as officers and senior NCOs, spend our careers getting ready for that sort of position. It's called leadership. It's developing experience along the way, doing professional development, and learning to be a leader in understanding potential stressors and how to deal with them.

National Defence committee  Mr. Chair and honourable members of the committee, good afternoon. My name is Lieutenant-Colonel Simon Hetherington. I'm a field artillery officer by training. However, from June 2006 until late January of 2007, I deployed to Afghanistan as the commanding officer of the Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team, or the PRT.