Like many veterans, I packed my medals away in a box with a sigh of relief. The first ten days of November are trying for me. I have too much time to think about what it means to be a veteran – past and present – as there are reminders in the media every day.
I have too many memories of suffering – of a cousin who served with the Cape Breton Highlanders in Italy. Omar had a 7.92 mm German bullet enter his shoulder in 1943 and fall out of his elbow joint about thirty years later as it followed the nerve tract. I think of my maternal grandfather’s undiagnosed PTSD, of the frequent heavy drinking of local First World War and Second World War veterans, and of my father’s embarrassment in not being one of them.
My father Charlie joined the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) in 1943 to have a chance at life beyond working on the surface at Dominion Coal Company mine 1B. Like so many other young people of that era, he wanted to “do his bit.” His basic training and early days learning to become an Electrical Instrument Mechanic started well – but then went downhill in late 1943. My father never had a chance to “do his bit” due to ankylosing spondylitis, an inflammatory arthritic condition that causes the vertebrae to fuse, often rendering the sufferer unable to walk or stand.
Dad had boarded a train in Toronto in December 1943 for a three-day journey across eastern Canada to Cape Breton to be with his family for Christmas. By the time the train reached Sydney, he could not move, and he had to be taken off the train on a stretcher. He was put to bed under his mother’s care; but was then moved to the hospital at RCAF Station Sydney as his condition was not improving. He missed his return date to RCAF Station Saint Thomas, Ontario and was declared Absent Without Leave (AWOL). Two RCAF military policemen from RCAF Station Sydney arrived at the house to arrest him. They were quite put out when they were told that “you have him in the military hospital.”
Eventually Dad made it back to Saint Thomas, where he was deemed medically unfit for further service. He was released from the RCAF 11 June 1944, five days after D-Day, when the newspapers and newsreels were filled with heroic stories of the advance of Allied Forces into France. These events occurred against the backdrop of the “Zombie crisis.” The Zombies were non-volunteers conscripted in accordance with the National Resources Mobilization Act of 1940. Conscription was a divisive issue in Canada, and to labelled as a shirker, i,e. a coward, was a mark of shame.
My father was embarrassed by his medical release from the RCAF. So much so that he did not consider himself to be a veteran as he had not served overseas. Given that his intended training path was to become an Electrical Instrument Mechanic, and then a Wireless Air Gunner (WAG) on bombers, it is better – for me and my siblings that he did not. Many of his peers from RCAF basic training in the “Horse Place” at the Canadian National Exhibition Grounds, Toronto did go on to become WAGs on Halifax and Lancaster boomers in No. 6 Group, Royal Air Force. Two-thirds of his basic training course intake were lost over the night skies of Europe. It is quite possible that he had “survivor guilt.”
Dad held to the idea that he was not a “real” veteran tenaciously. As he aged, he needed home assistance as the ankylosing spondylitis adversely affected his balance. He would often “dipsy-doodle” like a hockey player trying to break through the opposing defence walking down the hall. He had to touch the walls to stay upright. Dad refused for decades to contact Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC), believing that he was not entitled to VAC assistance as a “non-veteran,” and that ankylosing spondylitis was a personal problem. He was a hard sell. When attending church at age 85, he would park his car at the lower end of the hilly parking lot – even in winter – as he believed that he had to leave the reserved spots near the entranceway for “the old people.” Eventually he allowed for snow clearance and grass mowing assistance as it was becoming a safety issue at age 86. I clinched the deal by mentioning that even high school aged part-time soldiers who sprained an ankle at Camp Aldershot were entitled to such assistance.
When Dad died, I prepared a shadow box with his RCAF paraphernalia for the post funeral reception. The box contained his wedge cap with the RCAF hat badge, RCAF brass buttons with the albatross in flight, and his identity bracelet. I used a fringed marron pillow embroidered with Halifax Bombers as the backdrop for his two medals. He had been awarded the War Medal 1939-1945 and the Canadian Volunteer Service Medal by the Canadian government. He had never even threaded the medal ribbons through the clasps. The medals rested in their original white cardboard presentation boxes. He had never worn them – not even once. I put the ribbons on the medals – 65 years after they had been awarded – on the day of his funeral. I spoke about his wartime service at the reception, as many people did even not know that he had served.
All that to say, we should be careful in our assumptions as to who is a veteran and who deserves subsidized care. I do not know the degree to which Dad’s arthritic condition was affected by his RCAF service. It was not helped by the daily regimen of physical training and working in tight spaces in cold temperatures. When his condition stabilized, he went on to university and became a chemistry teacher. However, the mental aspects of not “doing his bit” stayed with him for the rest of his life. It was not traumatic, but it did have a significant impact on his self-image, and on his decisions to exercise Veterans’ Care options. I still have Dad’s medals and memorabilia, which hold bittersweet memories.
Not all military service encompasses confrontation with an armed enemy, even in wartime. I have met children of other Second World War veterans who expressed similar sentiments due to their parent never leaving Canada. However, injury and death still occurred in training in Canada. According to historian F.J. Hatch, 2367 lives were lost by British Commonwealth Air Training Plan trainees in Canada. One of these was a family friend, an instructor pilot, who died on Christmas Day, 1942 at RCAF Station Trenton, Ontario. The family’s sorrow lasted over 70 years – until the last member of his immediate family had died. Their sorrow was made more difficult by the fact that it had occurred in Canada, and they did not have the same sense that their family’s sacrifice had contributed to winning the War.
Military service occurs in accordance with an unlimited liability contract – even outside of a hostile theatre or a Special Duty Area. Would that this same obligation would extend from our federal and provincial governments to all veterans, past and present. Mental health post service encompasses more than PTSD, and we should recognize the need for transition support post service as former service men and women rebuild disrupted, and sometimes shattered lives. Please offer them that recognition of having “done their bit” even when they do not ask – and please accept that this recognition comes with a cost in time and in treasure.
If you wish to consider what these costs might entail, please visit the following websites:
https://www.facebook.com/CanadianVeteranMentalHealth/
You speak very poignantly about the broader impacts of “service” to country. Thus is needed and relevant around Remembrance Day/ Veterans Day. I feel the need to reach beyond “Armed Service” and look into the hidden human costs of departing civilian life and entering into the military. Human suffering and sacrifice is not confined to to warfare and the battlefield.
Too true Matt, sometimes the effects can linger for decades as the family has to live with the aftereffects of mental health issues on the service member.