MARCHING BANNED
Last year, Cpl. Kate MacEachern walked more than 500 km to raise money for injured soldiers, her efforts praised in person by Defence Minister Peter MacKay. This year, she wants to walk from Cape Breton to Ottawa, but her commanders have said no.
Less than a year after being lavishly and publicly praised by Defence Minister Peter MacKay for an arduous fundraising walk in aid of injured soldiers, a corporal says she has decided to leave the military after being ordered not to repeat the fundraiser this summer.
Tank driver Cpl. Kate MacEachern, a member of the Armour School at CFB Gagetown in New Brunswick, walked 562 kilometres in full uniform and pack from Gagetown to Antigonish, N.S. last summer in what she called her “Long Way Home Walk.”
She raised $20,000 for the military charity Soldier On.
MacKay, who is MacEachern’s member of parliament in her home province of Nova Scotia, met the soldier at the end of her trek and walked the last kilometre with her before giving a short but effusive speech in her honour.
“Your family, friends, your neighbours here, all Nova Scotians, all Canadians are so proud of your accomplishment, your compassion — your passion for your friends, your colleagues, your comrades — to undertake this enormous journey on their behalf is such a living tribute to those who wore the uniform (and) who continue to wear the uniform.” said MacKay in a speech that since posted on Facebook. “As the minister of National Defence and your local MP, I am so thankful for what you have done for your community and your country. Thank you, Kate.”
MacKay was seemingly so moved by MacEachern’s achievement that when he discovered she had used all her vacation time, she says he told her she “epitomized leadership” and personally gave her two weeks off. But that was then. When she sought permission last month for a second, more ambitious trek from Cape Breton to Ottawa, she expected the formal approval that she enthusiastically received from her immediate boss who sent his endorsement up the chain of command. Next came the unexpected shock reversal from base brass: Do the walk if you like but not as a serving soldier.
Her request, referred to in a handwritten comment by her sergeant as “a good cause to support” became “not supported.”
So the 34-year-old single mother, in her eighth year in the military, says she had a choice: Forget about the walk and continue her army career or forget about the career and do the walk.
She has chosen to leave the military early and do the walk. Her career officially ends Aug. 15.
This year’s trek, scheduled to begin next month and end in Ottawa on Oct. 18, is fully sponsored and in aid of Military Minds, an Internet-based support group that facilitates help for mentally injured soldiers, most of whom are Afghanistan War veterans. Her goal is to raise $100,000.
According to comments written on internal memos, CFB Gagetown brass say they can’t spare her for the 45 days — she only has 25 days’ vacation — and add that they spent $5,000 to help her last year and haven’t the funds to support what will be a more expensive venture.
MacEachern says the $5,000 is a fiction and that the base gave her the equivalent of $300 last year plus three ration packs.
“I’d like to know where the rest of the money went,” she says.
This year, she says, her three sponsors are covering most costs and she’s absorbing the rest. (There is no mention of money or any other material help on her permission request).
According to CFB Gagetown public affairs officer Capt. Ian McIntyre, base command had allowed last year’s walk to go ahead despite getting little notice from MacEachern, but this year there were concerns about insurance liability, the length of time the soldier would be away from her regular duties, and the costs associated with that.
But the overarching issue, he said, is Treasury Board policy that would have required direct expenditures associated with MacEachern’s trek to be approved by a DND deputy minister and the lack of time available to get that permission.
“Her chain of command looked at this and said, ‘This is probably going to cost well over $5,000 (and) that requires approval at the deputy minister level,” said McIntyre, adding that at least two military personnel in DND vehicles would have to accompany her. “When they looked at all the options they decided it was not feasible and denied it.”
But McIntyre said he wasn’t aware that MacEachern had not asked for either funding or any other form of DND support — or that she had attracted sponsors.
MacEachern, who since last year’s walk says she has also been fighting efforts to release her early from the military because of her Edmonton injuries, sees it differently. ‘It really was an unconscionable choice,” she said in an exclusive interview with the Citizen. “I had to decide whether I was going to take care of myself and have financial security or take off my uniform, do the walk and change the path for a lot of people. I wasn’t asking for the world.
“One of the main values I learned from the army is that you never leave anyone behind,” she says. “But the more I opened my eyes, the more I realized that a lot of people are being left behind. I signed a 25-year contract to serve my country, Queen and regiment. Until a month ago, I didn’t want to leave. It was honestly a devastating blow for me to have to make a decision between what I believe in and the uniform I wear, because I thought they were the same thing. Finding out they aren’t the same thing is extremely hard so I had to walk away.”
MacEachern says she was moved to raise public awareness of posttraumatic stress disorder and other mental injuries after suffering a serious injury of her own at CFB Edmonton where she was thrown from a horse during a training exercise — a fact MacKay noted in his speech.
After a year’s physical recovery, she was diagnosed with, and treated for, ‘non-combat PTSD’ — a condition she didn’t believe was overly serious until she suffered herself.
“I had pretty much bought into the stigma so many people have about PTSD,” she said. “You can shake it off, suck it up and soldier on. But it’s the complete opposite of the truth. And compared to people coming back from overseas, mine was mild.”
After recovering from her own injuries, MacEachern asked to be transferred to Gagetown to be closer to her family in Antigonish — a decision she now regrets.
MacEachern echoes the view of many critics who say that stigma against mental injury in the military is rampant and treatment facilities at some bases wholly inadequate.
“Edmonton was great,” she said, “and that’s why I begged for the transfer. I assumed it would be the same.”
MacEachern says when her walk to Ottawa is done, her Edmonton injury means she will be eligible for some education funding from Veterans Affairs but, as yet, has no specific plans beyond selling her house.
“One thing I’ve learned over the past year,” she says, “is that having a fancy house or the latest model car and the biggest TV on the block means nothing if you can’t sleep at night knowing that you could have helped and didn’t.”