Back to Vancouver

Okay, so I’m about to fly back to Vancouver in about 1-1/2 hours.

I don’t ever want to hear anyone ever say that being a base brat was a “fun time” in their life.

This shit sucks, it honestly does.

We meant absofuckinglutely nothing to the Canadian Armed Forces when we were kids. And once we turned 18 and aged off the bases, we meant even fucking less.

We got exposed to the spousal abuse in the PMQs

We got exposed to the alcoholism in the PMQs

We got exposed to the hidden, covered-up, and totally ignored mental illnesses of our fathers.

We got fucked seven ways from Sunday my the military “justice system”, that same justice system that was an outright abysmal failure for the adults but was somehow supposed to be working for the kids and non-serving spouses on base.

There have been studies conducted over the years looking at spousal abuse in military families.

To the best of my knowledge, there has never been a study that has ever looked at the long term effects of being a military dependent.

How many former military dependents have ended up homeless?

How many former military dependents have ended up dead with needles in their arms?

How many military dependents committed suicide on base or committed suicide later in life due to their issues they inherited on base.

“bUt BoBbIe, MiLiTaRy DePeNdAnTs WeReN’t In ThE CaNaDiAn FoRcEs”

You assholes that wanna simp for the Canadian Armed Forces actually believe that our fathers left the toxic bullshit at the hangar or the garage, or the drill hall?

You wanna believe that the Canadian Armed Forces wasn’t turning a willing blind eye to the rampant alcoholism and drug abuse in the military?

Half of the Canadian Airborne Regiment on Griesbach was doing fucking coke.

Most of the guys at 447 Sqn were drinking on the job when servicing the Chinooks.

You wanna believe that the Canadian Armed Forces didn’t pull out all of the stops to “wash the laundry” in house and keep it from being exposed to the civilian world?

In 1985, after my father trashed the PMQ on CFB Downsview, the military police didn’t plead with my brother and I to call the base MPs instead of the civilian police because they cared. They just wanted to keep the civilian police and civilian social services from getting involved with the “military’s business”.

Our fathers got treated like heroes after they retired. Even if they had never seen combat and spent the majority of their career flying a fucking office desk.

Military dependents aren’t even on the radar of veterans affairs.