The Call Display Read "DND"

The Military Police Complaints Commission holding hearings into the suicide death in 2008 of Cpl. Stuart Langridge who hanged himself at CFB Edmonton, and the subsequent official behaviour of the Canadian military has revealed some quite unfortunate decisions on the part of the military authorities. 

Cpl. Langridge's bereaved parents hold the military responsible in large part for their son's death, claiming that his symptoms of post-traumatic stress syndrome were not taken seriously, and he was left to fend for himself, in frail psychological condition which led directly to his having committed suicide.  The military psychologists who examined Cpl. Langridge don't agree that he suffered from PTSD, but they do agree that he was severely depressed.

And they have testified that they did what they could for him.  Cpl. Langridge had served the Canadian military in Bosnia and later he was deployed in Afghanistan.  It was on his return from Bosnia that he seemed to have undergone a change in personality, exacerbated, it would appear, when he was deployed to Afghanistan. 

There he served for seven months in 2004 performing reconnaissance patrols in the mountains of Afghanistan.  Which experience, claims his mother, Sheila Fynes, led to his change from an easy-going, sport-loving fellow to a depressed recluse, on his return.  "The incredible poverty bothered him" his mother explained.  "He said he didn't want to go back but he said little else about it."

And it appears to be around then that he became addicted to drugs and to alcohol.  Neither of which addictive agents, his mother testified, had been part of his life before his experiences in Afghanistan.  His addictions were causing problems in his relationship with his girlfriend with whom he lived.  He had spent time in an addiction-counselling program in the military and then was returned to his unit.

Where his superiors testified they attempted to engage him in work that would distract him from his condition of depression.  And they became aware that he was breaking his pledge to distance himself from drugs and alcohol and placed him on a watch.  This was a man who, according to his mother, loved life in the military.

He spent his teen years in cadets; at 17 he became a reservist, and at 20 he sought a career in the military.  "He was a successful soldier", his mother testified.  "He was deployed to Bosnia.  He was excited doing what they all train to do.  He rarely spoke in detail about his time in Bosnia but when he got back, he wasn't sleeping well.  In August 2004 he was deployed to Afghanistan."

From the testimony, however, he was not a successful soldier.  While he happily imbibed his training, when it was put to the test and reality impinged, he discovered that what he imagined military life to be was somewhat more complicated, and disturbing to his equilibrium.  Excited doing what 'they all train to do' initially, perhaps, but training is methodical and mechanical, hypothetical; practising the training in a combat situation alters perspective.

He was disturbed by what he experienced and he sought to expunge his memory of experiences he preferred to forget, but could not.  He sought release from his depression with the use of drugs, and that too failed him.  If someone is intent on committing suicide, someone who feels life no longer offers anything of value, they invariably will succeed in what they set out to accomplish, extinguishing life.

The military erred in withholding personal information from his parents that they should have been in possession of; his change of will, for example, his suicide note to his parents.  That should never have happened, and it is disgraceful that it did.  But the claim that the military apparatus did not care enough about one of their own to do their utmost to help him in his distress seems unwarranted.

There is enough grief and regret to go around without adding blame to the mixture.