When your adolescence and early adult years are spent trying to figure out the best way to kill yourself without looking like a loser, planning for a long life or planning for retirement aren’t really priority number one.
I still have no retirement plans.
As I’ve said before, I don’t exist outside of work.
The childhood I had didn’t lead me towards finding meaning for life within myself. The meaning for my existence has always come from working.
And to anyone who thinks of coming at me with “well, we’ve all had tough childhoods”……… you can go fuck yourself.
I’m tired.
Even more so since I got involved with the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service in 2011.
You can only be called a liar so many times by the Canadian Armed Forces before it really takes a toll on your mental health.
And let’s face it, my mental health wasn’t all that great to begin with before I sent that fateful email off to the Edmonton Police Service in March of 2011.
And believe me, getting called a scam artist by Harjit Sajjan didn’t help my depression or anxiety much either.
The only reason that Sajjan allowed the release of the courts martial transcripts and the CFSIU investigation paperwork in 2020 is he realized that somehow I had become aware of the existence of the documents and he calculated the risk that I would somehow find out the contents of those documents and he didn’t want to have the public find out that I had been telling the truth about CFB Namao while he called me a scam artist to my face.
And my brother’s death has really reinforced for me the fact that no one really gives a shit.
So yeah, I have no intention of sticking around past 2027.
I have no intention of retiring and spending more time with my constant companions of betrayal, depression, anxiety, and CPTSD.
It was back in the winter of 1987 when I had learnt that Scott had impersonated me for the first time.
I had been a member of the Royal Canadian Sea Cadets at the Dennison Armouries on Dufferin and Wilson since the fall of 1984. I had achieved the rank of leading cadet, and with the exception of the ongoing issues involving Mr. Stevens, everything was looking up.
This was a Wednesday night parade night when the executive officer A/Slt John Potter pulled me aside and told me that my father wanted my brother Scott to join my corp. Mr. Potter said that he didn’t want my brother anywhere near the cadet corp.
I told Mr. Potter that there wasn’t anything that I would be able to do. If Richard wanted Scott in cadets, then Scott was going to be in cadets. And I knew better than to ask Richard to not let Scott join my corp. If Richard thought that I wasn’t sticking up for Scott then I was in for one fuck of a beating when I got back on base.
Don’t forget, in the fall of 1983, the North York Board of Education had to separate my brother and I and send us to separate schools due to “intense sibling rivalry”.
By the time 1987 rolled around, that “rivalry” only got much worse. Both Richard and Sue had washed their hands of any responsibility for Scott, and anytime that Scott got in trouble with the Toronto Police Service it was my fault for not looking after him.
Mr. Potter took me outside of the armouries and let me have a smoke.
“Bob, do you understand the trouble that your brother gets in to?”
All I could do is sigh. Nobody knew about CFB Namao. All I needed was for Mr. Potter to find out the truth about CFB Namao and myself, that I was some crazed homosexual that made the babysitter abuse his younger brother. And to make matters even worse were the ongoing events with Mr. Stevens, which would have surely cemented my status as a perverted homosexual.
“Bob, you know that I work with troubled youth, right?”
I didn’t pay much attention other than I was trying to hold back the tears. I loved cadets, but here was Richard trying to fuck me over. I was envisioning Scott joining cadets and fucking up and getting into trouble and then Richard blaming me for not looking after Scott.
“Bob, two weeks ago I was dealing with a couple of teens from a group home that had been arrested for B&Es when I overheard that my star cadet had been arrested for theft of a car.”
You think that I stole a car?
“No Bob. It was your brother. When I heard that ‘you’ had stolen a car I had to go see this for myself. I didn’t recognize the kid in the interview room. So I asked the officer what the kid’s name was. The officer gave me your full name, your social insurance number, and your date of birth”
Oh, don’t worry, my father will say that it was my fault that he stole the car.
“Your brother wasn’t too happy with me when I told the investigator that I knew who that name and D.O.B. belonged to”
How did you find out that it was Scott. I know at least 3 of his friends that would give false names if they were arrested.
“When your father came to pick him up. Your father seemed very reluctant to give the police your brother’s name. Your father didn’t seem too concerned about what Scott had done in either stealing the car or using your name”
I lit up a second smoke. And you think that I can tell my father to not let Scott join my corp. Scott’s the little angel that can’t do anything wrong. No matter what the fuck he does, Richard and Sue blame me.
“I don’t mind working with kids that get into trouble Bob. Kids fuck up. Kids need help. But, your brother is different. He won’t admit that he’s done wrong”
Welcome to my life Mr. Potter. Anything that he’s done is my fault. Richard said that it’s my fault for not looking after him.
“Then it’s settled, just tell your father that you don’t feel comfortable with your brother in the corp. Ask your father to send your brother to another cadet corp. Preferably at a different location.”
He wasn’t listening. Just alike all of the other adults in my life up to that point in time. Just in one ear and out the other.
I went back in to the armouries, got my stuff, and left even through classes were about to begin.
I showed up the next week and got a demerit for leaving without permission the week before.
And the following week my brother showed up as a new entry.
Not too long later the CFB Borden event occurred.
And then between home life on Canadian Forces Base Downsview, the ongoing matter with Mr. Stevens, and Mr. Potter’s misdirected displeasure for not dissuading my father from making Scott join my corp., I quit cadets.
How many other times in my life did Scott impersonate me? I don’t know. Sure, finger printing should have easily cleared up any criminal investigation. But there are many types of investigations that wouldn’t necessarily result in finger prints being taken but that would tag my name and D.O.B. in these investigations.
I know that on New Year’s Eve 2000 in Vancouver, my brother gave my name and my D.O.B. when he was found riding without a fare on the Skytrain.
I only know this because the fine for this went to collections in 2006.
I get a call from a collections agency asking when I wanted to resolve the $40 fine.
I asked them for a copy of the ticket, so they sent me a copy of the ticket that was issued
It was my D.O.B. and my full complete name. The address was fake, but the postal code for the area of the address had the address actually existed was correct. The box on the ticket that said “ID Produced” was checked “N” meaning that the person giving my name didn’t produce any ID. There was a second piece of paper signed by another fare inspector stating that they witnessed the person using my name refuse to sign the fare evasion ticket.
As ICBC was responsible for the ticket in the first place, I had to go through their dispute process. They asked me why they should believe me that this wasn’t my fare evasion ticket.
Simple.
I was working from 22:00 on December 31st, 1999 until 06:00 January 1st, 2000 for a property management company downtown Vancouver as we had to be on standby for the much overblown “Y2K” bug that was expected to plunge the world into chaos. We had to be in the buildings to ensure that the automation systems didn’t crash.
And I lived in the West End of Vancouver, so being on the Skytrain heading out to Surrey at 00:30 made no sense.
“That might work for your name, but how did they get your social insurance number?”
I had been mugged in Vancouver in July of 1995. My wallet was stolen. Maybe whoever stole it used my SIN?
The collections was cancelled. But I get the sense that ICBC and Translink have a folder on hand with my name in it waiting for me to pull another fare evasion so they can jump up and down screaming “We knew you lied!!!!”.
Prior to September 11th, 2001 I had frequently crossed into the United States. I’d driven down from Vancouver. I’d taken the bus down from Vancouver. I’d even walked across land crossings numerous times.
But after 9/11 when crossing the border placed one under extreme scrutiny I didn’t dare cross. Even though I knew in 2006 that it was probably Scott that had used my name, I couldn’t prove it so I didn’t push it. But outside of Mr. Potter, other people had told me at various times that Scott had claimed to be me.
And no matter how much I wanted to drop down to Portland or Seattle for a weekend, I didn’t want to run the risk that Scott had used my name and got into some sort of trouble that would have made crossing the border impossible at the least or a criminal affair at the most.
I had my passport since 2010. But I still didn’t try to cross the border.
I wouldn’t cross the border until 2013 when I was in Ottawa Ontario to drop off a letter at National Defence Headquarters. A childhood friend of mine from CFB Shearwater lived in Ottawa at the time. She wanted to meet up while I was in Ottawa. She planned a day trip for us and her sister to go to Boldt Island in New York State. Fuck was I ever nervous at the border crossing.
Nothing strikes fear into me like “Have you ever been arrested”. This doesn’t mean arrested and charged, or arrested and convicted. This means just arrested. And this also includes “has there ever been an arrest warrant issued for you”, meaning has there ever been an arrest warrant issued in your name.
Border agents don’t often have hours to sit down and listen to 40 years of a fucked up life.
I have no fucking idea of where Scott used my name.
I know that he used my name back in 1987 related to car theft charges.
I know that he used my name on January 1st, 2000 for a fare evasion ticket.
Where the fuck else has he used my identity?
Do I blame Scott for using my identity?
Not really.
Richard and Sue taught Scott that he really wasn’t responsible for anything, that everything was all my fault. So it only follows that he would take the next step and not just blame me but transfer the trouble to me.
Hit me up with the Midazolam, propofol, rocuronium, and bupivacaine. It’s been an interesting life, but I’m tired of all of this horseshit.
Well, Tuesday would have been Scott’s 51st birthday.
But looks like he’ll be 50 forever.
Is he in a better place?
Nope.
Is he in a worse place?
Nope.
We didn’t believe in heaven or hell or the imaginary friend in the sky.
This existence is all we get.
In many ways I’m jealous of Scott.
For Scott, there’s no more pain and there’s no more suffering.
He’s no longer plagued by daemons of what could have been or what should have been.
No more memories of growing up, of the babysitter, of our grandmother, or of our father.
All that shit is gone.
What killed Scott?
Was it the ketamine, his epilepsy, or his heart condition?
Officially the Alberta Coroner will only say that his death was due to a ruptured spleen after a fall.
What caused the fall the medical examiner can’t say because his body was fairly decomposed when he was found.
2 weeks in an apartment in the Edmonton summer will cause a body to break down fairly quickly.
But if I had to speculate as to what the root cause of my brother’s death was, I’d have to say that the Indian Residential School System would probably factor in as a significant contributor. I’d also say that the desire of the Canadian Armed Forces to hide the true extent of Captain McRae’s child sexual abuse exploits on Canadian Forces Base Namao were also a significant contributor.
In life, every action has consequences.
Some consequences are felt immediately.
Some consequences appear as ripples at a later date.
Grandma was a very angry and disturbed woman from her time in Indian Residential school.
She was not a loving or caring woman, except for her alcohol. She loved and cared for her alcohol.
My father was not much better. He was already a heavy drinker at 16 when he joined the Royal Canadian Navy in 1963.
Grandma should never have had children.
But she did.
My father should never have had children.
But he did.
Luckily neither Scott nor I reproduced, so the dysfunction ends with us.
From the time I left the house in 1987 when I was 16 until 2013 I never really had much dealings with Scott.
When I went up to Edmonton for a couple of weeks in the summer of 2013 I mentioned to him that I never thought that I would have ever spoken to him again.
Scott knew from reading my blog back then that I was having some dealings with a constable from the Morinville RCMP detachment and Scott asked me if I could arrange a meeting with this constable as he wanted to know if this constable could read his CPIC file to see if there was some explanation as to why he was frequently being pulled over for traffic stops.
I did arrange for a meeting between the three of us at a Tim Hortons in St. Albert on the St. Albert Trail. Just after my brother started asking about what his CPIC file contained the constable kinda feigned a radio call and said that he had to go.
When I talked to the constable by phone the next day he said that there were issues on Scott’s CPIC file that would have warranted his arrest, and that he didn’t want to do that as this constable was familiar with what we went through on CFB Namao.
When I collected my brother’s belongings and his remains last August, the one thing that I did notice in his passport was that he had tried to enter the United States of America but that he had voluntarily returned to Canada.
Scott had quite the criminal history.
Some people may say that Scott’s criminal history was his own doing.
But it wasn’t.
Scott’s criminal history was 100% Richard’s fault.
When we lived on Canadian Forces Base Downsview in North York, Ontario my brother started running with a bad crowd.
I think that was the difference between Scott and I.
Scott wanted to be popular and to have friends.
I was majorly depressed and just wanted to be left the fuck alone.
Scott wanted to hang out and belong.
I was the type of kid that the popular kids picked on for entertainment.
Richard had absolutely no interest in the either of us.
I had my after school and weekend jobs.
Scott had nothing to do but hang out with the thugs he called friends.
And these guys were literal thugs.
Auto thefts, B&E’s, robberies w/o weapons, credit card fraud, etc…..
And this was all before he was 16.
Richard, our illustrious father, was too busy kissing ass and polishing knobs in the Canadian Forces to climb the ranks to give a shit.
Scott’s troubles and his frequent stays in group homes and detention were solely due to Richard’s inability to give a fuck about anyone other than himself.
But to hear Richard tell it, Scott’s issues were solely due to:
Grandma’s drinking
Grandma’s cruelty
Our mother’s absence
Insanity that ran in out mother’s family tree
Me not raising my brother properly
Me letting the babysitter on CFB Namao molest Scott
The parents of the other boys not raising their kids right.
Schools not teaching Scott properly.
The civilian public schools not using corporal punishment like the schools the Canadian Forces ran for the kids of military families.
Richard was a complete skinflint.
As he told his airforce buddy Jacques Choquette once after Jacques asked my father why he doesn’t just drop Scott and I off with our mother, “As long as I keep these kids under my roof, I control the costs. If I send these kids to their mother, then I’ll have to sign my fucking pay cheque over to that bitch, and that’s sure as fuck not happening”.
So no, there were no hobbies, no activities, no trips, no going to the movies, no going to sports games, no fucking nothing.
Scott’s legal troubles would plague him well into adult life.
It’s too bad that Richard died back in 2017.
It would have been nice to have seen Richard tortured and tormented by Scott’s death.
Both the fact that this is a common attitude amongst people, and the fact that yes, while I suffer from major depression, I can get shit done.
High functioning depression is what they call it.
And it fucking sucks.
So, last week I did yet another thing that I am totally NOT QUALIFIED* to do at work.
I know that networking is not covered in any of the 4th class Power Engineering modules that I undertook via correspondence.
At work there was a standalone building management system put in that wasn’t connected to the main network for an unknown reason.
Stand Alone Building Automation System
MOXA NAT-102
Wasn’t a concern until the system started doing funny things during the recent cold snap and we had no way of logging into it to see what was up.
It had become painfully obvious to me that this standalone system needed to be connected to the main network so that the shift engineers could get into it to manually override it if required.
I think this is the 4th MOXA NAT that I’ve installed at work in the last couple of years in order to put building automation and HVAC equipment on to the main network.
The most significant problem is the addressing for the network and the building automation equipment and the HVAC equipment have two completely different addressing schemes.
Most equipment shows up with the factory default addresses being used which typically are in the Class C range and are usually beginning with 192.168.xxx.xxx
The main network is a Class B network and starts with 172.24.xxx.xxx.
The NAT allows communication to flow between the Class C network and the Class B network without causing any headaches.
From MOXA NAT-102 manual
Basically in the NAT I have to create two VLANS (virtual local area networks) assign the WAN (wide area network) to one VLAN and the LAN (local area network) to the other VLAN and then create very specific rules to allow traffic to flow between the LAN and the WAN.
I create a 1-to-1 routing rule. The rule would look like this:
incoming -> 172.24.81.30 goes to 192.168.3.1, blocks ICMP, allows TCP and UDP.
outgoing – 192.168.3.1 goes to 171.24.81.30, blocks ICMP, allows TCP and UDP
All other IP addresses on the LAN are blocked from any type of communication with the WAN port and conversely the WAN can only see the single device on the LAN.
The MOXA device itself is set to respond to pings so at least IMIT can see the device is present, but even IMIT can’t see to the other side of the NAT.
I’ve had to use NATs before to let the Emergency Generator Control system and the Elevator Dispatcher to be accessed from the main network for access to readings, logs, and alarms.
Elevator Control SystemPneumatic Tube System12.4 kV to 600 volt transformers
Well Bobbie, the answer is clear, you need to take a course in networking if you like this so much!!!!!!
The thing is, I don’t like this.
There is absolutely nothing special about this, and the way I look at this, if an imbecile such as myself can do this, then really anyone can do this.
I had an interest in computers and electronics when I was a kid. But my father did everything that he could in order to shit all over that.
My father would spare no expense when I was a kid extolling how much of a fuck up I was, and that I was pretty fucking stupid no matter how good I was a picking up electronics and computers.
My father’s disdain for my interest in electronics and computers was legendary.
When I was in grade 8 (1985 – 1986) I had built a 5mW helium neon laser as a science project. Not going to go too far into it, but by using a pair of mirror mounted on voice coils I could scan the beam to any X-Y coordinate on a wall or screen. Or I could just feed audio into the amplifiers that drove the voice coils and I could create patterns.
My science teacher, Mr. Bowles, was blown away by this.
My brother Scott decided that he was going to sell the device that I was using to generate the X-Y scan patterns.
My father of course wasn’t concerned in the least.
Scott was acting this way because of what I had let the babysitter do to him.
Scott was acting this way because I wasn’t raising him properly.
If you’ve followed my story, you’ll know that I moved out of the house in late 1987. I really wasn’t safe in the house. Richard was absolutely unsuitable as a parent, and my brother Scott had become uncontrollable and was definitely running with a dangerous crew.
Getting work right away wasn’t an issue. Since I was about 14 I had been servicing arcade games, pinball machines, and jukeboxes for two different route operators in Toronto.
I beat a DeVry certified electronics technician at the repair of one video game that he had been stumped on for over 2 months. Took me four hours to get the machine up and running again. And it was just an 8-bit bi-directional latch that crippled the machine.
I realized quickly that although my knowledge in digital electronics had saved my bacon, without a certificate or diploma I was never going to make a living off this.
No matter how much I’ve tried to steer clear of anything to do with electronics or computers, I always get drawn back into it. And as much as I despise electronics and computers, they have saved my bacon as they offset all of my character flaws.
The last time I spoke with my father was in August / September of 2006. He brought up the topic of my laser himself and he wanted to know why the fuck that was such a big deal. It wasn’t like I had made the laser tube from scratch, or designed the power supply from scratch, I had just purchased a used laser tube and I had built the power supply using pre-made components.
When my brother came down to see me in 2021 after the public release of the 1980 Military Police investigation paperwork which proved that our father was a liar, we went for a walk around the seawall.
Out of nowhere he brought up the topic of the laser and wanted to know why it was such a big deal. Apparently while Richard was still alive between 2006 and 2017 he had talked to Scott and compared me and my laser to that kid in the states that was busted by the FBI for modifying a clock controller from a VCR and using it to control things at preset times.
I asked him if he knew what a “hacker” was and how the term originated.
I explained to him that the term “hacker” originated with people who would take electronic devices or computer devices and make them do things that they weren’t originally intended to do by “hacking” the components or the programs.
Almost everyone who is a somebody in the field of computers or electronics started off by taking things apart or decompiling code in order to see how things worked, and then making changes to make the devices work better or to do things that were more beneficial to the user.
Christ, some of the earliest hacking / phreaking involved blowing a Captain Crunch toy whistle into the receiver of a payphone in order to make free phone calls.
But, back to me. I turned my back on electronics and computers many, many moons ago.
The memories of my father’s derision, and his utter contempt towards my interests in computers and electronics was just too fucking painful.
I still work with electronics, computers, and networking even though I am NOT QUALIFIED*. I have no choice. In this day and age there is no reason for a facility like mine to not be able to extract operational data from building automation equipment and HVAC equipment.
But, every time that I do this work it tears me apart with never ending thoughts of what might have been or what could have been or what should have been.
Sure, it was my father that was an asshole.
But it was Captain McRae and his teenage accomplice what diddled about 25 children on Canadian Forces Base Namao from 1978 to 1980. It was also the Canadian Forces military social worker Captain Totzke that ensured that I knew that I was to blame for allowing myself and my brother to be abused.
And of course, my father being a lowly corporal in the Canadian Forces ensured that Captain Totzke’s opinion of me would notn be questioned by my father.
So, not only does working with electronics and networking at the hospital raise up questions about the way my father belittled my blossoming interests, but it also make me wonder how things would have turned out had my brother and I not been molested, had the Canadian Forces not buried the matter in 1980, and had I not had Captain Totzke as my social worker.
I was contacted by the Alberta Medical Examiner’s office on Tuesday. They were returning a phone call that I had placed on Monday.
Scott died sometime close to the beginning of August. The official date of death is August 12th, 2024 as that was when the police found his body in his condo.
It’s coming up on 5 months since his death and the medical examiner still hasn’t been able to determine the cause of death.
I would hazard a guess that he was far too decomposed by the time the police were requested to conduct a wellness check.
It will be interesting to see what the results are.
It should go without saying that Scott and I really weren’t close as kids.
Our family was not a family built on love.
As I’ve said before, Richard was in many ways similar to Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights in the sense that he carried a grudge for historical slights and anyone even remotely involved with those historical slights was going to pay dearly.
Unlike Heathcliff though, Richard wasn’t the victim of the disdain of others. No, Richard was the architect of his own misfortunes.
Richard carried a massive grudge against his first wife and anyone or anything associated with her was going to pay a very heavy price for her “walking out” on him even though he took advantage of the Defence Establishment Trespass Regulations and had his first wife thrown out of the PMQ by the military.
Richard also carried a massive grudge against his mother for her daring to be First Nations, but that’s for another posting.
My father’s buddy from 447 squadron at CFB Namao famously asked Richard “Rick, if these fucking kids are driving you nuts, why don’t you give them back to their fucking mother and let her deal with them”. Richard’s response was “As long as the kids live under my roof, I control the costs. If I sent them to live with their mother I’d have to sign my fucking paycheque over to that bitch, and that’s not going to happen”.
Going through my email interactions with Scott, there was one email in which he noted that even our stepmother Sue had told him that Richard would tell her that Richard kept us because we were good for tax time.
Richard never took us anywhere that would require a modicum of parenting or involvement. And from about 1977 until 1981, Richard had washed his hands of my brother and I by bringing his mother on base to live in the PMQ and raise us.
This is the woman that he described to social services as being “frequently cruel” to his children and that she was frequently intoxicated and refused to admit her alcoholism.
To make matters far worse was the fact that kids from dysfunctional families that were living on Canadian Forces Bases were often shunned.
The Canadian Forces at the time, and even still today, is an extremely patriarchal which meant that the fathers of the families would never been seen to be at fault. Any problem in the household on base was always seen as the fault of the woman or the fault of the children.
So yeah, to say that Scott and I didn’t have a happy childhood would be a gross understatement.
So Scott would go off on his own, and I would go off on my own.
Because of my estrangement from Richard as a child, I never really stayed close to Richard. Scott on the other hand looked up to Richard.
When we moved to Canadian Forces Base Downsview in Ontario in 1983 is when Scott and I started really drifting apart even further.
At that point in time I was so emotionally disturbed that I was supposed to be institutionalized whereas Scott was desperate for friendship. I preferred being left alone, whereas Scott wanted to hang out and be friends with everyone.
This led to Scott hanging out with the wrong crowd.
And Richard, being the incompetent asshole that he was would blame Sue, Grandma, myself, and his first wife for the way Scott was turning out. Not for one minute would Richard turn around and blame himself or accept responsibility for his part in this play.
This of course would stoke a lot of animosity between my brother and I.
Scott would do the crime, and I would get the beating of my life.
I wasn’t raising Scott properly
I wasn’t looking out for Scott
Another wedge that Richard drove between my brother and I was the fact that Richard blamed me for what happened to Scott on Canadian Forces Base Namao at the hands of the babysitter and possibly Captain McRae.
When Scott stole Sue’s Pontiac Acadian, Richard laid a fucking intense beating on me in my basement bedroom of the PMQ. During this beating Richard yelled numerous times at me that Scott was turning out the way he was because I let the babysitter touch him and that if I hadn’t let the babysitter fuck Scott that Scott would be normal.
And of course Scott was becoming resentful towards me because Richard’s insistence that I was supposed to raise Scott and look after Scott meant that I was allowing Scott to get into trouble.
And I know that this was a substantial issue between Scott and I even until just recently. In fact it wasn’t until the Canadian Armed Forces finally released the Court Martial transcripts and the CFSIU investigation paperwork in the summer of 2020 that Scott finally began to come to terms with the fact that Richard lied about the events of 1980 and that Richard obviously knew more about 1980 than what Richard had ever let on.
In the summer of 1984, while Scott and I were spending the summer with our grandmother, Scott said something to our grandmother about the babysitter from CFB Namao. Grandma was furious, yelling at me for allowing Scott to be raped by the babysitter while I was watching.
I moved out of the PMQ on Canadian Forces Base Downsview in Ontario in early 1988.
By this point in time Scott had been into juvenile detention numerous times and had grown substantially both in height and in mass. Scott’s uncontrolled anger and Richard’s unwillingness to control Scott and protect me from Scott is one of the reasons that I left. And it wasn’t just Scott that I was terrified of. He was hanging out with guys that I’m sure probably ended up becoming enforcers for biker gangs after they finished high school.
In a way I was very envious of Scott. Here I was, barely pushing 100 lbs and Scott had to be at least 160 or 170 even though he was 2 years younger than me. Not only that but Scott was towering over Richard. Richard once tried to backhand Scott, and Scott just caught his hand and scowled at Richard. That was the last time I ever saw Richard try to strike Scott. Me on the other hand, yeah Richard wasn’t afraid of me in the slightest.
In the summer of 1990 Richard got hold of me and invited me to move to Edmonton with him so that we could try to be a family again.
In preparation for the move, I moved back into PMQ 223F on Canadian Forces Base Downsview. But Scott wasn’t there. Scott had been incarcerated during my absence and was serving time at St. John’s in Uxbridge, Ontario.
By the time Scott was released, Sue and Richard had already bought a civilian house in Morinville, AB. I didn’t last too long in that house, and neither did Scott upon his release from juvie in Ontario. I think I lived in the house in Morinville for about a week before I got the boot and had to go rent my own apartment, which was no small feat at the age of 18.
One day at work I got a phone call from Richard telling me that after all he did for us as kids that I had to take Scott in until things calmed down. Scott was unceremoniously dropped off at my apartment. He ate all of my food in three days and he nearly got me evicted by fighting with the neighbours and blasting loud music. I asked Richard for help with groceries, he just laughed and said that maybe I should try hitting up our mother for groceries as he was finally done with us. Our mother ended up taking Scott out to her acreage out by Wabamum Beach.
I was introduced to my mother by my uncle Doug in the summer of 1990 just after we arrived back in Edmonton. I have no doubt that uncle Doug also introduced Scott to our mother after Scott arrived in Edmonton from Ontario after his release.
I happened to stop in to our mother’s house one weekend when she asked me if it was true what Scott said, that I had let Scott get raped numerous times by our babysitter. This was in the summer of 1991 and Scott was still framing it the way that my father had framed the events of 1978 to 1980, that I had allowed and encouraged the babysitter to molest my brother.
Between the winter of 1992 and the summer of 2012 I only saw Scott 3 or 4 times.
In the Summer of 2013 I went to go see Scott. We had some talks, but there was still an intense amount of resentment and condensation in his voice towards me. At the time Scott claimed that he hadn’t spoken to Richard or Sue for the longest time due to the suicide death of Eric Kolsteren.
On the day of my Federal Court application for Judicial Review, Scott had started texting me claiming that I had raped him along with the babysitter and that I should tell this to the judge. I did some quick sleuthing and as it turned out Richard had tracked Scott down via Sue and just the night before Scott’s outburst Richard had paid a visit to Scott and gave Scott a computer, a bunch of computer items, some camera equipment, and possibly paid for a trip to Toronto.
After that, Scott’s attitude towards me soured quite considerably. I have absolutely no doubt that Richard was pumping Scott’s head full of bullshit.
The next time that Scott would have any type of contact with me was in 2019 when he called me to let me know that Richard had died in 2017. Scott requested that if Sue ever asked how I found out Richard was dead that I wasn’t supposed to say that Scott told me.
Things again changed between Scott and myself in 2020 after the release of the Captain McRae’s court martial transcripts, and the 1980 CFSIU investigation paperwork. Scott began to realize that he had been lied to all of his life by Richard once my class action against the Canadian Armed Forces was initiated.
People have asked me if my brother’s death upsets me.
Not really.
I didn’t know him.
I knew him about as well as I knew my father.
I am disappointed that Scott is dead.
He didn’t live long enough to at least see official acknowledgement for no only what had happened to him on Canadian Forces Base Namao, but the fact that various members of the Canadian Armed Forces failed him such as our father Master Corporal Richard Gill, Captain Totzke, Colonel Daniel Edward Munro.
I know that Scott had been struggling with mental health issues for the longest time as when we did have email conversations early after 2012 he did say that he was seeing counsellors to try to work out his anger issues.
Drug wise, I don’t know when he started to be honest with you.
I know that he drank when we lived on Canadian Forces Base Downsview. Back then it wasn’t uncommon, even for the Goodie-Two-Shoes brats, to drink and smoke weed on base.
When Scott came for a visit in the summer of 2021 both him and his girlfriend at the time were doing mushrooms and weed.
When Scott started doing K is something I’ll never know.
If he was doing anything harder than weed, ‘shrooms, and K is also something that I’ll never know.
If we were closer together, would I have known?
I don’t know.
I work at a hospital in Vancouver that is basically THE hospital for Canada’s poorest postal code, the DTES. Drugs can take over anyone at anytime. The number of fresh faces coming in for treatment is astounding. Everyone seems to think that they can try the hard drugs once or twice and they’ll be okay.
I haven’t quite figured out what to do with Scott’s ashes at this point in time.
Maybe I’ll get them mixed into little cement middle fingers and have one delivered to the Chief of Defence Staff, one delivered to the Canadian Forces Provost Marshal, one delivered CFNIS Western Region, one delivered to CFNIS Pacific Region, and one delivered to RCMP K division HQ.
Inscription would say -Fuck You – Kids from CFB Namao (human remain, do not dispose)
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”
The ” We Had A Normal Childhood on Base” Brigade.
The “But it happens in the civilian world too” Asshole
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.
Well, it would appear that my brother didn’t die from heart disease or epilepsy.
Ketamine is more than likely what killed him. And this is why the medical examiner said that his death certificate wouldn’t be issued until after the toxicology tests.
The medical examiner said that he had some broken ribs, which would probably be the case with ketamine. He would have dropped like a stone. And he was about 230 to 250, more than enough to break a rib or two.
Apparently Scott had started snorting ketamine quite a few years ago. I didn’t even know that you could snort this shit.
I’ve seen ketamine injected a few times at work. The emergency department will call us up periodically to help out with patient issues. Twice I was involved with removing roofing nails from body parts. Once was through a foot, and once was through a knuckle. Both time I had to explain that you couldn’t simply pull these nails out using a claw hammer as the nails a nail gun fires usually have flutes on them to prevent them from pulling out. Both times I’d get the heads of the nails cut off and then the docs would get me to pull the nail through with vice grips while they stabilized the patient’s foot or hand. Both time, before pulling, the nursing staff would administer a small shot of ketamine into the patient’s IV and out like a fucking light and off to dream land in under 10 to 15 seconds.
Also, having served on the Occupational Health and Safety Committee we had to deal with the possibility drug addiction amongst staff. Years ago there was a nurse at VGH that had been helping herself to the partially used vials of ketamine. One day she grabbed a vial of a partially used paralytic agent and took it home and injected herself with it. It’s assumed that she died instantly as this paralytic agent would have stopped her breathing. Since then drugs like ketamine are controlled in that the unused portions must be returned to the pharmacy and the surgical staff are not allowed to place ketamine into the used surgical sharps containers of the surgical carts.
The person I spoke to at Scott’s condo said that Scott had been known to have started partaking drugs years ago. He started off with weed, then graduated to mushrooms, and somewhere along the line he started into “Special K”. Ketamine isn’t a hard drug to get on the streets. It’s known to be a recreational “clubbing drug” in which users try to enter the “k-hole”.
Like any drug, it has its downfalls. And one of those downfalls is overdose and then death.
The person who let me into Scott’s apartment explained how he came to be found. No one had heard from him for a few days. Then the occupant of the condo below his started to report stains on their ceiling and then a fluid. At about this time the residents on Scott’s floor stated to notice a smell of something rotting.
The Edmonton Police Service was summonsed to do a wellness check.
Stepping into Scott’s condoA lot of force was applied to open the door.
It’s an older building that used to be apartments. It looks like at some point in time the apartment was changed from rental to condominium and Scott had purchased a suite for about $30k.
It was a mess, and not just from his death, but messy in general.
The stench of his decomposition was still heavy in the air. I don’t know how you ever get rid of that smell. This is one of the reasons that I want MAiD. I couldn’t kill myself knowing that I’d leave this type of mess behind and fuck the people up who found me. Sure, Scott didn’t mean to kill himself, but the damage was staggering .
Flooring removed
The flooring from around where he fell had to be removed. His body has obviously gone through algor mortis, livor mortis, rigor mortis, and then into bloating, and finally decay.
The white marks on the trusses are where his fluids seeped in and couldn’t be removed. You can also see the drywall that had to be removed as it was damaged.
He was a heavy smoker, and a drinker from the looks of it.
The Gill family and alcohol are a deadly combination. Grandma was a prolific alcoholic. Her son, my father, was a piss tank alcoholic. I don’t know what Scott’s drinking level was but I was never willing to play with the alcohol gods.
Growing up in a military family living on military bases, both Scott and I started smoking at a young age. I started smoking when I was 13. Scott was already smoking before I was which meant that he started around 11. And I think it would be fair to say that about 40 percent of early teens on Canadian Forces Base Downsview were smoking. Smoking was a way to calm your nerves. With our father and stepmother we needed all the help we could get.
Richard didn’t care that we smoked in the PMQ. His only rule was that we were never to touch his smokes, and if he ever ran out of cigarettes, we had to give him ours until he could go get a new pack. And there were lots of stores around base that were willing to sell smokes to kids.
I started smoking Player’s Extra Light just like Richard was smoking. Scott was smoking DuMaurier. I couldn’t figure out why until he told me it was so that Richard wouldn’t poach his smokes. I switched to Players Unfiltered.
I was up to two packs a day by the time I was sixteen. But that plummeted to less than a pack a day after I moved out of Richard’s PMQ.
I quit smoking when I was 25 and I haven’t smoked since. But it looks as if Scott wasn’t able to shake the cigarette habit.
What does concern me is the butane torch. Scott was no pastry chef, so it wasn’t like he was making crème brûlée, and I don’t think that he was using the torch to sear his steaks.
Was he using this for a water bong for weed, or was he cooking something a little harder with this? Guess I’ll have to wait for the toxicology reports.
I know that Scott had issues. I grew up in the same defective family that he did with the same defective parents that he did.
And having lived through what we lived through it’s no surprise that he had issues.
I’m no saint, but the one thing I was able to do was stay clear of drugs. The only needles that I’ve ever done for pleasure are my tattoos.
It’s obvious that for whatever reason, Scott wasn’t able to stay clear.
I know that there were indications when we lived on Canadian Forces Base Downsview that Scott was doing something, but neither Richard nor Sue seemed to concerned about it. They would literally lock themselves in their bedroom and spend the evening watching TV.
As Scott’s drug use seems to have ramped after 2011 when the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service contacted him for a witness statement. Was it bringing the past into the modern day that set him on the path to self destruction?
I know that in 2013 after I had given Richard his written examination for Federal Court, Richard had tracked Scott down and talked to him, Scott even admitted as much. And that’s when Scott started accusing me of letting the babysitter molest him, just as Richard and Captain Totzke had blamed me years ago. Did Richard lie to Scott in 2013? Did Richard tell Scott the “official Canadian Forces approved version” of what happened from 1978 to 1980?
When it was revealed in 2020 that I had told the absolute truth about the whole CFB Namao affair and that it was in fact a much larger scandal than just Captain McRae having consensual homosexual sex with the 14 year old babysitter, did this shatter Scott’s world as Richard had built it for him?
Doesn’t matter much now, does it?
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. I’ll never understand why I didn’t get addicted to drugs, be it booze, pot, opioids, etc. Why Scott got addicted and I didn’t is always going to be a fucking mystery. We both grew up is the same fucked up dysfunctional military family living on military bases. We both lost our mother due to abuse of military procedures. We both got sexually abused and swept under the rug by defects in the National Defence Act.
I have no one to impress, but then either did Scott. I don’t have a “dad” that I always wanted to impress, and neither did Scott. I couldn’t give a flying fuck what Sue has to say, and I don’t think Scott cared for Sue either. And Marie was never around. This is why I really want to donate my brain to science after I die.
If my brain can offer clues as to why someone who went through the shit I went through never got addicted to drugs, then giving my brain to science would be worth it.
So, I flew up to Edmonton from Vancouver this morning.
Very quick flight.
Never have flown on an Airbus before, but now I did get to hear the infamous Airbus Barking Dog noise. And as I was over the wings it was quite loud. It’s nothing to be worried about, it’s just a hydraulic pump trying to equalize the pressure between two different hydraulic circuits.
I was waiting for the 747 bus to take me from YEG to one of the LRT stations.
While I was waiting a fellow passenger came up to me and introduced herself.
She said that she had loaded my blog onto her phone and read the blog on the flight.
Skye had discovered my blog when she googled my name that I have on my carry-on luggage.
It’s odd, outside of a few people related to the CFB Namao matter, and outside of a very select few people in Vancouver, no one has ever come up to me to talk about my blog.
She offered to drop me off on her Uber ride into Edmonton and she kept apologizing the whole time reassuring me that she wasn’t a stalker.
So, we talked on the way up to Edmonton. I’m sure the Uber driver thinks that I’m insane.
Skye had just come back from Australia. She’s actually a conductor for one of the railways, can’t remember if she works for CP or CN. She took some time off work to help her sisters run the family lumber mill after her father died a few years ago.
We’ll probably meet up for coffee or lunch in the next day or two.
I didn’t get much sleep last night, too many things ruminating in my skull to let me have a decent sleep last night.
Shout out to my stepmother Sue for not wanting to help out with this, Richard would have been so proud of her.
I’m almost 100% certain that Scott didn’t have a will. The police didn’t indicate that they found anything of the such.
So the first thing I have to do tomorrow is go pick up his ashes and his personal belongings from the crematorium. The I guess I’ll have to go to his apartment and see what’s up there and see if there’s any paperwork indicating what his finances were like. If he had a financed or leased car I’ll probably have to make arrangements for the dealer to come pick it up. I’ll see if there’s any documents and paperwork or photos of interest that I want and then the rest of his belongings will be going to wherever.
And then I’ll fly back to Vancouver.
In the meantime I’ve ridden around the city on the little Lime Scooters. Those things are a blast. They’re a lot more sketchy and jittery than my Segway scooter, but in a way that lends an interesting quirkiness to them.
I don’t know what I’ll do with Scott’s ashes. I could put them inside of a Jack-in-the-box and send the Jack-in-the-box to the Chief of Defence Staff.
alt text: Executive assistant to the CDS turns the crank while the CDS awaits.
I could go up to Edmonton Garrison and sprinkle his ashes at our old PMQ and other places around the base.
alt text: Bobbie sprinkles Scott’s ashes on a Defence Establishment while unimpressed CFNIS investigator stands around.
So, the flights are booked. The crematorium has been paid.
I leave Vancouver at 08:30 on Sunday and fly back from Edmonton on Thursday at 06:00.
I don’t know what I’m going to do once I get to Edmonton. Probably go check in at the crematorium first to see what they have. Next I’ll be heading off to Scott’s apartment to see what needs to be taken care of there.
Never really had any plans of stopping back in Edmonton, but I guess life throws a curve ball every now and again.
I’ll be staying at Hostelling International just south of Whyte Ave.
Should be able to get around by the LRT, bus, and by foot.
The last time that I was in Edmonton was in 2013. Prior to that I was in Edmonton in 2003. Prior to that I was in Edmonton from 1990 until 1992. And then prior to that I was in Edmonton from August 1978 until April 1983.
Scott and I also spent the summer of 1984 and 1985 staying with our grandmother. Wasn’t our choice.
I’ll have to go see my brother’s apartment and see what I can make of his paperwork. Hopefully this doesn’t turn into a nightmare with creditors and such. If he was leasing a car or bought a car with a loan, I guess this goes back to the dealer.
I’ve already told the landlord that they can dispose of furniture, clothes, and other miscellaneous materials, but that I want access to any computers, paperwork, statements, etc. that might be in the apartment.
Probably have some paperwork to sign off with the Edmonton Police Service. And might have some paperwork to sign with the Medical Examiner’s office.
I always thought that I was going to die long before he did. But I guess he won the race and beat me to the escape first.
Still sucks that he didn’t even get an apology from the Department of National Defence or the Canadian Armed Forces for what they had subjected him to as a child.
Beeshive 