For Afghanistan war veteran Neil Congdon, attending Carleton has been a crucial step in his process of “self-therapy,” although he said some of his military colleagues can’t believe he’s able to get through it.
“Prior to just starting university . . . in the late fall of 2012, I was struggling,” the history student said. “But once I started university, I had a focus, I had a mission again.”
Congdon’s military career lasted 22 years of his life, where he worked on the front lines and in the air in tactical communications, and served in Afghanistan from July 2007 to May 2008.
He joined the Canadian military in 1988 after dropping out of high school, which he went back and completed after his retirement in 2010. But the decision to do so was one of many he had to make on his own, he said, even after he was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in December 2009. Much of his healing process has been self-directed as a result.
“I got transferred into the operational stress injury kind of unit at the old national defence medical centre, but there was no plan basically,” he said. “There was no real support per se, until I really started being involved with Veterans Affairs.”
Veterans Affairs Canada is the federal department focused on rehabilitating and accommodating war veterans. Through their Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment program, veterans are retrained for civilian life, and are supplied a large part of funding for their university, Congdon said.
Through their rehabilitation program, 783 veterans are registered in a post-secondary institution, with 90 of those in university, according to Kate Murphy, media relations personnel with Veterans Affairs, in an email.
“After knowing the policies on how Veterans Affairs works, I decided to go to university,” Congdon said. “I didn’t want to have any regrets. I didn’t want to be 65 or 70 years old saying ‘I should’ve tried that.’”
As part of his election platform, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised to provide free post-secondary tuition to all who had once served in the armed forces. Congdon said Trudeau’s promise is perhaps the most important of all regarding veterans.
“Yes, they’re going to open . . . nine service centres across Canada that were closed by the Conservative Party; yes, they’re going to bring back life-long pensions for vets; but I think the education fund, that’s key,” he said.
Tim Black, a psychology professor at the University of Victoria, said he thinks Trudeau’s promise is a good idea.
“In terms of transitioning back, especially if they [veterans] go in young, they’ve got their whole lives left to lead and if they’re unemployed or underemployed, it’s hard to get back on your feet,” Black said.
Black has studied military trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder. In 2007, he conducted a survey on the transition from military to civilian life of over 200 veterans.
Nearly 53 per cent of respondents to his survey reported their transition to civilian life was difficult or fairly difficult. More than 21 per cent found the transition very difficult.
Black said the hardest part about adapting to university life as a war veteran is transitioning into an entirely new environment.
“In university, everybody is expected to think independently and question everything and to engage in debate,” he said. “Military culture is learn your role, do your job, watch out for the people next to you, and everything will work out just fine.”
In order to help with integrating into this new way of life, Black said universities should offer specialized support systems—regardless of whether they are experiencing PTSD—to former military personnel on their campuses.
“It’s the university’s responsibility to reach those people who don’t maybe necessarily want to be reached or who are harder to reach,” he said. “You can’t make people go to the services, but simply having the services and waiting for people to come there [isn’t] enough.”
As for Congdon, he said the support he’s experienced both through the Paul Menton Centre and from his individual professors has been “outstanding” as he’s navigated his way through university while dealing with PTSD—something he hopes other veterans will get the opportunity to do as a result of Trudeau’s platform promise.
“It’s for the benefit of 700,000 vets in Canada right now, approximately, and that number is only going to go up,” he said. “Come back and ask me in six months—let’s see if they follow through. But I’m optimistic for sure.”
