You may have come across a number of social media posts recently about jobs available in the Canadian Army Reserve. It’s no secret that they are on a major recruiting drive across the country looking to boost their numbers by as much as 2500 soldiers.

As Honorary Lieutenant Colonel of 41 Signal Regiment in Alberta, it’s my job to help expand the understanding of the role the Reserve plays in the success of military operations at home and abroad. In Canada, the Army Reserve is part of virtually every domestic operation. This includes natural disasters like fires – think Slave Lake and Ft. McMurray, and floods like we saw in Calgary a few years ago.  Internationally, the Army Reserve supports our Regular Forces.  This has proven successful around the world, most notably in Afghanistan.

Recently I screened the documentary Deployed: Army Reservists Overseas, by LCol Mike Vernon of the Calgary Highlanders, a former video journalist for CBC and currently a journalism instructor at Mount Royal University in Calgary.

Deployed is broken into three chapters: the first is comprised of early missions such as Egypt, Cyprus and Africa; the second is Bosnia and Croatia in the early 1990s and finally Afghanistan. There is a progression from the first interview of a reservist who served in Egypt in 1976 through to the final soldier returning from Afghanistan in 2012.

“In each part I look at: What was your motivation, expectations, experiences and what was it like coming home?” Vernon says. “And what’s it like now dealing with whatever they dealt with. Some of them had PTSD, some of them had a drinking problem. And they speak quite openly about those struggles. “So there’s that range of experience, and I think you also get that sense of how the army has evolved in terms of welcoming soldiers home, dealing with PTSD. But it’s very much at the level of personal experience.”

I’d encourage anyone with an interest in the experience of our Reservists to watch this film.  It features interviews with a wide variety of current and former soldiers from Alberta who have deployed on dozens of missions, beginning with the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Egypt in the 1970s on through the Afghanistan deployments of recent years.

It’s important to remember that in Canada, reservists are not ordered to serve overseas, but volunteer to do so, putting their civilian lives on hold until their return. The Highlanders are part of 41 Canadian Brigade Group, based in Calgary, and all the soldiers in the documentary are drawn from units of that Brigade Group.

Though each is a unique individual, their personal stories tell some universal truths about our soldiers, their lives and their work. For all of them, their days overseas were filled with moments of adrenaline-filled risk balanced by the daily routine of regular duties that are part of every deployment. As reservists who often must immediately integrate themselves back into civilian life after their return from deployment, they also have faced some unique challenges.

You can find more information about the Canadian Army Reserve by clicking here.

You can learn more about the background of the documentary and LCol Mike Vernon by clicking here.

Lieutenant-Colonel Mike Vernon (left) volunteered for a mission in Afghanistan in 2010.
~Photo courtesy Canadian Armed Forces Combat Camera

About the Canadian Army Reserve

Reservists have made substantial contributions to Canada’s international and domestic operations. Since the year 2000, more than 4,000 Reservists from the Army, the Royal Canadian Navy and the Royal Canadian Air Force have been deployed in international expeditionary operations in:

• Africa;
• South-west Asia;
• the Middle East;
• the Caribbean, and
• many other parts of the world.

Reservists have participated in domestic operations in many ways in recent years. They have:

•  assisted with flood relief efforts in Quebec and Manitoba;
•  fought forest fires in Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia;
•  assisted with hurricane relief efforts in Newfoundland and Labrador;
• participated in recovery efforts following ice storms in eastern Canada; and
• supported the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

In addition, Reservists often help at or participate in cultural events, parades, festivals, and other public events in their own and neighbouring communities across Canada, including Remembrance Day ceremonies.