General Hillier – New Paralympic Program

May 28, 2007 in Uncategorized

Topic/Sujet: Media Availability: Gordon O’Connor and Gen Rick Hillier
Agency/Agence:  MediaQin
Date-Time/Date-Heure: 26 May 2007 15h00
Reference:  07052603

Media Availability following the Paralympic Committee announcement of the launch of a new program for Canadian Forces personnel Sgt Williams:                        Ladies and gentlemen we will now take your questions. There is a microphone in the middle, please identify yourself as well as the news agencies you are presenting and limit yourself to one question and one follow-up.  Questions goes to the Soldier On Program (inaudible).  Mesdames et messieurs nous allons maintenant répondre à vos questions.  Il y a un microphone au centre de la salle. Veuillez vous identifier et l’agence pour laquelle vous travailler.  On vous demande de poser seulement une question et une question complémentaire pour que vous aillez tous la chance de parler et (inaudible). Question:                        Kathleen Harris from Sun Media to General Hillier. We hear a lot when a soldier is killed in Afghanistan about the sacrifice that they have made. Can you talk a little bit, give a few words about what sacrifice these people have made, in terms of those that have come back disabled or have lost a limb. General Hillier:                        I would like to think you hear a lot about those too, but perhaps it’s more regionalized.  And I don’t make any apology for that.  I certainly have been trying to ensure that Canadians understand the incredible sacrifice made by a soldier, sailor or airman or airwoman, because they are all on a mission in Afghanistan or conducting other risky missions around the world or here in Canada, such as search and rescue, and when one of them gets injured or takes a bullet or an explosion for our country, it is an incredible sacrifice indeed. A little while ago I visited with Cpl. Shaun Fevens, I think it was on the morning of the 12th of April, the Tuesday morning following the Easter Sunday when we had lost 6 soldiers.  Shaun Fevens was in that same incident where we lost those 6 soldiers.  He was seriously wounded, particularly in the lower body, but not just, really throughout.  The months in front of him to recover from that to get himself back to a full and normal and active live are long indeed and are going to require a lot of stubbornness from him, a lot of determination and he is going through a lot of pain from that.  He is one of the luckier wounded soldiers who we believe will recover completely, but there are months of pain and hard work to get back to that normal life.  Then you have people like Sgt. Stephen Daniels here, who a year and a half ago, on his mission to improve his parachuting skills in Trenton Ontario had an accident that left him paralyzed below the waist.  Sgt Daniels is an example to all of us about determination and perseverance and strength and fortitude, but nonetheless, I know for him and his wife Danielle and their son, this has been an incredibly difficult journey, and the fact that he is here with this great big smile on his face that he always has, and his positive attitude, I think speaks incredibly of the kind of individual that he is and the kind of Canadian that we have in uniform and what they do for their country, and how the can sort of get through everything.  But nonetheless, don’t dismiss the fact that we ask Canadians to remember just what a tough journey it is for a guy like Sgt. Stephen Daniels and his family, and therefore even more importantly what an incredible thing it is that the Paralympic Association is doing to help them through that.  The sacrifice of the folks who are wounded, particularly in that mission to Afghanistan, is incredible.  It’s long days, week, months and years of recovery and sometimes not recovery to the completed level of the life that they lived before, and we want to do everything that we can, including things like this to help them get through that.  Thank you. Question:                        Do we have any data in terms of statistics, I know 65 soldiers have been killed, do we have any statistics on how many have been permanently injured or disabled? General Hillier:                        Yes, we do, but here what I was saying and I loath to quote one because the permanently injured soldiers are defined as that way over a longer period of time.  So for example, from the first rotation that we had in Afghanistan that started the mission in the south starting last June going through to last August, so therefore from late June 06 to August 06, we have one soldier that is permanently injured, we have three other soldiers that may be classified that way in the months ahead.  So that’s as precise as I can get.  We have other wounded soldiers out of the mission in the tour that went from August through to this February, that will probably not be in classified as permanently wounded soldiers.  Also I can’t give those numbers, I think they will probably be in the same category i.e. 1 to 2 to 3 to 4. That’s as best a figure, I can give you right now and you’ll understand if they change up and down so I’m not quoting exact figures, okay. Question:                        Roger Smith from CTV, but as a pool reporter for all networks today, I hope can sneak in an extra question.  Minister O’Connor, what General Hillier was just saying you know was just a handful of people who have been permanently disabled on the mission to Afghanistan, yet I suppose when we all arrived here today, we all expected this announcement perhaps this program had been inspired by some of the casualties in Afghanistan, and in an attempt to get those people involved in this kind of thing.  Does this have a lot to do with the Afghanistan mission and the injuries of those coming home. Minister O’Connor:                        It does, remember that soldiers, airmen and sailors get injured in operations every day, some of them pretty dramatic injuries, so that is also behind it. And yes, we have had a steady number of casualties, most of which return to battle, or return to their units within a month or so. But some of them as, the Chief said, may be permanently injured.  And what we are trying to do, we put a lot of effort into preparing people for combat.  We train them, equip them and put a lot of effort in.  We’ve got to put an equal amount of effort in looking after them when they come home injured, and this is part of the program.  We feel that many of our soldiers who have disabilities maybe a limb missing or something like that, have a lot to offer, not only to the forces, and we are going to maintain as many as we can in the forces, but we also have a contribution to an organization to the Paralympics.  If you look at Sgt Daniels, his physique, I wouldn’t want to arm wrestle with him right now, I’ll tell you that.  He’s a pretty strong individual and we think that not only will this benefit our soldiers to participate in this program, but we are going to put in an infusion of talent into the Paralympics. Question:                        My follow up to you would be, what exactly is this program?  I mean is there money in it, is it just encouraging meetings? I mean how exactly does it work? There’s no real explanation in the news release. Minister O’Connor:                        Ya, I apologize for the news release. It’s a program where we are combining the efforts of the DND with the Paralympic organization.  What we are trying to do is to encourage our soldiers to participate in that program.  We are also encouraging the Paralympic organization to come and visit our organization when they are in hospital, when they need moral support to sort of give them an idea what their potential is beyond rehabilitation.  So it’s a program to try and integrate our soldiers who have been severely wounded, not only into the military and into society, but into something that is really active sports.  Because most of our soldiers are pretty physical people.  If you go over to somewhere like Afghanistan and see somebody in 40̊ – 45̊ heat carrying 80 pounds on their back, you will understand what kind of fitness they are in, and this encourages them to participate in sports like the rest of us. Question:                        Ok, and if I can just sneak my global question in for (Question is cut off and immediately resumes with another question) Question:                        This is for (inaudible) Canadian presence for Minister O’Connor or General Hillier.  This is just one of the programs that the Defense Department has to reintegrate injured soldiers into communities.  Can you just outline some of the other measures that the Department takes. Minister O’Connor:                        We have a number of psychological and medical program, but we are looking at various ways to employ our soldiers who are severely wounded.  For instance, at the moment we have a policy of universal service, where anyone in the Canadian Forces must be fit, but be able to undertake operations anywhere in the world, we are reviewing that policy in light of the number of casualties that we have had from Afghanistan to make sure that people who have sacrificed their lives for us, sacrificed maybe parts of their future, that we can look after them and reintegrate them into the military.  We also, I believe offer training program for those people who choose to go out of the service. We are also looking at ways to integrate them into the public service, if they have the talent or will to go into the public service. So there is a number of program that we are looking at. Question:                        Any idea when that review will be complete in this.  We are talking about the Deployability Rule, is that correct? Minister O’Connor:                        I think I’m going to ask the Chief to answer that. General Hillier:                        I would perhaps describe it as a review.  What we have is a responsibility to the men and women who get wounded or injured to ensure their rehabilitation and recovery before we ever do an assessment of whether they can meet the universality of service standards.  That’s going to take a long period of time, and (inaudible) CDS in fact just last week said that I am the release authority only, on any of those soldiers and so we are going to make sure that we have done all necessary while they are in uniform, while they are in the Canadian Forces and then we will discuss whether or not they want to be released and become civilians, or whether there is a role that they can continue to play inside the Canadian Forces, they continue to contribute, they give back.  Because one thing we have found, Murray, is that the folks that have been wounded, the ones that I have had the opportunity to meet, which is most of them, there appears to be no reverse on those kids.  They appear to be sort of the top, sort of quality campers that you would like to be associated with and everyone of them has been a joy.  I think you will see some of them around here.  I would like to keep those folks in uniform until they are completely recovered and rehabilitated, then we will have a discussion with them, but I think actually that we won’t have to chase universality of service, I think we will have met them.  I will be able to look after them if they want to stay as part of the Canadian Forces and continue their service. Question:                        So that would be an exception to the rule then, Sir? General Hillier:                        We can do it within the rules right now, Murray.  I think we just have to walk through this over the longer term here.  No need to rush the (inaudible) on it, and so we are not going to do that.  It’s going to be quite some time, before we ever get in a position to actually say, well ok, this soldier, who was permanently injured, is completely rehabilitated and completely recovered from that, and therefore we have to make a decision.  That’s months and years off. Question:                        One last question, General Hillier, I would like to… Your Minister touched on this, but I would like you to touch on it, sort of.  Talk about this sort of natural relationship between the military and sports and why some of these injured soldiers are sort of a natural fit to rehabilitate through sports, and also there quite a bit of, you know, is it sort of making a virtue of a bad thing that, you know can be one of the up sides of injury suffered in war might me that we will do better in the paralympics? General Hillier:                        Well, first of all, I’m a terrible person to ask about the correlation between the Military and sports. I run slowly, I golf not well at all, I play hockey terribly, right. So I’m not an athlete. Question:                        You get a lot of mileage out of that. General Hillier:                        But I am a soldier, and let me just tell you, you know, perseverance, dedication, courage, being able to work under stress and pressure, being able to work as part of a team, not let your team down, make peripheralized (inaudible) all these sort of peripheral details, and concentrate on the goal and what you are trying to achieve, and let nothing detract you from that, but do it with good values, good ethos and do it either representing your regiment or your country or your fellow men and women, that’s what we do in the Army, that’s what we do in the Air Force, that’s what we do in the Navy, and the Canadian Forces overall, and that’s what you do isn sports.  I think the correlation is in fact almost complete.  We have young men and women in the Canadian Force in uniform, Stephen Daniels is a perfect case in point, this is an incredible guy right here. Sergeant Andy McLean is another one exactly like that who are men and women of action.  They don’t talk about doing thing, they do things, and that pretty much describes the people like Carla and Jean Labonté here, and other pretty incredible individuals except that he cheers for the Montreal Canadians as his first team and so, he obviously has some short comings here. I think it’s a great correlation, Roger, I truly do. And I think it’s a natural fit.  We really are pleased, and will support a whole variety of things in association with the Paralympic Association. Question:                        But in the sense of a guy lying there, injured in bed and someone says to him, look, we can get you involved in sports, I mean how does that work? How is that going to work on some guy, take an example, a guy just back from Afghanistan, he’s lost his legs, and some paralympian is going to talk to him.  How is that going to work? General Hillier:                        Well, first of all, the Canada Paralympic Association were inspired to come forward and suggest this program in effect to us.  An we, Minister, great kudos to him, and then we slightly slowly realized this was going to be an awesome thing for our young men and women. I don’t think it occurs that way.  These young men and women, except for Nick Laggard of course who we lost, our injured go through a return to Canada of stabilization, a recovery period and then a recuperation and then a rehabilitation period.  During that time frame, they start to understand that perhaps their lives have changed and they are going to have to do things slightly differently.  They meet various people during that journey, at the front end, who perhaps understand some of what they are experiencing, some of the great challenges that they will face, and how to get through some of those challenges. But somewhere in the front part of that journey, what we want the opportunity to do is introduce them to people who have simply had those kinds of injuries or illness and then excelled.  And the fact that they have excelled in sports is almost irrelevant, but what it is, is something that correlates very well to the kind of people that we have in uniform. And I think back to your previous question about that correlation.  I think the two come together. They don’t suggest then, when you’re laying in that bed and say, Ok you get better and come out and play some hockey. I think that it is a developing relationship and maybe the awareness comes to a person like Sgt. Daniels that going down the slopes of either Whistler or, what was the ski mountain you went down?  Mount Washington, you know on a sledge you know is something that this man of action might find enjoyable to do and would be a continuation of all the things that he has been doing in his life up to this time, and therefore no reason to change. In short, it allows them to see what is possible. Thank you.