Wounded American Vets Not The Only Ones Being Neglected After Return From Duty

Wounded ... and a pay cut
Oct. 6, 2006. 05:24 AM
BRUCE CAMPION-SMITH
OTTAWA BUREAU


OTTAWA—His body torn apart by shrapnel, on painkillers and facing months of rehabilitation, Trooper Jeffrey Hunter had been in a German hospital just hours when he was given the news — he was losing his danger pay.

"They just went in and told him he's not getting it because he's not in theatre anymore," said his father Bill Hunter, of Aurora.

"This is a kid that may not walk again, we don't know. He could wind up losing one of the legs from infection ... and they go in and tell him he's not going to get his danger pay.

"When does the danger end for him? I don't understand this," he said angrily.

His 23-year-old son, who arrived in Afghanistan in August, was left badly wounded in Tuesday's attack west of Kandahar that killed two of his fellow soldiers.

He was airlifted to Landstuhl, Germany, for advanced medical care. Yesterday, to add to his already long list of worries, military officials added another — they confirmed he was no longer entitled to his "operational allowances."

Those allowances — totalling $2,111 a month for soldiers serving in Afghanistan — are meant to compensate for the hardships and risks of the mission.

But under military rules, if a soldier is injured and removed from Afghanistan, that soldier will lose the right to collect these financial perks, which can boost monthly pay by more than 30 per cent.

As well, the salary soldiers earn in Afghanistan is tax-free and that perk disappears, too.

But the tough message delivered to the wounded soldier yesterday angered his father and left him questioning the military's support for its injured troops.

"He hadn't been there six hours," Hunter said yesterday.

"He's in a lot of pain and I've got someone from the military going in and telling him they're not going to give him his danger pay. ... This is not right.

"He's going to have a long-time therapy, a lot longer than the six months he was sent away for in Afghanistan," Hunter said. "Why aren't these kids getting danger pay?"

Military officials declined to comment on the specifics of Hunter's case. They noted that the defence department has the discretion to continue to pay the military allowance for an extra 25 days — and usually does — but there is no indication yet that Hunter will receive it.

Liberal MP Dan McTeague (Pickering-Scarborough East) has been leading the push to have the "insensitive" policy overturned, saying injured soldiers should continue to collect the financial incentives until their tour of duty was due to end.

Officials with Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor have so far dismissed calls to rethink the policy and accused opposition MPs of trying to "mislead" the public.

But Hunter's plight — a situation faced by dozens of other wounded soldiers — puts a human face on a policy that risks ensnaring the Conservatives in another public relations nightmare on the Afghanistan issue.

The family's concerns also offer a glimpse into a largely unseen side of Canada's war in Afghanistan — the trauma and turmoil of the wounded soldiers and their distraught families. So far, more than 150 Canadian soldiers have been injured in the conflict since 2001, compared with the 39 killed.

"I don't want to be a spokesperson but there are other families out there ... the government should be supporting us now in our time of need," said Hunter, a retired 31-year veteran of the Toronto police force.

But even this father of three admits he's been badly jarred by his family nightmare that started with a phone call from a military chaplain in Kandahar.

"The padre asks who you are. He said, `I have Jeffrey here and he wants to talk to you,' and they put him on the phone," Hunter recalled.

"Through his yelling and screaming, he told us he had been wounded and his legs were broken. Then they took the phone off and took him into surgery," he said.

His son, a member of the Royal Canadian Dragoons, was one of several soldiers providing security for road construction near Kandahar when insurgents attacked with mortars, rocket propelled grenades and small arms fire. Sgt. Craig Paul Gillam and Cpl. Robert Thomas James Mitchell were killed.

Hunter survived the attack but suffered a shattered leg and shrapnel wounds across his body, his father said.

The wounded soldier has since been able to call his family from his hospital bed in Germany.

"He said, `Dad, I'm not in good shape. When you see me, I don't look good,'" Hunter recalled.

He's expected to be flown to Ottawa Saturday and later transferred to Toronto's Sunnybrook for follow-up treatment.

But to add insult to injury, his parents were told yesterday that they would have to pay their own expenses to get to Ottawa to meet their son.