[Dion]

Fast forward nearly 20 years to 2010 to when former corporal John Lowe finished his tour in the killing fields of Kandahar.

His generation has a myriad of money and programs, but checking yourself in to one is known within the ranks as "spin dry."

Lowe came home alone, a month ahead of his buddies in Charlie Company, 1st Battalion Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry.

He had elected to go into the reserves and the army was adamant about filling out his paperwork back in Canada, and so he was yanked away from the men and women who were, at that time, closer than his family.

As he slept in a near-empty Edmonton barracks, worked out on his own and shuffled paper, he noticed something was off and went to get help.

That was when the nightmare started.

It can be the kiss of career death for a soldier, especially in combat arms such as the infantry, to put their hands up and say they have a problem with the horrors they've witnessed.

"It's the culture; the culture is totally different," said Lowe, who at one point had envisioned going to special forces. "One of the sayings, one of our mottos is suffer in silence. That's what's honourable. That's what we're taught. If you're in pain, you buck up and keep moving."

One bit of advice he was given by a fellow soldier was "take your pills as sort yourself out" and don't take too much noise about it.

"He basically said take a pill or drink something to solve your problems."
Godin, who has battled his own demons after watching Serbs and Croats viciously toss their dead into the Miljacka River in the 1990s, was angry upon hearing Lowe's story.

"It makes me flippin' angry," he said. "We throw resources at something; we have a system set up for this and this, and this after every tour to see how (the troops) mental health is doing, but are these programs working? I don't know."

Godin pointed to the rising number of post traumatic stress claims arriving at the doorstep of Veteran Affairs, and said that the system trains soldiers very well to obey orders and kill, but doesn't teach how to deal with consequences.

He said it feels like not much has changed.

http://www.calgaryherald.com/health/...742/story.html