Afghan war caused spike in discharges

Injury, illness led to 12,000 soldiers leaving the Canadian Forces

OTTAWA— The number of Canadian soldiers medically released from the military more than doubled over the decade-long campaign in Afghanistan, according to figures provided to the Toronto Star.

Almost 12,000 Canadian Forces personnel were deemed medically unfit for service between 2001 and November 2011, the force says. But the annual incidences of medical releases dramatically spiked after troops began deploying to Afghanistan.

In 2001— before Canadians began deploying en masse to the country — 614 soldiers, sailors and air force personnel were released because of an illness or injury that prevented them from continuing with their jobs in the regular and reserve forces.

That number had doubled to 1,241 by 2004 and peaked in both 2006 and 2008 when 1,338 individuals were returned to the civilian ranks — a 117 per cent increase from 2001.

The numbers also give an indication of the stresses on the support programs rushed into place by the federal defence and veteran’s affairs departments to help wounded soldiers as they transitioned out of the ranks.

“When you make the decision to send the best and brightest overseas you have that obligation until that person hits the headstone,” said NDP Veteran’s Affairs critic Peter Stoffer, who received the figures from the military this week. “We have 20-year-old veterans now, and some of them may need care all the way until their 80s and 90s. That’s the cost of going to war.”

Military personnel are bound by the Universality of Service policy stating that enlisted members must be fit to deploy on operations whether they are stationed in an infantry battalion at CFB Petawawa or posted to a desk job at National Defence headquarters in Ottawa.

The Canadian Army has been the hardest hit by the war-fighting effort in Afghanistan. The records show that the number of army personnel deemed physically unfit to continue serving in the force jumped 129 per cent to 786 in 2006 from 343 in 2001.

It was in 2006 that the military shifted its base of Afghan operations south to Kandahar only to be confronted by a reconstituted and ambitious Taliban foe. Thirty two Canadian soldiers were killed that year in combat. Another 180 were listed as wounded in action, a term that includes injuries from roadside bombs, ambushes and firefights as well as friendly-fire incidents and psychological injuries like posttraumatic stress disorder. Driven largely by the insurgency’s new favourite weapon, the Improvised Explosive Device, the numbers of injured soldiers persisted through to 2010. In 2009, the force created a network of Joint Personnel Support Units to manage injured and ill soldiers while they were in treatment or rehabilitation. The units also extended the military service of those who might otherwise have been quickly shuffled back to civilian life with a policy giving wounded soldiers three years to transition out of the force. This may be the reason for the slow decline in the number of medical releases recently. While there were 1,338 discharged in 2008, the numbers dropped to 1252 in 2009, 1035 in 2010 and 1012 last year. The military declined to comment on the figures. The rise in the number of medical discharges has prompted Veteran’s Ombudsman Guy Parent to warn the Veterans Affairs department about cutting jobs as the government tries to trim its budget deficit in the coming years. Of the nearly 2,000 cases his office handled last year, the top two issues were complaints about health-care benefits and disability pensions and awards. Conservative MP Eve Adams, the parliamentary secretary for veteran’s issues, says there will be no cuts to services for former soldiers and that most of the savings will come from retirements in coming years. Stoffer is doubtful and says the existing problems are likely to persist. “My job is to make sure the government maintains that obligation (to veterans) and doesn’t mess around with them in terms of shorting their benefits.”