OTTAWA (CP) - A small group of bereaved military family members has been invited to meet in Edmonton later this month in a timely effort to set up a support network for those who lose loved ones in military operations.
The meeting was arranged by the Operational Stress Injury Social Support project, or OSISS, which hopes to use the same peer-to-peer connections that have helped the five-year-old program assist so many soldiers suffering traumatic stress-related injuries.
"When you're going through a rough time in your life, there's nothing like connecting with somebody who's been through it," Lt.-Col. Stephane Grenier, the project director, said in an interview.
"That's the whole philosophy behind the OSISS program."
Representatives of eight families of fallen soldiers have been invited, including Marley Leger, the widow of Sgt. Marc Leger who was killed in Afghanistan in April 2002 in a friendly-fire incident, and Brian Isfeld, who son Mark died clearing landmines in Croatia in 1994.
The Edmonton meeting on May 31 has been in the works for more than a year - in part because of lobbying by Marley Leger, said Grenier - but it comes at a particularly sensitive moment for the Canadian military and its extended family.
Canada's mission in Afghanistan is the most combat-intense since Korea and casualties are climbing. Sixteen Canadian soldiers have died in Afghanistan and the increasing frequency of the deaths prompted the new Conservative government to reassess its military protocols, including closing repatriation ceremonies at CFB Trenton, Ont., to the media.
In the ensuing controversy, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said the move was to protect the privacy of grieving families, although it appears none were consulted.
The OSISS meeting in Edmonton is emphatically not designed to address this shortcoming, said Grenier, although he expects to hear some unsolicited opinions on the subject at what will likely be an emotionally charged gathering.
"My goal is certainly not to revisit national policies like that," said Grenier. "Of course, I'll be sympathetic to their feelings either for or against the current policies, but it's really not my role to delve into that."
Grenier wants to launch a full-scale bereavement support program through OSISS and but says first, "I need to consult some of the experts - not clinicians but people who have lived through it themselves."
The participants are under no illusion that this is some kind of focus group on military funeral protocols.
"I think they're probably interested in their military approach to the families, how it can be improved," said Brian Isfeld, himself a former military man who spent more than 30 years in the air force.
But the meeting is "absolutely not related" to issues like whether the Maple Leaf should be flown at half-mast on the Peace Tower when soldiers are killed, he said.
"It's an interesting human interest story but it's certainly not connected to any of the politics that has been going on lately."
What's really at play is the sad family aftermath caused by the sudden death of a husband, wife, son or daughter.
Grenier, who hopes setting up a network for grieving military families will be among his last acts before he is re-assigned from OSISS this summer, said in speaking to military widows he hears remarkably similar stories.
"Somebody dies and your family is there, the military is there and the assisting officer and there's a great funeral and all this stuff happens - but it's not until you connect with another widow that you really feel you're making progress in your grieving," said Grenier.
"This goes back to the difference between sympathy and empathy. We can all sympathize with other people . . . but when you really walk down that road, there's that connection and understanding."
