One of the issues that really causes me a lot of grief and consternation is the complete and absolute lack of interest from the media and from groups that should be interested in how the Canadian Armed Forces dealt with child sexual abuse on the bases in Canada.
There have only been two reporters that have shown any level of interest in my matter and those two reporters are David Pugliese and Nora Loreto.
Even veterans groups that support members of the Canadian Armed Forces want nothing to do with my matter.
Now, you might be saying to yourself “but Bobbie, how common could child sexual abuse have been on the bases?”.
Well, what are the odds that I would have been involved with the following:
- A captain of the regular forces who admitted to molesting numerous children during his years of service and who would go on to have more convictions for molesting children after he had been booted out of the military.
- An altar boy who would go on to have numerous charges and convictions for sexual crimes committed against children.
- A random stranger in the sauna of a military recreation centre who was keen to receive oral sex from an 8 year old.
- A major of the regular forces who himself would be investigated years later for sexually abusing a young boy on Canadian Forces Base Borden in 1974 and who would go on to pay a cash settlement with the family of a young 16 year old boy that he had improper sexual relations with.
- A member of the Canadian Corps of Commissionaires who was a hebephile and no doubt had access to children on various military bases during his career in the Canadian Armed Forces.
The Military Police Complaints Commission confirmed that my babysitter, P.S., was charged and convicted in 1982 for molesting a young boy in a town just north of CFB Petawawa in Ontario. In 1984 P.S. was charged and convicted for molesting a boy in Manitoba. And then in 1985 he was charged and convicted for molesting a 9 year old boy on Canadian Forces Base Edmonton after his family had been posted back there. He was also convicted of molesting a 13 year old news paper boy in the city of Edmonton after the Canadian Forces booted him out of his family’s military housing unit on the base. How many other children did P.S. molest on Canadian Forces Base Petawawa, in Ontario as well as the unnamed base in Manitoba, as well as Canadian Forces Base Edmonton. How many children did P.S. molest in the surrounding communities and was able to escape justice because his father got transferred to different bases?
When I obtained the court martial records for captain McRae it contained a copy of his ecclesiastical trial conducted by the Catholic church. Captain McRae admitted to having molested numerous boys over the years. Captain McRae joined the Canadian Armed Forces in 1973. He was investigated for having committed “acts of homosexuality” shortly there after while he was stationed at the Royal Military College. The RMC is in Kingston, Ontario and is on Canadian Forces Base Kingston. Captain McRae was then transferred to Canadian Forces Base Portage La Prairie in Manitoba. After CFB Portage La Prairie he was transferred to Canadian Forces Station Holberg on Vancouver Island in British Columbia. After CFS Holberg he was transferred to Canadian Forces Base Namao. In May and June of 1980 the military police and the CFSIU would discover that he had molested over 25 children on the base.
This begs the question. How many children on the bases and in the communities around the bases did P.S. and Captain McRae molest?
Around the time of Lynne Harper’s murder in 1959, sergeant Alexander Kalichuk had been found driving around the back roads around Royal Canadian Air Force base Clinton. He was offering new panties to young girls. When the police caught up with him and asked him what he was doing he said he bought the box of girls panties as a birthday present for a friend’s daughter, but that the party had been cancelled and he didn’t want the panties to go to waste. How many kids did Kalichuk molest, rape, or murder before he more than likely raped and killed Lynne Harper? We’ll never know and the Canadian Armed Forces are fine with that. Don’t forget, the military offers the perfect hiding place for people like P.S., or Captain McRae, or Sgt. Alexander Kalichuk. New children delivered to the base every posting season. The kids you’ve molested get posted off the base eventually and go to another base. You get transferred to another base before you get caught. The kids you’re molesting, especially the boys, are dead terrified of being seen as weak, gay, or queer. And back in the “good ol’ days” there were no police databases that could be used by local police departments to track similar crimes that may have occurred in different geographical areas throughout Canada.
So yeah, it becomes so very tiring and so very maddening to see the Canadian media and veterans groups and military sexual assault survivor groups show absolutely no interest or no concern for the children that lived on Canadian Forces Bases.
It’s almost like the media and the veterans groups and the military sexual assault survivor groups are saying to me and the other like me that our lives are meaningless and that we are disposable.
If you want to know what it feels like to be human garbage, just ask, I can let you know.
For 42 years I’ve dealt with severe sexual trauma, the fallout of being dealt with by military social worker Captain Terry Totzke, being caught between Captain Totzke and my civilian social workers, despised by my own father for having “fucked with his military career” and for “allowing” the babysitter, P.S., to abuse my younger brother.
So yeah.
That’s why I’m tired.
And that’s why I’m numb.
And that’s one of the reasons that I really want to go to sleep.
Beeshive 