Military to Employ Injured Soldiers

If someone is wounded in combat, and even if the injury is permanent, all efforts should be made to retain that soldier. Experience and knowledge are fundamental in leadership roles. Overall morale in the Forces suffers when soldiers are discarded because of rules that are centered on money issues, and are hidden behind falsehoods, like the Universality of Service. Younger, less experienced soldiers look to the more experienced veterans for guidance and reassurance and they are fiercely motivated by someone who has been wounded and refuses to let that stand in their way as they soldier on.

I like most here was medically released from the military. I was out in 96. Now, I do know that even at that time that there was at least one military member that had served for many years with an amputated foot. I don't recall his name or his trade.

I am of the opinion that it is sometimes necessary to release a military member on medical grounds. Sure, if they can actually remuster to a trade that does not require deployment....then perhaps retain them. On the other hand, if such actions will mean that able bodied Cpl Bloggins will go on more duties....more exercises....more foreign duties because of that, then I would say that such a system does not work.

Maybe the military should concentrate more on getting a permanently injured/ill soldier more time to get out of the military and be adequately prepared for more education and life and work in the civvie world. Allow a longer transition time that would be given to all those to be medically released whether physically or mentally disabled.

We are talking military here. For the most part, it's members should be fighting fit. If you become disabled for life then serious consideration must be given to releasing the member.

Like someone said, it should be a case by case basis. But then who get's to decide that? On what parameters?

As much as this would be a great idea it is nothing but a dream...a dream that has been in the brains of CDS's since the 1990's.

When I joined in 1982 there was over 125000 in the CF.  When I released in 2000 there was just over 58000 in the CF.

The 80's had very few "world conflicts" to deal with.  Biggest deployment was Germany with NATO and the equipment was decent.

The 90's only world conflict was the Gulf War.  Germany was shutting down and by the end of the decade the CF numbers were going down.  Remember the FRP program?  The Liberals of the 90's were using reducing numbers in the CF, reduction of equipment purchase and raiding our Pension Plan to balance the budget.

9/11 happens numbers starting trending upwards for the CF, money was available for new equipment and all this only went up over the decade Canada was in Afghanistan.

When Canada pulled out of Afghanistan under the Conservative's equipment purchases were put on the back burner.  The boost in CF numbers dipped back under 60000 and major purchases were in the mothball stages before the Liberals gained power again.

If anything has been proven over the last 38 years Finance Ministers 'gut' the CF when they need money to balance a budget....Conservative or Liberal

In the 90's it was FRP.  Now it's no severance pay, double dipping when you move from the CF to the Reserves and the CF needs new equipment to even do a damn UN posting (which is going to cost a tonne of cash to fund for Canadian Taxpayers)

The CF loses their severance pay and yet PSAC gets to keep their sick days (that we all know they accumulate to take the last 6-12 months off before mandatory retirement keeping a 'workable' employee number in limbo for that time period).  And the all got a f'n $650 Christmas bonus when they signed the CBA in 2016!  And the CF can't even get blank bullets for exercises and have to keep yelling bang! bang! bang!

The Army, Navy and Air Force as much as they worry about their wounded soldiers, sailors and airmen are not going to take a budget cut to have a unit of injured personnel maintained in uniform?  What do they give up?  A ship?  Fighter Aircraft?  Helicopters?  Heavy vehicles, combat vehicles, top notch kit for front line soldiers?

So any unit that is going to be created is what I said at the beginning....it's a dream of the CDS and a PR puff piece for the civilians to feel good their veterans, CF soldiers are going to be taken care of.

Anyone want to talk about the rest of the stupid presser last week that the CF and VAC have a strategy to help reduce the suicide numbers?  Because that whole idea is nothing but a bureaucratic program with ABSOLUTE ZERO mention of front line programs to identify the mentally injured CF and veterans.  Not to mention; absolutely not one mention for JTF 2 soldiers and vets who need access to security vetted Psychiatrists, Social Workers, Psychologists to work on their demons. FYI this request has been in the works for the last 4/5 years and both the Cons and Libs are ignoring this potential security threat. Why? The hiring process for mental health workers.

Veterans are hard to keep track of because we are all over the country trapped in the provincial health care systems.  Give me a break this fix is so easy all it involves is every releasing CF members, healthy or injured, must have a face to face meeting with a VAC CSA, CM or Administrator so they can be registered with VAC and find out what province they are planning to live in.  

Wow that sounds like a great job for a veteran hired by VAC to do.  That way it's veteran on veteran meeting that will inform them of who to call, how to get help as they get older, how to identify yourself in your provincial health care system and ask them to check in from time to time... you know that one demon veterans are constantly fighting...time and a conscious

Were these issues brought up during the drama hour last Thursday conducted by our VAC Minister, MND and CDS?  HELL NO!  Why?  They are common sense first steps that bureaucrats creating their own fiefdom in PEI do not want to hear...participate...acknowledge because these are jobs VETERANS can do if they are hired by PSAC to do...with absolute efficiency!!

I'm of the mind, that if it takes hundreds of thousands of dollars to train a CF member, just to the level where they can start taking on a leadership role, why is it better to just waste that money, by kicking those members out, even if they can still be useful without deploying? After all, recruitment is down, and has been waining for years, so it's not like keeping a few hundred disabled members, every year, is going to explode our Forces beyond what they are prepared to pay for. Even if they have to change it so that if you choose to stay in the CF, you waive your ability to collect any VAC benefits until you are released, to help offset the financial burden.

I think the CDS is leaning towards some new trades and those trades like a cyber unit would not deploy. This would mean the injured member would have to be willing to train for that trade. Also Canada is looking at more drones why can't an injured guy pilot a drone from Canada that flies in the Middle East? No where does the CDS say this will be for all injured as it will be case by case so it's more of another option for an injured member who fits the bill. I'm betting the injured/ill that would fit into something like this would be low.

Sorry to break the bad news to you General Johnny but Canada is a small military on the world stage and every member needs to be deployable...the GoC purse strings funding the DND say so.

Not to mention the fact that you will have a "branch" within the CF that could be as large as 2,000 members within 3-5 years. You don't think a guy who is getting ready to ship out for another f'n tour will look at this "disabled branch" is going to be ok with it?

Now if you want to keep these bodies around General Johnny how about telling them to take the uniform off on Friday and report to the same unit on Monday morning wearing civilian attire?

Oh wait there is a huge frickn' union of public workers that will lose their flippn' minds if this happened.

That's why VAC and DND have created a stupid network of veterans working for the government how to create your resume, navigate the mind field of red tape and prepare for interviews. Wouldn't making the rules of hiring in PSAC easier be a better lane to take? I digress that is not the issue you are planning.

UNTIL THE MINISTERS OF VAC, DND and you the CDS use your authority to "change" the hiring rules all you are creating is a warm fuzzy for the Jane/Joe Canadian to feel good about and you are creating a bureaucratic policy that is like all other bureaucratic policies...pure bullshyte !!!

Murray Brewster · CBC News October 9, 2017

Medically unfit for deployment? We'll try to employ you elsewhere, says Canada's top general

After public and political criticism, Vance signals a cultural sea change for the military


Under the universality of service rule, Forces members must be fit and ready to go into the field at a moment's notice. But Gen. Jonathan Vance, the chief of the defence staff, says it's time to change that approach. (Frédéric Pepin/Radio-Canada)

The Canadian military is redesigning itself to make room for troops who may not be "deployable," but are still "employable," the country's top general said.

The remarks by Gen. Jonathan Vance, the chief of the defence staff, represent a social and cultural sea change for an institution that has been accused of discarding injured members who, in some cases, have begged to continue serving.

Since the release of the Liberal government's new defence policy last spring, Vance has telegraphed that he wants to improve the career prospects of the wounded and that he was open to being more flexible.

Indeed, the often-touted policy itself stipulated that wounded troops would be allowed to remain in uniform "on a case-by-case basis."

But Vance went a step further in his comments at the end of a marathon news conference last week related to the government's suicide-prevention strategy.

"We are in the process of redesigning the force structure of the Armed Forces," he said, noting that post-traumatic stress should not be barrier to serving your country.

"Give someone purpose. And more importantly, remove the automatic-ness, if that's a word, of leaving the
Armed Forces simply because you come forward and manifest with a mental health challenge. We have lots of people inside the Armed Forces who are — have — are suffering mental illness, and they carry on."

The universality of service rule

What must be recognized, he said, is "that there are parts of the Armed Forces that we could consider employable but not part of that deployability chain," he said.

The military has long operated under what's known as the universality of service rule, which requires members to be fit and ready to go into the field, at home or overseas, at a moment's notice.

Those who are injured, physically or mentally, are given three years to recover and return to full duty. If they're unable to do so, they are forced out under a medical release.

This became a significant issue in the aftermath of the Afghan war with as many 1,700 troops a year, many of them with post-traumatic stress, being released in a medical category.

The former Conservative government, which insisted in 2013 that troops were not being summarily hustled out the door, faced a barrage of criticism from disaffected soldiers and a public backlash.

Even in the face of a public and political backlash, the universality of service rule remained sacrosanct, and Vance's predecessors refused to budge.

'A broken system'

Preserving the standard is something the current defence chief said he intends to do, but building in flexibility is now a major priority.  

"We must be deployable. We are an armed forces, after all," said Vance. "We have to be able to do what we've got to do. But we also have to think in terms of the value of the individual is not just deployability."

The comments were greeted cautiously by former soldiers, including one who has long campaigned for the military to find alternative positions for wounded combat troops.

Retired corporal Glen Kirkland, who survived a Taliban roadside bomb attack that killed three of his comrades, said he will wait to see how it unfolds.

At the moment, "it is really a broken system," he told CBC News. "And the government is so used to using Band-Aid fixes, it needs to be re-evaluated and start from scratch."


http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/medically-unfit-soldiers-employed-elsewhere-1.4344464

Well it's something that should be looked at on a case by case. I'm going to guess that the trade that doesn't deploy will be the new cyber unit. The biggest test will be if another mass deployment happens and there are numerous members that are injured. If the majority want to stay in but have to OT into something else will there be enough positions and if not what is the military's plan? There's a lot of questions surrounding all this. I just think of another mass deployment happens the military is completely unprepared for the wounded. The military and VAC can barely keep up now and we have pulled out of Afghanistan years ago. It's tough to see how everything will work at this point. I think the CDS has "plans" but they are plans that are going to take years to implement and those plans can change on a dime with new governments and budgets/cut backs. I guess only time will tell how all these changes will happen and the bumps will need to be smoothed out just like the constant work with VAC.

Teaser - just being released I was wondering what you think of the CDS, talking about keeping all injured, even changing the rule where if you don't want to deploy one does not have too. I'm sure for all us older released Vets on here, this all seems a bit odd. Johnny Out. VVV,,,

Lol Bigrex I'm one of those that was medically released 2 months to the day of the 10 year mark. I tried everything heck even the JPSU were left in awe but I guess the military had enough of me and wanted me gone asap. I managed to stick around longer than most with just over 8 and 1/2 years after injury.

This is actually a pretty old policy, the problem is having individual units or bases to adhere to it properly. They used to offer injured soldier a medical accommodation for up to three years, providing that there was someplace suitable and willing to employ them, even before the JPSU was created. So unless they have changed the rules, and will employ a disabled member indefinitely, then there is nothing new. Just every now and again, they will announce something, because some junior NCO gets released just prior to getting enough time in, to earn their meager 20% CF pension, and they want to make it seem as if they care for those soldiers who are too broken to fulfill their obligations.

I haven't heard anything and it would be very odd to make such an announcement on a holiday weekend on a Sunday. Perhaps they were referring to keeping injured soldiers employed until all there benefits are lined up?

CBC News has just announced on TV that the military will make an effort to employ injured soldiers. I've searched CBC News website, but have not been able to find the article yet.

More to follow.

Or please, if anyone has any information regarding this issue, post it here.

Thanks.