Bosnia veteran shot by police was finally getting treatment for PTSD

Bosnia veteran shot by police was finally getting treatment for PTSD: family
By: The Canadian Press
14/09/2012

Greg Matters is shown in this undated family handout photo. A Prince George man shot at his home in a confontation with RCMP was a veteran of the Bosnian conflict who was finally getting treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, says his family. Greg Matters was a soldier for 15 years, his sister, Tracey, told reporters.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Prince George Citizen-Brent Braaten

PRINCE GEORGE, B.C. - A man fatally shot at his home in a confrontation with RCMP in Prince George, B.C., was a veteran of the Bosnian conflict who was finally getting treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, says his family.

Greg Matters was a soldier for 15 years, his sister, Tracey, told reporters on Thursday.

He left the Canadian Forces in 2009 and after he returned to his home town in northern British Columbia it became clear to those who loved him that Matters was suffering from PTSD, she said.

"There was a delay in him getting treatment," said his sister, who returned to Canada from Australia after learning her brother was dead.

"We actually, as a family, suspected he had post-traumatic stress disorder and we sought treatment independently."

About a year and half ago, he began treatment at the Operational Stress Injury clinic in Vancouver, one of nine across Canada funded by Veterans Affairs.

"He was just back to the good old Greg that I knew 20 years ago," Tracey Matters said in a telephone interview with reporters. "He was an absolute riot. I loved him to bits. "He was a decorated veteran suffering from PTSD but was making amazing success; he was improving dramatically."

But on Monday, an RCMP emergency response team was deployed to a rural property near Prince George, about 750 kilometres north of Vancouver, where a confrontation ensued, and 40-year-old Matters was fatally shot by police.
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Canadian police shooting leaves PTSD veteran dead

Canadian soldier committed suicide, parents stuck with court bill

Family of soldier who committed suicide stuck with $10K bill after correcting death certificate

OTTAWA — The family of a Canadian soldier who committed suicide spent just over $10,800 in court costs to correct mistakes made in the young soldier’s death certificate and registration, errors for which they blamed National Defence.

But their lawyer, retired colonel Michel Drapeau, says a potential legal claim was dropped because Cpl. Stuart Langridge’s parents feared it would create the perception they were out to profit from the 28-year-old’s death.

Shaun and Sheila Fynes were also worried a lawsuit would impede an inquiry currently taking place before the Military Police Complaints Commission, he added.
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Canadian Afghan vet put into recovery by father speaks of battle with PTSD

Afghan vet put into recovery by father speaks of battle with PTSD, alcohol
By Chris Cobb
Ottawa Citizen
September 4, 2012

‘In Afghanistan I was never so scared but never felt so alive. When I got home, I was still scared but didn’t know why.’

OTTAWA — Like many of his army pals, Master Cpl. Jonathan Woolvett has been through hell. Two tours of Afghanistan as a front line infantryman left him an emotionally debilitated, suicidal alcoholic. His story attracted widespread national attention and an outpouring of support in May when the Citizen reported that Jonathan’s father Greg had ‘kidnapped’ his son from CFB Petawawa in a desperate effort to get him into treatment. A week earlier Jonathan had made his second suicide attempt. Greg, who accused Petawawa medical hierarchy of ignoring or dismissing the plight of many mentally damaged soldiers, drove his 30-year-old son to a rehab facility in Windsor where he stayed for 90 days.

After initially threatening to court martial Jonathan for going AWOL and then refusing to refill his medication prescription unless he returned to base, his superiors at Petawawa changed their attitude — at least publicly. The military paid for his stay at the treatment facility and agreed to his request for a transfer to CFB Borden near his hometown of Barrie.

Now in the first weeks of recovery, Jonathan is receiving regular psychiatric and medical care, easing his way back into the military workforce and hoping to revive a career that began 10 years ago and, on paper at least, has 10 more to go. Jonathan spoke to the Citizen about being caught in the surreal chaos of war and the demons he brought back from Afghanistan — demons that drove him to drink, wrecked his marriage and almost cost him his life.
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Canadian Military Suicide study supports depression-suicide link

Major depression drives suicidal thinking in soldiers and vets, new Canadian study shows

Sharon Kirkey
2 hours ago


Soldiers and veterans seeking treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder should be screened closely for major depression, say the authors of a new Canadian study that shows depression is the single greatest driver of suicidal thinking.

Appearing in this month’s issue of The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, the study of 250 actively serving Canadian Forces, RCMP members and veterans comes as record numbers of suicides are occurring among American troops returning from Afghanistan and Iraq, and as the number of suicides reported among Canadian Forces personnel last year reached its highest since 1995.

In vets diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, about half also experience symptoms of major depressive disorder at some point in their lives, the authors of the new study write.

But “the task of predicting which people may be at an increased risk of completing suicide is a complex and challenging care issue,” they said.
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Another under-told story about the Vietnam War

We've all heard a lot of stories about draft dodgers taking off to Canada but since not many heard about the flip side, Canadians coming to fight with US forces in Vietnam, here's one to use as a reminder.

Vietnam War caught up to Windsor vet, son says
July 26, 2012
Posted by: Rebecca Wright

Vietnam War veteran Daniel Newton cheated death many times in combat but the war finally caught up to him when he died Sunday at the age of 67, his son said Thursday.

He said his father was exposed to Agent Orange and it was a contributing factor in his death.

“Agent Orange played a key role in his failing health. They used to take baths in that over there and a lot of vets that were exposed to it have gotten ill over the years,” said John, adding his father also suffered from a bad heart and diabetes.

He said doctors told his father that Agent Orange poses a serious health hazard. It was used as a defoliant by the U.S. military and has been linked to a variety of illnesses, including skin ailment, cancer and diabetes.

He said his father enlisted because he wanted to help save South Vietnam from communism. It wasn’t a popular choice in Canada, but he went anyway.

Newton was one of the 40,000 Canadians who volunteered to fight for the U.S. during the Vietnam War.
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Canadian Military ‘Disappointed’ head of veteran’s suicide probe

‘Disappointed’ head of veteran’s suicide probe won’t press Peter MacKay for key documents after Defence Minister’s stonewalling
Chris Cobb
Postmedia News
Jun 27, 2012

OTTAWA — The head of a federal inquiry probing the suicide of Afghan war veteran Stuart Langridge says he won’t immediately challenge Defence Minister Peter MacKay in Federal Court over his refusal to hand over key documents.

MacKay refused a request by Military Police Complaints Commission chairman Glenn Stannard to waive solicitor-client privilege in the Langridge case and provide the inquiry with the documents.

“While I’m disappointed with this response by Minister MacKay I continue to respect his position of authority,” said Stannard and his undoubted prerogative to exercise his discretion with respect to any request to waive privilege.”
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PTSD tearing up armed forces base, soldiers, families say in Canada too

PTSD tearing up armed forces base, soldiers, families say
5:55 pm, May 18th, 2012
TIM BAINES
QMI AGENCY

CFB PETAWAWA - A sleepy, sprawling armed forces base is being ripped apart by drugs, alcohol and suicides. Soldiers, still haunted by the horrors of war, are being left high and dry - leading to suggestions the military isn't doing enough to combat Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

At CFB Petawawa, with its population base of 14,000 (5,400 of them military) there is no base addictions counsellor and the psychologist is leaving.

They're undermanned and overwhelmed. One psychiatrist is on maternity leave, the other works part-time.

The satellite mental health clinic in Ottawa will close July 1. As many as 60 soldiers are being treated there. The clinic's psychologists will commute to Petawawa, but the visits will be infrequent. There is a fear that some soldiers, still suffering from PTSD, are being sent back overseas, untreated.

"There are medical doctors here that don't believe PTSD exists," said a soldier, who can't be named. "And there are some who are crossing the line who are almost treating mental health issues. They are practising outside their field. Medical doctors don't know anything about mental health."

Still affected by his time in Afghanistan, the soldier keeps two swords and a knife in his bedroom.

"The current state of Warrior Support Services is deplorable and the military should be ashamed of how they are letting down those who have risked their lives," said Jade (not her real name), a soldier's wife.

Soldiers are being told to man up, discouraged from following up on any after-affects of seeing bodies shredded by bombs, the threat of being shot in the head by a terrorist and the haunting sounds of missiles and gunfire. They're told to forget the smell of death that surrounded them in their tour of duty.

Brittney Howell, a soldier's wife, is distressed.

"A lot of guys on the base have committed suicide and it gets swept under the carpet. In April, there were three suicides in one week. Nobody knows," she said.
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Who made Justin Bieber T-shirts an Internet hit

Who made Justin Bieber T-shirts an Internet hit?

Canadians!

Pete McLean, left, said the soldiers in his regiment often played jokes on each other to boost moral.

Toronto Star

Chantaie Allick Staff Reporter Canadians aren't known for their “laugh out loud” sense of humour, so when pictures surfaced earlier this week of soldiers on a military base striking a pose in too-tight Justin Bieber T-shirts
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Canadian Forces suicides on the rise in 2011

Canadian Forces suicides on the rise in 2011
Allan Woods
Ottawa Bureau
OTTAWA

More Canadian soldiers committed suicide last year than at any time since the mid-1990s, according to figures released by the military on Monday.

There were a total of 20 suicides among Canadian Forces personnel in 2011 — 19 males and one female — up from a dozen in 2010.

“One suicide is too many and we have too many every year,” Gen. Walter Natynczyk, chief of the defence staff, said of the increase Monday at a Senate defence committee hearing.

The military said in a news release that while the number for 2011 is higher than in previous years, the variation can be the result of “random patterns or indicate the beginning of an upward trend.”

But Defence Minister Peter MacKay said there is “no question” that the effects of multiple deployments to Afghanistan since 2001 “have had a debilitating effect” on the mental health of Canadian troops.

The military does not release specific details about suicide deaths other than those that occur while a soldier is deployed overseas. There were two “non-hostile” deaths in Afghanistan last year, including that of Master Cpl. Francis Roy last June. Military officials ruled Roy’s death as a possible suicide. A month earlier, Bombadier Karl Manning was killed in a “non-hostile” incident, though it isn’t clear whether it was suicide.

There were also several military suicides last fall that around the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, although it is unknown if the particular date played any role in the soldiers’ decision to take their lives.
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Is military training so intense it causes PTSD too?

Inside a military training exercise in Yuma Royal Canadian Regiment trains in Ariz. desert
Published : Thursday, 26 Apr 2012

“Yeah I think some of the soldiers might get PTSD from being here, but it is a great training environment, it simulates the common environment we are all faced with, its great.”

YUMA, Ariz. - It’s not just US Armed Forces taking on terrorism around the world. We get a lot of help from our allies.

FOX 10 cameras were watching as the Royal Canadian Regiment went into action recently, capturing a high-value target.

A battalion of the Royal Canadian Regiment launches its air assault in clouds of swirling dust, as a platoon ropes into the hideout of a high value terrorist target.

“Our unit has deployed several times and I have as well,” said Major David Hill, Royal Canadian Regiment.

But this isn't Afghanistan. It isn't Iraq. That tire burning next to a saguaro cactus means only one thing. This is Arizona. To be exact, the US Army's Yuma proving ground.

“The landscape is a similar type of landscape to places we could potentially deploy in the future,” says Hill.

It's a mock Middle East village built years ago to help U.S. forces train for overseas missions. This month it helped Canadian forces sharpen their skills.

“It’s a great opportunity for the solders to get a chance to see the sights and smells and sounds of places in the future they might find themselves.”

Before the assault, we put a portable camera on one of the bad guys. Our volunteer, plus other Canadians and some U.S. Marines, play terrorist bodyguards.

They are protecting a high value target: another Canadian soldier. She's dressed to look like a terrorist leader.
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Inside a military training exercise in Yuma: MyFoxPHOENIX.com

Canada's Afghan war vets struggle to find support

Away from the big bases, Afghan war vets struggle to find support


BY DOUG SCHMIDT, POSTMEDIA NEWS
FEBRUARY 27, 2012

WINDSOR, Ont. — It wasn't until his best friend, Stefan Jankowski, 25, killed himself that calls for help from a young Windsor, Ont., Afghan veteran began to get noticed.

"Right away, I had people knocking on my door, making sure I was still alive," said "Sam Smith," recalling the tragic day last summer.

"I was probably weeks away from what happened to Stefan," said the 23-year-old who, like Jankowski, was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, upon his return from Kandahar.

Smith, who was a corporal, asked that his real name not be used, explaining he doesn't want to jeopardize the assistance he's getting from Veterans Affairs Canada.

Traumatic memories, including having a friend die in his arms, left Jankowski addicted to PTSD drugs and plagued by hallucinations and nightmares.

He was discharged after run-ins with the law and going AWOL from CFB Petawawa. Jankowski was on a waiting list for out-of-town help with his mental health issues when he died.

His family says the military had "washed their hands of him" after he returned.
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Canadian Troops' Christmas packages arrive in wet garbage bags

Troops' Christmas packages arrive damaged

CBC News Posted: Dec 9, 2011 8:36 AM PT Last Updated: Dec 9, 2011 9:18 AM PT Read 118 comments118

A Victoria mother says it's going to be a blue Christmas for many soldiers in Afghanistan because their holiday packages from home are arriving damaged and destroyed.

Terrie Marchand says military officials sent letters to families in October urging them to send Christmas cards and parcels to their loved ones serving overseas.

So she and her family put together a package for her son, who is stationed at Camp Mike Spann in Afghanistan with the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry.

But when it arrived, she was devastated to hear back from her son that most of the mail "arrived in sealed garbage bags filled with water, making the cards and letters unreadable and destroying the parcels."

"He got his Christmas parcel from this sister, a Christmas card from his sister-in-law… and he couldn't even read them. The parcel was so soaked right through the actual wrapping of the DVD right to the disc," she told CBC News.
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Canadian family still seeking answers after soldier's suicide

Family still seeking answers after soldier's suicide

CTV News.ca Staff
Date: Wed. Jul. 20 2011 6:24 PM ET
More than three years after a soldier committed suicide following a struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder, his family is still fighting for answers about what went wrong.

Corp. Stuart Langridge, 29, was a promising young soldier who dedicated his life to the military. But on March 15, 2008, he took his own life by hanging himself in his barracks at CFB Edmonton.

Langridge, who served in Bosnia and Afghanistan, had been suffering from post-traumatic stress, alcohol and substance abuse upon his return from a six-month tour in Afghanistan in 2005.

Though his family didn't know it at the time, he had attempted suicide on six occasions.

"We had no idea how seriously ill Stuart was. We only knew parts of what was going on; we didn't understand the full extent of it," his father Shaun Fynes told CTV's Canada AM Wednesday from Victoria.
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Family still seeking answers after soldier's suicide

Canada:Troubled soldier got no help from military

Troubled soldier got no help from military: family

The family of Canadian Army Trooper Stefan Jankowski are mourning his death, but have questions regarding the lack of treatment for his illnesses and addictions Monday July 13, 2011.

Jul 14, 2011

By Trevor Wilhelm

WINDSOR — Dodging bullets from children, stumbling across a boy with his face blown off and grasping a dead friend in his arms — the horror was more than Stefan Jankowski could bear.

Diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and hooked on prescription drugs, the 25-year-old Windsor soldier returned home from war in Afghanistan to face a losing battle with his own demons.

His family said he died Saturday from a prescription drug overdose, after getting little help from the military he dreamt of serving from boyhood.

They want answers, saying the military “washed their hands of him” and didn’t give Mr. Jankowski the help he needed after he was discharged.

“You can’t put a gun in his hand, he can’t even take care of himself,” said father Bruce Timothy. “So they don’t need him anymore.”

“He’s been found in the front yard of his house jumping over the railing, thought he was still in the war, running around on the grass in his underwear.”

Mr. Jankowski’s problems compounded when he got hooked on painkillers and drugs prescribed for post-traumatic stress disorder. He overdosed sometime after his lawyer dropped him off early Saturday at his rooming house. His body was found the next day. Mr. Jankowski leaves behind two daughters Destiny, 7, and four-year-old Alexis.
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Troubled soldier got no help from military

Canadian forces:End of combat not the end of battle

July 02, 2011, EDT.
End of combat not the end of battle for soldiers wounded in Afghanistan
Dene Moore, The Canadian Press

Bombardier Matt Coles, who was injured in Afghanistan, is seen through camouflage netting as he poses for a photograph at the 15th Field Regiment unit in Vancouver, B.C., on Tuesday April 5, 2011. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck"

VANCOUVER - Bombardier Matt Coles remembers thinking the bullets had missed him.

In the frenzied moments after he and his sergeant were sprayed by a volley of accidental fire as they prepared to go out on patrol in Kandahar city, Coles lay in the dust and thought maybe he hadn't been hit at all.

Then he remembers pulling his hands away from his leg to see it covered in blood. The bullet had hit him above his left knee, ricocheted off the bone, and ripped an exit through the other side of his leg. En route, it broke his femur and tore through a vein.

Beside Coles lay the sergeant, his legs and abdomen riddled with bullets, bleeding from his femoral arteries.

"Right away, you do think you're going to die — I mean, when someone gets shot in a movie they die, right? Everybody knows that," said Coles, a wise-cracking soldier from Chilliwack, B.C., whose life experiences belie his 20 years of life.

But the realization soon dawned that help was close at hand, since the two soldiers were still inside the confines of the Canadian base at Camp Nathan Smith, with medics and a field hospital close at hand.

"At first, you know — 'OK, all right, I'm not going to die, I'm just going to lose my leg,' and then you try and cope with that," Coles said. Had they not been on the base, the sergeant would likely not have survived, he added.

Coles and his sergeant — the two of them are still recovering from the "friendly fire" incident in February 2010 that nearly took their lives — were among the more than 1,800 Canadian soldiers wounded in Afghanistan as of the end of last year.

By the time the combat mission ends next month, that number will surely be higher.

Of those, 615 troops were wounded in action by improvised explosive devices, mines, rocket attacks and direct fire, as well as friendly fire related to combat action and "acute psychological trauma directly attributable to combat action that required medical intervention."

Another 1,244 suffered unspecified "non-battle injuries."

Not all wounds are easy to see.
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End of combat not the end of battle

Son’s suicide followed tour of duty in Afghanistan

‘A different person came home’
Father: Son’s suicide followed tour of duty in Afghanistan
By The Canadian Press
Wed, Jun 22 - 4:54 AM
GLACE BAY — The father of a Canadian soldier who committed suicide last week says his son might not have been in Afghanistan when he died, but he died because of his time there.

Cpl. James McMullin, 29, who was stationed at Canadian Forces Base Gagetown, N.B., was found dead Friday at his home near the base.

Originally from Glace Bay, McMullin served in Afghanistan for six months and his tour ended in March 2009.

"If I could tell anyone anything about Jamie after he came back from Afghanistan . . . he never came back," said Darrell McMullin, the soldier’s father.

"A different person came home. He couldn’t forget what he did over there, he couldn’t get past it. He tried to make everyone happy and smile, but when he was alone he didn’t smile."

Capt. John Hugh MacDonald, a Forces spokesman, said the death of McMullin is under investigation by the RCMP and will also be the subject of a military inquiry.

"It’s automatic — the military will convene a board of inquiry," he said.
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A different person came home

Canada studies elevated suicide rate in military women

Military studies elevated rate of suicide in women in and out of forces

HALIFAX The Canadian military is trying to understand why female personnel in their early 40s were more than twice as likely to die from suicide as their civilian counterparts.

Groundbreaking research by the Canadian Forces, Statistics Canada and Veterans Affairs has shown a statistically significant increase in the number of suicide deaths in female service members between the ages of 40 to 44.

The Canadian Forces Cancer and Mortality Study also found a similar increase in women of the same age who have been released from the military.

“We’re a little bit surprised,” Colonel Colin MacKay, director of Force Health Protection and co-chair of the study’s advisory committee, said in Ottawa.

“This was information we hadn’t had before and is very important information ... because we can now start to look at it more carefully.”

Researchers can’t explain the increase for that age group, but MacKay cautions it involves a small number of women over a 35-year period.
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Military studies elevated rate of suicide in women

Canadian military redeploying soldiers with PTSD

Canadian military redeploying soldiers with PTSD
CBC News Posted: Jun 14, 2011

A former elite soldier with the Canadian Forces says post-traumatic stress disorder caused him to descend into what he describes as his "train wreck years."

Steve Lively says he ballooned to 240 pounds, grew his hair down to his lower back and suffered from severe alcohol and drug addiction.

"It was self-medication to deal with what I was going through," said Lively, 46, who suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after serving on a number of tours, including to Congo, Uganda and Rwanda.

He keeps a picture of himself from that time on the wall of his office: it's a reminder of a low he never wants to descend back into.

His PTSD became worse with each deployment and eventually Lively left the military. He now works for National Defence and speaks to soldiers about PTSD.
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Canadian military redeploying soldiers with PTSD

Canadian PTSD dog named Stinky in Purina's Hall of Fame

Dog named Stinky helps troops with post-traumatic stress
Rottweiler among five pooches inducted into Animal Hall of Fame
By PAT HEWITT The Canadian Press
Mon, May 16 - 8:42 PM

TORONTO — A group of Canadian soldiers struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder could barely face leaving their homes and even contemplated suicide before they met Stinky.
But the 10-year-old Rottweiler from Winnipeg was the perfect medicine for the traumatized combat veterans and helped them regain their lives after returning home.

Stinky, who is part of unique therapy dog program aimed at helping soldiers deal with life after war, was honoured with the service dog of the year award on Monday. She was one of five dogs inducted into Purina's Animal Hall of Fame.
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Dog named Stinky helps troops with post-traumatic stress

Morale is suffering among chaplains in Canada's Military

Military chaplains losing programs that help them cope
The Canadian Press
Date: Saturday Apr. 9, 2011 11:41 AM ET
HALIFAX — Some chaplains in the Canadian military say they are losing the very programs meant to help them cope with the suicides, marital breakdowns and combat-related stress they face in their work.

Monthly reports prepared for the Chaplain General highlight concerns over funding cuts that are affecting some chaplaincy training courses, retreats and meetings that address the strain of tending to Canadian Forces personnel.

One branch of the chaplaincy in Halifax reported concerns about the loss of these programs at a time when staff are heavily affected by the ongoing combat mission in Afghanistan, post-traumatic stress disorder among soldiers and increasing workloads.

"This is particularly disheartening given that many of these programs were put in place to ensure chaplaincy resilience after so many chaplains were lost to PTSD," states a report from last July that was obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act.

"Nearly every chaplain in the (Canadian Forces) has felt the effects of the Afghanistan deployment. Yet we are heading into a period where we will be unable to provide chaplains with the very programs that were developed to mitigate these effects."

The document from last July states that funding for Maritime Forces Atlantic was reduced to $79,000 for that fiscal year, down from $105,000 for the previous year.

It adds that staff are being asked to project the impact of greater cuts in the future.
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Military chaplains losing programs that help them cope