Stuart Langridge appears on the TV screen, a young and confident soldier.

It’s 2003, and the tank gunner with Lord Strathcona’s Horse, an armoured regiment based in Edmonton, is exuberantly talking about his job for a documentary crew filming an episode of Truth, Duty, Valour, a popular show about the Canadian Forces.

Five years later, the Afghanistan veteran would be dead.

His world would crash down around him in a haze of alcohol and drug abuse. In the course of a year, he would attempt suicide six times, before successfully hanging himself in a CFB Edmonton barracks.

His parents, Shaun and Sheila Fynes of Victoria, B.C., are now living a nightmare, trying to understand exactly what happened to their son and why he didn’t receive proper care for what several doctors diagnosed as major depression and post-traumatic stress syndrome. They can’t understand how a soldier, known to be suicidal, was unsupervised the day he killed himself.

For the Fynes, there would be no truth, duty or valour in the Canadian Forces as they went on their quest for answers. Their son, once an excellent soldier, would be dismissed as a drunk and a drug abuser.

"At the end of the day, he was their soldier," Sheila says. "But as soon as he got sick, they turned their back on him and treated him like garbage."

Post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, is a mental illness that’s becoming all too familiar to the Canadian Forces. It’s a form of chronic psychological stress that follows exposure to a traumatic event.

Some specialists estimate about 20 per cent of those who served in Afghanistan will exhibit PTSD symptoms that range from anxiety to nightmares to suicidal tendencies.

On Wednesday, a Commons committee released a report that predicted the impact of PTSD to come. Of the estimated 27,000 military personnel who have served in Afghanistan since 2002, the committee received estimates that slightly more than 3,600 could develop a mental-health problem — of those, 1,624 could have symptoms of PTSD and depression.

The Commons report also noted ample evidence linking alcohol and drug abuse to those soldiers.

"For every senior officer or departmental official who told us of initiatives being taken to improve military health care generally, and mental-health diagnosis and treatment in particular, we heard at least one junior rank who told us the system was not working for them," stated the report. "The phrase ‘falling through the cracks’ was heard so often, it lost its notoriety."

For the Fynes, the Commons report couldn’t provide a better outline of their son’s plight.

At 17, Langridge he joined the reserves. He had his eyes set on the regular Canadian Forces and, in June 2000, he shipped out to Edmonton as a new member of the Lord Strathcona’s Horse.

Stuart was keen to get overseas, and was deployed on a six-month tour in Bosnia in 2001.

As his military career progressed and he was promoted to corporal, he was selected to train as a tank gunner, receiving high marks on the gunnery course.

In 2004, he was sent on a six-month tour in Afghanistan. Based in Kabul, Stuart’s unit patrolled the nearby mountains. Although the threat was nothing like that facing Canadian troops now in Kandahar, task force commander Col. Jim Ellis would later describe the situation as dangerous at all times, because of the threat of suicide bombers, improvised explosive devices and insurgent rockets.

When Stuart returned home in February 2005, his family noticed his mood had changed. Usually upbeat, now he was withdrawn and wanted only to be with his military comrades. And he was drinking to excess.

"He didn’t talk much about Afghanistan," Sheila said. "The one time he did talk about it, he told us the poverty was unbelievable, and he felt terrible for the kids. He became visibly upset."

After complaining of unexplained chest pains in March 2007, Stuart was put on sick leave by the military, and a doctor prescribed medications to calm his nerves. Still, he had nightmares and difficulty sleeping.

Over the next year, he spiralled into self-destruction, mixing medications and alcohol and using cocaine. Over the course of that year, he tried to kill himself six times.

After a failed suicide attempt in June 2007, Stuart was hospitalized at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Edmonton. After a short stay on the psychiatric ward, doctors concluded he was suffering from alcohol abuse.

Several months later, a report from the Mental Health Services branch at CFB Edmonton noted that tests indicated Stuart was suffering from major depression. The report suggested psychotherapy.

Stuart continued to drink and his mental health further deteriorated.

In February 2008, Stuart tried to commit suicide again. After being found curled up in the fetal position, a base doctor sent him back to the Royal Alexandra Hospital. "Active suicidal indication and plan and means (will hang himself tonight)," the doctor wrote.

One night before he was released, Stuart tried again, this time unsuccessfully attempting to strangle himself with the drawstrings of his pyjamas.

The hospital released him but, a day later, Stuart drove himself to the Alberta Hospital, a psychiatric facility in Edmonton, and asked to be admitted for 30 days so he could go through detox, then get back into rehab.

Hospital officials agreed, and doctors decided to run five psychological tests over a three-day period.

In the sessions, Stuart described how he found his time in Afghanistan stressful, and that he had spent much of the tour out on patrol. He talked about his recurring dreams of being in Afghanistan. The hospital’s medical assessment noted he had difficulty sleeping and concentrating. Stuart was also experiencing chest pains and had been binge drinking and doing cocaine.

On March 4, according to Alberta Hospital records, the Canadian Forces asked that Stuart be sent back to CFB Edmonton. "Military want him back for 2 (weeks) prior to attend rehab," medical staff wrote in Stuart’s file.

The next morning, Stuart approached a staff member and, according to hospital records, "reported being ‘scared to leave today.’ "

He said he was anxious about going back to the garrison. "He is unsure what he will be asked to do in the two weeks at the base," the report notes.

Stuart was returned to the base later that day. A week later, he was back in the emergency ward at the Royal Alexandra after threatening to commit suicide. He told a doctor that he "can’t take army stuff anymore."

After a two-day stay, Stuart was discharged and sent back to CFB Edmonton.

Sheila was told by an addictions counsellor at the base that her son was being kept under supervision at the duty desk under suicide watch. The family was told the military would closely monitor Stuart, and if he could stay clean and sober for three weeks, he would be sent to rehab.

Two days later, the Fynes received a phone call from a senior officer at CFB Edmonton. Their son had killed himself.

On March 15, 2008, Stuart went unaccompanied to his room in a nearby barracks. He carefully hooked his webbing belt to a chin-up bar in the room and tightened the other end around his neck. He then bent his knees, applying the full weight of his body until he strangled himself. He died just 11 days before his 29th birthday.

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Mental health and military

Tags: Alberta Hospital, Jim Ellis, tank gunner, alcohol abuse, departmental official, Commons committee

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