Veterans Affairs committee  My experience with family services was rather brief. I had a 22-year-old graduate sitting in front of me asking me about my family life, so that ended rather quickly. We've fallen into this “cover your ass” scenario where everybody wants to make sure that they ticked all the box

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes. Part of the issue boils down to this. If I admit I have a problem, I'm going to be punted over to the JPSU. That stops my career progression right away. If I admit I have a problem, that I can't do the job, people are going to start looking at me differently. They will decid

Veterans Affairs committee  No. Post-deployment is the phase when you come home and you fix all the broken equipment. You get yourself back in the rhythm of what's going on within the regiment. What I'm advocating is that, rather than focusing on training as your regular run to the ranges, field craft, and

Veterans Affairs committee  This is the thing. I can tell you about lots of my friends. One of them in particular had a drinking problem. We didn't know he had a drinking problem. His roommate didn't know he had a drinking problem. It wasn't until Christmas that he exploded on somebody, and they had to phys

Veterans Affairs committee  You're still dealing with dinosaurs. There are still people in the organization who do not believe that PTSD is a viable injury, despite all the medical evidence to the contrary. The root issue is one of education. Again, I come back to the SHARP program where the military was

Veterans Affairs committee  One of the interesting things is the proliferation of motorcycle groups. I can name you half a dozen right now that are rolling self-help groups. They're strictly veterans. Among us, there is the word “brother”. When we say “brother”, it means anytime of the day, anytime of the n

Veterans Affairs committee  First off, the Legion needs to die. Let me put that out there, and I'll explain why. Those are guys who grew up in a time when it was safe to slap your wife, spank the kids, and kick the dog. Today, you cannot be seen in public, drunk. We've had a societal change. The Legion h

Veterans Affairs committee  Actually, I can expand on that. The key thing that we're looking for is a network. We're unique in many ways because we're broken. There's a humility that exists in this panel. We've been through more shit than you can shake a stick at, more than the average guy, and we don't jud

Veterans Affairs committee  If I could just add to that, the military has a shadow organization called National Defence headquarters. It's civilian. That would be the logical place to re-employ individuals. I know a lot of guys in NDHQ who are ex-military. They step from one job into the next. Some don't

Veterans Affairs committee  Once the battalion comes back there needs to be a time to recuperate, an opportunity for people to sit down and talk about their experiences as a group, PT, medical appointments, talking to a psychologist if that's necessary, an opportunity to reconnect with their families rather

Veterans Affairs committee  You're talking about Homewood.

Veterans Affairs committee  The primary reason behind that is that Homewood is an addictions facility. In the hierarchy of things that deal with PTSD, substance abuse is the primary masking go-to methodology. It can be drinking, it can be porn, it can be marijuana, it can be all kinds of stuff—drug abuse. H

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you. I was getting them mixed up. One gives you a high, and one deals with your pain. Many of the guys I know who are on medical marijuana don't get the kind that gives you a high. They get the one that gives you good pain relief. In fact, I'm on the verge of actually gett

Veterans Affairs committee  Committee members, I put the uniform on when I was 13 as an air cadet. The truth is, my family was a military family and by the time I was 12 I knew all the drills anyway so that's where I was headed. I took it off when I was 54. That's 41 years in uniform. I've had eight deploym