{"id":25214,"date":"2019-11-14T22:39:51","date_gmt":"2019-11-15T03:39:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=25214"},"modified":"2019-11-22T20:20:40","modified_gmt":"2019-11-23T01:20:40","slug":"younger-soldiers-sometimes-struggle-with-weighty-veteran-mantle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/younger-soldiers-sometimes-struggle-with-weighty-veteran-mantle\/","title":{"rendered":"Younger soldiers sometimes struggle with weighty “veteran” mantle"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The image of Trooper Karine Blais struck deep in to the\nCanadian consciousness when she was killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan in\n2009, aged just 21.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For many, it brought home the horrors of war and\nunderscored the sacrifices a new generation were prepared to make for their\ncountry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this image was all too real for Lt. Timothy McGrath.\nIn fact, the sight of Trooper Blais as he helped prepare for her repatriation\nfrom Afghanistan is something that sticks with him as vividly today as in 2009.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McGrath, a former member of the Queen\u2019s York Rangers,\nserved in Afghanistan for seven months between 2008 and 2009, holding a number\nof positions, including within mortuary affairs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI had a tour with some interesting experiences,\u201d he says\nwith typical understatement, before elaborating that these experiences ranged\nfrom observing feats of bravery which garnered the Star of Valour to, tragically,\nthe deaths of 24 Canadian soldiers during his rotation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet, McGrath is of the generation that bristles at the\nidea of being a veteran \u2013 a prevailing feeling, he says, of those men and women\nwho served with him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A fourth-generation service person, when McGrath hears\nthe word \u201cveteran\u201d he says he naturally thinks of those men and women, many of\nwhom are now in their tenth decade of life, who dedicated themselves to King\nand Country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A \u201cthank you\u201d heard when he happens to be doing a coffee\nrun wearing a uniform or any other sign of his service makes him bristle, and\nthe reality of being a veteran in this day, and something with which he\ncontinues to grapple.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was just a job,\u201d he says, noting he still holds with\ngreat pride his oath of service to the Queen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a \u201cjob\u201d that started in his youth, serving with an\nAir Cadets corps in Richmond Hill. He joined the military right out of high\nschool, serving first with the Queen\u2019s York Rangers and subsequently with the\nMilitary Police.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He served proudly as an officer for a number of years\nbefore certain medical conditions ended his career, resulting in a medical\nrelease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI miss it,\u201d he says. \u201cI miss it every day of my life.\nThere were obviously some huge downs but, in the end, it is something I will\nnever forget.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His experience with Trooper Blais and other comrades who\nfell during his tour are equally indelible, and remain so as he continues to\nwork through the realities of returning to civilian life \u2013 a struggle shared\nwith so many other Afghan veterans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am not sure if I ever really returned to normal life,\u201d\nhe says. \u201cI came back in 2009, I was commissioned as an officer in 2010, and I\nthink between some of the experiences in Afghanistan and the pressures of work,\nI was diagnosed with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), and I developed a\ndrinking problem for about two years. For the first six months or so after I\ncame back, there wasn\u2019t really an adjustment. It wasn\u2019t until about a year back\nwhen I started to realize things were different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe adjustment was hard for me. It has taken me about 10\nyears and, to this day, there are still things that bother me, sensitivities\nthat get to me, like loud noises. I\u2019m not big on public events, I kind of like\nto be in the back corner and know where all my exits are. I think it is an\nadjustment that never ends because those experiences never leave you. I think\nas Canadians we take a lot for granted.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part of that adjustment is getting into the mindset of\nbeing a veteran. It is a struggle he has discussed with friends who also\nserved, he says, and they share the feeling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI still see my grandfather as a veteran myself,\u201d he\nsays. \u201cI see myself as a solider, but not a veteran yet. The Second World War\nwas so different. Hundreds of thousands, millions of people died. In\nAfghanistan, while tragic, 158 soldiers died. That happened in an hour in World\nWar Two.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps underpinning this perception is the story of his\ngrandfather, Jack Hayes, who got the measles just before he was supposed to go\ninto combat with his Regiment. He was the only Regiment member left behind as\nthey marched off \u2013 and he was ultimately the only member of his regiment to survive\nthe conflict. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI will never relate to something like that,\u201d says his\ngrandson. \u201cNo soldier, even in Afghanistan, that can really understand that\nreally mass damage.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But McGrath is nevertheless willing to step up and help\nothers understand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As an active member of the Aurora branch of the Royal\nCanadian Legion, he holds a position dedicated to assisting veterans \u2013 many of\nwhom saw combat in the same theatre as he did, and are still equally reluctant\nto adopt the label.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, he says this acceptance of the term and the\nweighty mantle that comes with it might get easier over time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think it is typical of a soldier,\u201d he says. \u201cThere is\na stigma around PTSD and we don\u2019t talk about it a lot of the time, so I almost\ndon\u2019t want to think about it. You talk about veterans groups like the Legion,\nwho are fighting for the vets, so I\u2019ll let them fight and I have always stayed\nin my little corner without paying too much attention to that, but I can say\nthe challenge going forward is, I think, current Afghan vets recognizing\nthemselves as vets. The combat operations ended in 2014, so there were guys who\nwere 18 or 20 years old who are in their late 20s now. They are still in the\nmindset that, \u2018I\u2019m not a veteran either,\u2019 and they need to recognize themselves\nas vets. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe need to think about [our military\u2019s] next phase. Are\nwe going back to a peacekeeping phase? What\u2019s the military of the next\ngeneration going to look like? Could soldiers be served better? Absolutely, and\nI think a lot of it has to be with soldiers not truly recognizing the service\nthey have done yet \u2013 and that is going to come with time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recognition of their own service and contributions will come in time, says local veteran of Afghanistan conflict.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":25215,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/2019-11-14-01.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6yG","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-15 08:32:22","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25214\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}