PETERS – Being a Canadian veteran has never been easy, but it’s getting harder

ANYONE CONSIDERING signing up to serve in Canada’s armed forces may be thinking twice after a couple of pieces of news this week.

First, the study that confirmed what everyone already knew: veterans are far more likely to take their own lives than the general population.

Male veterans are 36 per cent more likely to die by suicide, and women are 81 per cent more vulnerable if they serve in Canada’s forces.

For decades, the anecdotal evidence was there, and now there is data to back it up.

Veterans come back from combat zones having found their brains completely rewired.

Many find their former abilities to settle into day-to-day civilian life have been eroded away by the unnatural act of extended participation in warfare.

They are haunted by what they have seen and what they have done – haunted not just in a colloquial sense, but clinically as well.

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James Peters is the radio anchor at CFJC, coming to Kamloops in 2006. He anchors the afternoon news on B-100 and 98.3 CIFM, and contributes weekly editorials to the CFJC Evening News. He tweets regularly @Jamloops.