Veterans Affairs committee  I'd just like to start off by saying that somebody brought up a question around whether people are prepared when they get out of the military. I think this is what it is: they're not prepared to not be supported. As Mr. Blais said, “proactive” seems to be the keyword that is working very well today.

Veterans Affairs committee  I was in Bosnia in 1998, and then I did two back-to-back Afghanistan ones. I came home for just about a year, and then I went again. It was very difficult for my family for me to go back. It was selfish, I guess, on my part to want to go back. I volunteered to go back. I wasn't made to go back.

Veterans Affairs committee  I don't know. I'm not a regular force member—never have been.

Veterans Affairs committee  I don't want to speak for them.

Veterans Affairs committee  Wait, you know what? I'm sorry. I shouldn't say that. We have some members of the regular force that retire to our area. Maybe they were in Petawawa or Shilo. They retire to our area, and inevitably we find them, and they're having issues that they didn't want to speak about while they were in, or now they're they're helping us because they have other ideas.

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes, actually, there is. Guys come back from Afghanistan and want to get out of the military for whatever reason. They want to move on with their lives or they want to do whatever. It's not necessarily because they're frustrated with any particular thing, but they get out. They come home from Afghanistan, and they might have been in the army for a total of five years as a reservist, so there's no JPSU thing and there's no transition.

Veterans Affairs committee  Of course, yes. It's not just me. There are a few of us who do. Sorry.

Veterans Affairs committee  No. The actual number changes. We have a service number when we join the military, and for some reason when we go into VAC we have a different number. I'm not quite sure why that is. Maybe keeping the same number would make it pretty easy to remember. Then the kids and the family could have a separate number.

Veterans Affairs committee  When I was talking to him and to his mother, I asked him if he had a case manager. He asked what that was and said he didn't have anything like that. I asked if he called Veterans Affairs Canada, and he said that he called them about his bursary for schooling, which they had included as some kind of income for him.

Veterans Affairs committee  I'm not sure if formalizing us would be something that I'm ready to think about. We do talk to each other. We have messages that pop up on our phones. We keep our phones on at night. Mostly we guide people to the numbers that already exist. These numbers help already. A flood of too many phone numbers and too many things, and people vying for control over who does what and who helps whom, I don't think would be something that our group would necessarily do.

Veterans Affairs committee  Does that make sense?

Veterans Affairs committee  Absolutely, and that is what our group does. We just talk to each other. We all pretty well know each other, or we know the same people. A lot of these guys are still serving. We have health professionals, doctors, and all kinds of people in there. We all help each other, and we can come to each other.

Veterans Affairs committee  Veterans helping veterans is the way to go.

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes.

Veterans Affairs committee  That's a big one, changing the culture. In the military or where I'm from, the infantry, it's very much, “You gotta get up. You gotta go.” That suck-it-up term is a military term. It's been around since I was young and doing all kinds of stuff. When you fall off the helicopter or whatever and you hurt yourself, you get up and you go.