114
Get the Flash Player to see this player.
Inside the offices of the Royal Canadian Regiment sniper unit, Master Corporal Jody Mitic spends most of his day alone. Occasionally, other soldiers will poke their heads through the office door to say hello, or to let him know that they've shovelled his driveway.
Sitting at a wooden desk typing e-mails on an outdated PC, he's the only soldier here dressed in civilian clothes. His prosthetic feet rest on the bottom drawer of a dented filing cabinet. The steel rods that now serve as his shins peek out between his worn hiking shoes and the cuffs of his baggy warm-up pants.
On his left forearm a dramatic tattoo displays the Roman numerals I-XI-MMVII — Jan. 11, 2007, the date when, as the leader of an elite sniper team doing reconnaissance in Afghanistan, MCpl. Mitic stepped on a land mine and triggered the explosion that took both his legs from just below the knee. After extensive rehabilitation, the 31-year-old returned to work at CFB Petawawa a year later.
"I don't know how long I'll be here, because I'm not deployable," he says. "I'm kind of in the way."
Since Canada's mission in Afghanistan began in 2002, more than 280 service people have been wounded in action, suffering shrapnel wounds, nerve damage and amputated limbs and, in many cases equal damage to their identities as soldiers. It is the first time in decades that Canada has found itself with a military population with permanent disabilities, one that is likely to grow.
The Canadian Forces' traditional policy is that all soldiers, even those injured in combat, are required to pass the universality-of-service test, a physical threshold that proves them ready to return to war. When a career administration board deems them unfit, they are given three years to accept medical release.
But as more soldiers incur disabilities serving their country, it has become more urgent to ask whether Canada has done all it should in return. In December, Chief of Defence Staff Rick Hillier announced orders to personnel to apply policies more flexibly, allowing the injured to remain in the forces even if they must transfer to less physically demanding jobs outside the infantry.
The Globe and Mail has also learned that last summer, more quietly, General Hillier directed that no soldier injured in Afghanistan is to be released from the military without his express authority.
"He's saying, 'I'm not going to let an administrative board make that decision for those folks. If you've got somebody who you think maybe should be released, it's got to come to me for confirmation,' " says Karol Wenek, the Canadian Forces' director-general for conditions of service.
In an e-mail to The Globe this week, Gen. Hillier himself explains: "Our first responsibility is to help our people heal. … Next is to look at how we can best support them and give them an opportunity for a full military career. That may mean they need to transfer to a new occupation that is compatible with whatever medical realities they still face."
If lifelong military careers are now a possibility, new questions emerge for the permanently injured. Some wonder if they can redefine the very concept of soldiering, demonstrating that legs of flesh and blood are not necessary to carry them into the field of battle.
Others struggle to establish fresh roles, looking for meaningful work away from the front lines, whether in or out of the forces.
The challenge remains daunting. Brigadier-General Linda Colwell, director-general of military personnel, points out that any changes in the protocol must be made carefully. Keeping the disabled in the military might mean a smaller number of infantry will be available for combat.
"We have only a finite number of people in the forces, and if you are unable to deploy, that means that your buddy has to go twice," she says. "People have to be able to pull their whole weight."
Late last year, Private Frederic Couture of CFB Valcartier provided one chilling glimpse of what it can be like when that capacity is gone. Having stepped on a land mine nearly a year earlier, leaving him with one leg amputated below the knee, Pte. Couture killed himself in November in his Quebec home.
