Several years ago, I attended specialized training in understanding Operational Stress Injuries or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder caused by war, offered by Veterans Affairs Canada. The training included a realistic convoy ambush of our trucks on the training range at 4th Canadian Division Training Centre, Meaford.

In the discussion which followed, I recall one veteran of Afghanistan and Bosnia telling us to expect a growing number of combat stress injuries in the future, as soldiers returned from many years of acknowledged and unacknowledged combat.

That is the price of war.

You would think we would learn, but we really have not.

You would think our armed forces and government might get it, but not quite. Not yet.

In the last few weeks, four Canadian soldiers have committed suicide.

So disturbed by this was Senator and retired General Romeo Daillare that he crash his car into a stop sign on Parliament Hill, reflecting his own ongoing struggle with PTSD from his service in Rwanda.

Recently, a colleague told me of visiting an injured veteran who had served in Afghanistan and who had been in an explosion of an IED. He had been severely injured and several of his comrades killed. The soldier was depressed and almost inconsolable.

My colleague acknowledged that he had no combat experience and could not understand the depth and trauma of what the soldier had been through, but he asked if the soldier was open to talking to a couple of friends. His friends had served in combat. One had been in World War 2 and been in the heaviest action at Monte Casino. The other had served in the Korean War and been a survivor of the battle at Kapyong.

The injured soldier resisted initially, but finally agreed. My colleague said that all he needed to do was invest an hour of time and a cup of coffee. Nothing more.

On his next visit, the soldier thanked my colleague. He said, “We talked for two hours. Those two guys helped me more in two hours than two months’ of counselling and social workers.”

When we ask the members of our Armed Forces to go into places and situations we can not even imagine, this country owes them a lot. We ask the members of the Canadian Forces to take on unlimited liability; to accomplish missions which put them in harm’s way and may result, if their mission is successful, in their death. We ask them to go to the gates of hell on our behalf. Some don’t return. Those who do may be damaged in body and soul.

We forget that our request of them carries a responsibility; to care for those who survive so that their resultant injuries do not continue to do damage to them and their families.

PTSD is not new. My own family has stories of soldiers who returned from the First and Second World Wars with damage to mind and body. The drug of choice then was alcohol. And it played out in their lives and families over decades.

It should come as no surprise to anyone that there have been four suicides among active soldiers this year. All were Afghanistan and Bosnia veterans.

One of the speakers at the Veterans Affairs training told us that Remembrance Day was one of the toughest days of the year for combat veterans. It brought back all the memories and survivor’s guilt.

People of faith have a role to play in all of this. We are, I believe, required to demand more from our government for those who have served this country. We have asked our soldiers to do and see and experience horrors we can’t even imagine. Our responsibility is to offer them, when they come home, the services and jobs they need to live a life that is meaningful and supports them in their distress.

We ask our armed forces to do tasks we can not or are not personally equipped to do. We ask them to stand in harm’s way. For those who come home, we have a duty to offer more than we are providing.

Our responsibility as Canadians and as a compassionate, caring people demand it.

Rev. David Shearman is the minister of Central Westside United Church, Owen Sound and host of Faithworks on Rogers TV - Grey County