‘It’s an extreme honour’

Trevor Jain, originally from Kings County, awarded Order of Military Merit

A Charlottetown-based reservist hailing from Kings County recently received one of the highest military honours in the country from Gov. Gen. Julie Payette in Ottawa.

Major Dr. Trevor Jain, formerly of Centreville and Coldbrook, was awarded the Order of Military Merit (officer level) in early November.

Of the 26,000 people in the Canadian army today, only five people were being honoured with this meritorious clasp.

“It’s an extreme honour,” Jain told The Guardian. “I was totally taken away and surprised when I received the phone call last year.”

Jain, both a graduate of Acadia and Dalhousie University, is also an emergency physician at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Charlottetown, program director of the Bachelor of Science in paramedicine course at UPEI name’. He said, ‘I just wanted to let you know that you’re one of my top five and I’ve invested you into the Order of Military Merit’.

“I was totally blown away. I was like, ‘Are you serious, are you serious, sir’? and he goes, ‘Oh, I’m rarely not serious.’”

It didn’t really hit Jain until calls followed from a brigade commander, division commander and his commanding officer.

“To be nominated by your fellow soldiers and supported by senior leadership in Ottawa is an incredible honour.”

It’s not the first time Jain has been decorated. He received the Meritorious Service Medal (military division) from the governor general in 1999 for his work following the Swissair crash off Nova Scotia.

Jain recently returned from a mission to Iraq as part of Op Impact, his fifth deployment, where he worked as a trauma team leader for nine weeks doing damage control resuscitation of special forces members that were continuing operations against ISIS.

“It was a really interesting mission . . . from an ortho-trauma perspective as well as a leadership perspective.”

Like many soldiers who have seen action, Jain returned glad that he is from a peaceful country.

“It makes you thankful that we live in Canada. (Iraq is) a wartorn country with lots of different factions vying for different political and economic gain.”

SGT JOHANIE MAHEU/RIDEAU HALL PHOTOGRAPHY Major Dr. Trevor Jain, centre, of Charlottetown was recently honoured recently with the Order of Military Merit (officer level) in Ottawa by Gov. Gen. Julie Payette. Also pictured is Lt.-Gen. Paul Francis Wynnyk, a Canadian Army officer who served from 2016-18 as commander of the Canadian Army. On July 16, he was named vice-chief of the defence staff.