by Ray Dick
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| Dr. Marvin Westwood (second from right) and program coordinator Holly McLean pose outside UBC offices where a course is offered to returning Canadian peacekeepers. Standing with them is group leader Tim Black (left) and peacekeeping veteran Jarret Chow. |
Canadian soldiers who returned home traumatized after serving on international peacekeeping missions, at least a few of them, are finding help and a safe haven in a program at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, thanks to a crusading psychology professor and Pacific Command of The Royal Canadian Legion.
“Some of these people came into contact with evil and unimaginable suffering,” says Dr. Marvin Westwood. They suffered the flashbacks, the night sweats, the jumpiness and bursts of anger, all of which “lead to despair and depression” and deter them from readjusting to civilian life after they leave the forces.
Westwood’s 15-week, 45-hour counselling program, the first of its kind in Canada, is being offered to about 100 returned peacekeepers in the Vancouver and Victoria areas. The program is conducted by Westwood, a medical doctor and group leaders who have already been through two years of clinical studies at the University of British Columbia to help them readjust to civilian life.
The program was to be offered to about 200 former peacekeepers and World War II veterans throughout B.C., said Westwood, but had to be cut back to about 100 in Vancouver and Victoria after Veterans Affairs Canada decided not to provide a $150,000 grant. “But the Legion didn’t flinch in its commitment for $150,000 in financing and has become the sole financial supporter of the program.”
“It’s a good program,” says Harold Leduc, president of the 500-member Canadian Peacekeeping Veterans Association based in Victoria. But he sees a bigger picture, a system that will deal with any of the approximately 125,000 soldiers who suffered trauma while on peacekeeping duties. He estimates 30 to 40 per cent of peacekeepers will be affected by their experiences, similar numbers to what was found in the Vietnam War.
“This is one part—a lead part—in dealing with these victims,” says Leduc, who served as a peacekeeper in Cyprus in 1988. He is a director of Westwood’s counselling program and some members of his association take part in the sessions as group leaders to provide support to former comrades. His group also refers troubled returned peacekeepers to the program.
Pacific Command would like to see the program expanded so that troubled peacekeepers could get counselling no matter where they are in Canada. “There is no reason such a program can’t be taken across the country,” says Pacific Command Secretary Linda Sawyer. “We take personal pride that we initiated this type of program, but it’s bigger than us.”
Joan Holland, chairman of the Pacific Command Veterans’ Service and Seniors Committee, agrees. “This is a necessary program that’s showing some good results,” she said, in treating the returning soldiers traumatized by the scenes of brutality they witnessed during the peacekeeping operations. “This is what the Legion is all about.”
Pacific Command has been involved from the start, ever since Westwood approached the Legion a couple of years ago looking for WW II and Korean veterans to take part in his original Life Review program at the university. “What better place to look for veterans than at the Legion?” asks Sawyer. The program was designed to help elderly veterans “deal with issues that should be put to rest before they pass away.” The Legion kicked in $12,000 for the original program, which was also supported by VAC.
The counselling courses for peacekeepers is a natural progression from the original Life Review program, which was somewhat of a personal crusade for Westwood.
“I was sitting in the living room of an 81-year-old veteran, a relative who had a troubled life since coming back from WW II wounded and shell-shocked. We were talking, and he started telling me about the war, about facing death and about how he always wanted to tell his story. ‘Well, I killed someone, and I had to do it with my bare hands.’ He started to cry, and then said he felt relieved. It was the first time he had told that story. His daughter, who was busy in the kitchen while we talked in the living room, was not aware of the father’s deep-seated trauma.”
Westwood said it was the older veterans who suggested that something should be done for traumatized peacekeepers, and pilot projects were launched in Vancouver and Victoria.
“We know people suffer stress as a reaction to war,” said Westwood. But it was also from being helpless in the face of suffering, being exposed to unnatural events or having one’s life or that of another threatened. “Ethnic cleansing, coming into a house and finding it full of bodies, having children massacred while you have to stand by unable to prevent it—these events don’t just affect the mind, they enter your bones.” Emotions shut down, people became socially isolated, had intrusive thoughts, sleepless nights and suffered flashbacks that lead to despair and depression.
Sawyer agrees, saying some of the older veterans had a discernable enemy to fight and were allowed full use of their weapons. Some of the peacekeepers had to stand by and watch babies get their heads cut off and spiked to walls without being able to do anything.
After screening to get into the new program—the Canadian Military Personnel Transition Program —the course is divided into three phases which include “preparation and communications skills”—making the classroom a safe place for the peacekeepers to tell their stories; “baggage drop and trauma repair”—working through the trauma by therapeutic re-enactment: and about leaving the group to start life outside the military.
Tim Black, who is doing his doctoral studies in counselling and psychology, is a group leader who went through the pilot studies with Westwood. He also has some personal knowledge of the stress faced by some of the returning soldiers. He survived an attempted murder four years ago in which he was stabbed twice. “I suffered stress at that time,” he says,”but I got the help I needed to get on with life, from Dr. Westwood.” He says his interest now is for the young men coming back to Canada traumatized by night sweats, jumpiness and bursts of anger and other symptoms of stress disorder. “We can tell them these effects are temporary and that they don’t have to suffer. There are ways to get through it.”
Black says a big part of relieving the stress is being able to tell their stories to people they can trust. Many of the soldiers only feel safe in telling their stories to other soldiers in the group who understand what they went through.
Jarrett Chow, 27, a soldier who joined the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada in Vancouver in 1990 and served six months in Croatia in 1993 attached to the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry for Operation Harmony, said the Westwood pilot courses helped him after he left the Canadian Forces in 1998. Part of his trauma in Croatia was that he was held at gunpoint while in a supposed rest area where the soldiers took leave from the tense day-to-day situation.
“This Croatian soldier, sort of a liaison officer in camp, put a gun under my chin as I was walking back to my room. He said if any Croatian soldier was to die, he was going to kill 20 Canadians.” Before the situation was defused with the arrival of several other peacekeepers, the Croatian with a loaded magazine in his gun warned the unarmed Jarrett that the Canadians better do things right in Croatia or get out of the country.”
Jarrett said he suffered from the usual stress symptoms, especially aimlessness after he left the Forces. “A buddy in the Seaforths knew of Dr. Westwood’s program,” said Jarrett. He took part in the pilot courses and is now willing and able to serve as a leader in the new program. “It’s soldiers who help out soldiers. They are not going to go elsewhere for help.”
Jarrett now works for a big automobile dealership in Vancouver, and is going to school at the Justice Institute of B.C. to become a police officer.
Mark Lundie, now an RCMP officer in suburban Richmond and a group leader in Westwood’s new course after going through the pilot programs, says he felt listless but had no special problems adjusting after he returned from Croatia after a six-month stint with 2 Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, also during Operation Harmony. He remembers especially the fighting in the Medak Pocket, especially the machine-gunning and artillery shelling and especially the incident when he and his 25-man patrol was held hostage by the Serbs for 12 hours.
“The Serbs were angry because the United Nations had a piece of farm machinery that (the Serbs) thought was a rocket launcher. They had put women and children on the road to stop the patrol’s armoured personnel carriers, then held us at gunpoint. With hatches closed, the crowd climbed all over the vehicles, pulling off guns and other equipment. We were there for 12 hours until one of the locals succeeded in calming them down so we could continue our patrol.”
Lundie said he took part in the courses and became a group leader mostly to help out his buddies. “It’s definitely worthwhile,” he said. “A lot of my friends came back with problems. They turned to alcohol and couldn’t get their lives on track.” Some of them hadn’t done anything since they came back.
Westwood says the program is achieving its goals:
•To provide an environment where soldiers can receive support and understanding from others “who have been there”.
•To normalize the soldiers’ peacekeeping experiences on tour and re-entry into civilian life.
•To help soldiers resolve stress and trauma-related issues arising from their peacekeeping experience.
•To help soldiers realize gainful and rewarding careers.
Some of the comments from the participants indicate the program’s success:
•”My nightmares went away, started feeling better about myself, work started happening, like a big weight off my shoulders.”
•”The biggest thing for me was the assurance that things I’ve done were justifiable. Learned how to be proud of what I’ve done and not ashamed of it, not scared or remorseful.”
•”I wouldn’t have gone to school, seen a counsellor. Never. The career, I would have just tossed it aside if it wasn’t for the group.”
•”In the group I talked about things that normally only came out after many beers.”
•”Lets you know that you are not the only one that things happened to, you are not alone.”
Westwood said the group participants had three recommendations for the future of the program—that it be made available to all returning peacekeepers, that it be kept outside the military and that recruitment for the program be by word of mouth and credible peers, not a mandated program.
Meantime, as Chow says, the few returning peacekeepers in the Vancouver and Victoria areas are being helped big time with their readjustment problems. “It’s like walking around in a wet ski jacket,” he says. “When you take it off it makes going through life much easier.”
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