Batting 0 for 2

Recently I had filed two access to information requests with the Department of National Defence for copies of my psychiatric records that were kept by Captain Terry Totzke when I was under his care on Canadian Forces Base Griesbach from 1980 until 1983 as well as the records from when I attempted to enlist in the Canadian Armed Forces back in 1989 and 1991.

In 2011, I obtained my social services paperwork from Alberta Child and Family services. That’s how I discovered my direct connection to Canadian Armed Forces social worker, Captain Terry Totzke.

It wasn’t until I obtained my social services paperwork in 2011 and I discovered that the man I knew as “Terry” from back on CFB Griesbach was Captain Terry Totzke.

I 2011 filed an Access to Information Request with the DND to obtain a copy of whatever records Captain Totzke had complied in regard to my diagnosis and treatment. There was quite a bit of back and forth before DND finally responded that unless I could tell them what department the records resided in and who in that department had custody of those records, the DND wouldn’t be able to process my request.

A few weeks ago I filed another Access to Information request with the DND to try to obtain my records. This time however all I received from DND was a response which said that without my enlistment date, my discharge date, and the unit I was attached during the period of time that I was requesting my records for the DND would not be able to assist me.

I politely responded to response that I had specifically noted in my request that I was a military dependent, that I was not in the service and therefore was not attached to a unit and I had no enlistment or discharge date.

I’ve heard nothing back since.

I might have to involve the Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada.

The other request that I had filed was for the paperwork the DND and the CAF had created when I tried to enlist in 1989 and 1991.

When I tried to enlist in 1989, everything went fine. I did well on the battery of tests. My references were contacted. But then out of the blue the recruiting office called me and said that “something had turned up and that I was deemed ineligible for service”. When asked what this information was, the recruiting office wouldn’t say, just that my enlistment would violate CAF policy.

I knew that it wasn’t my grades in school as I was currently taking grades 9 and 10 together in the same year and I would be completed in the spring of 1990.

And it wasn’t unusual at the time for kids in grade 10 to fill in the paperwork and get all of the administrative stuff out of the way so that by the time they completed grade 10 they’d be ready to submit their final grades and then off to basic training they’d go.

The military at the time was keen to get the kids before they started eyeing up the trades or other well paying careers in the civilian world. The military loves brains that are malleable and mouldable.

I tried to enlist again in 1991 in Edmonton. At this point in time I had my grade 12 GED. This time I was told by the recruiting office staff that if I ever tried to enlist in the Canadian Armed Forces again that I would be arrested and charged for trying to fraudulently join the CAF. When I asked for an explanation I was told in a very curt tone that I had been told at the recruiting centre in Toronto that my admission into the Canadian Armed Forces would be a violation of policy. What policy this was I’ve never found out.

I was just recently informed by the information analyst that the result of this request is that apparently the DND and the CAF destroy recruitment information 3-years after it was created.

It must be remembered that Captain Totzke was convinced that I was a homosexual because I had allowed the abuse on CFB Namao to go on for so long without telling anyone. Totzke even went so far as to instruct me father that I should not participate in sports as there would be the chance that if I saw other naked boys in the change room that I wouldn’t be able to control myself.

And then there’s the whole matter of the Captain Father Angus McRae child sexual abuse scandal on Canadian Forces Base Namao not being investigated as “child sexual abuse” but instead being investigated as Captain McRae having committed “Acts of Homosexuality” on the base with young boys.

When I tried to enlist in the CAF back in 1989 and 1991 the CAF would have been well aware that I was a military dependent and that my father was in the Canadian Armed Forces. As my father was in the CAF his service file would have contained records of any involvement I would have had with military personnel, such as Captain Terry Totzke.

And if Captain Totzke’s records contained any of his concerns about the “homosexuality” that I had apparently exhibited on CFB Namao, this would have placed me in direct violation of Canadian Forces Administrative Order CFAO-19-20 in which the CAF declared that homosexuality was a mental illness and anyone who was suspected of being a homosexual was deemed to be ineligible for service.

However, all of these records conveniently no longer exist.

Much like how the Canadian Armed Forces spent so much time and money in the late ’80s removing the rectories from the base chapels as they obviously knew that there was a massive problem with the catholic priests on base, had the DND and the CAF been “cleaning up” and eliminating paperwork that could cause them embarrassment and humiliation, and subject them to civil actions?

Is this also why in the mid ’90s the DND and the CAF moved the management of the PMQs to an arms-length agency, and handed all of the schools on the various bases over to the local school boards to own and operate?