On War & Society #16–Unpacking the Trauma Kit, Part II

Wars often time come home. Reintegration into civilian life comes with a whole new set of challenges for veterans. For the second part of our four-part series on the past and present experiences of veterans in Canada, two historians and two veterans discuss the instability of civilian life for many veterans after having served in the military. Mental trauma, both sustained on the battlefield and even after returning home, contributes to this instability, as the government and larger Canadian society fails to understand the challenges many veterans face.

This episode is funded by the Department of National Defence. It is hosted by Dr. Amy Milne-Smith of Wilfrid Laurier University’s History Department. Panelists are Dr. Mark Humphries, Dr. Claire Cookson-Hills, Bruce Moncur and Marie-Claude Gagnon.

 

 

Dr. Milne-Smith (pictured) is an Associate Professor in the Department of History at Wilfrid Laurier University and a faculty associate of LCMSDS. Her research focuses on nineteenth-century British cultural and gender history, specifically in the history of masculinity, the cultural constructions of class, and more recently, perceptions of mental illness. She is currently researching popular understandings of masculinity and mental illness over the latter half of the nineteenth century. This research includes a number of military veterans who suffered from a variety of mental breakdowns before the First World War.