Injured soldiers deserve support Ω at Invictus and after

Next week, 550 i njured soldiers from 17 allied countries will be in Toronto for the Invictus Games, a paralympics founded by Prince Harry exclusively f or wounded veterans. The Games bring important attention to the problems faced by injured soldiers. They remind us that the effects of injury from service last a lifetime. These soldiers deserve our support, however, even after the international celebrities have come and gone.

As the chair of the True Patriot Love Foundation, I’ve had the privilege to work with, and for, injured soldiers since 2009. This summer, to celebrate Canada 150, I participated in a True Patriot Love expedition that brought together civilians and injured soldiers for a 12day canoe trip through some of the most beautiful and untouched land in the Northwest Territories.

The expedition began in the Mackenzie Mountains near the headwaters of the Keele River. We paddled through white water as we retraced the routes of explorers Mackenzie and Douglas. The goal was to raise funds for military families, and provide our soldier and civilian participants with a transformational life experience.

Night after night, the soldiers shared stories over campfires of physical trauma and mental despair — that insidious combination of depression, anger and addiction that we’ve come to call post- traumatic stress disorder. They also shared how the trip affected them. Soldier participant Stephen Beardwood found his canoe T- boned by a tree in a rapid and tumbled into the white water, unable to stand. “The water was so cold and the event so fast that I didn’t know I had been injured,” Beardwood would recall. “I just had no strength in my leg to stand up.”

Luckily, his fellow canoeist waded through the rapids in time to hoist him up. That taught Beardwood something. “Up until this point, I believed I was an island,” he said. “It was my battle, and although I wasn’t losing ground, I wasn’t really gaining any either.” Beardwood said the expedition taught him “no man is an island.” Supports exist.

I’m certain if any of the Invictus Games participants were by that campfire, we would have heard similar, tough tales from them. Such stories help civilians understand the problems faced by wounded soldiers. Our soldiers join the military for adventure and service. What they soon discover is a family, and a calling.

But if they are injured, whether physically or mentally, they can no longer be deployed because of the risk of further injuring themselves or their colleagues. Unfortunately, this disconnects them from their military family — and their life calling. As one soldier put it to me, the result is that they feel like objects. They often feel they have been used, like an empty shell casing, and now the military just sets them aside.

This is particularly difficult for injured soldiers because they lose the social network that once helped them cope with the rigours of the job. Worse, they also lose their purpose. We have no easy answers to remedy this.

What we can do is remind the soldiers that family exists beyond their units, and a new life passion and purpose beyond the military. That’s what we were trying to do on the banks of the Keele River. And it’s what the Invictus Games will be doing next week for the ath- letes who compete. Civilian participation at such events reminds the veterans of the support that exists for them.

Prince Harry chose the name of the games carefully. The origin is the poem, Invictus, by William Henley. Some say Henley wrote it as an ode to losing his leg to tuberculosis as a young man. In Latin, the word “invictus” means unconquered. The last stanza of Henley’s poem forms the Games’ motto. Soldiers and civilians alike should take heed from its counsel. “I am the master of my fate … I am the captain of my soul.” Our injured soldiers can reach the same conclusion — with our support.

REMINDS THE VETERANS OF THE SUPPORT THAT EXISTS.