Any doubts about the lasting scars–mental, physical and psychological–that members of the military carry with them as they prepare to face an ofttimes bleak and unpredictable future might well be dispelled by newly published internal Defence Department statistics.
According to the records, obtained by The Canadian Press through the access to information law, more than 13-hundred troops assessed between June 2014 and July 2015 were at high risk of never returning to duty.
Of that group, 290 were diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, the condition that develops in some people who have experienced a shocking, scary, or dangerous event.
It’s a pernicious disorder, a life-long military legacy that most experts say never really goes away.
Don Leonardo lives with it every day.
A third generation member of the Canadian military who served as a peacekeeper in the former Yugoslavia in the early 1990’s, Leonardo is a long-time veterans advocate who is president of Veterans Canada, whose 8,000 members constitute the second largest (after the Canadian Legion) veterans group in the country.
When it comes to discussing PTSD, Leonardo knows all too well of which he speaks.
He joined me by phone from his home in Calgary.
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