Adam Montgomery. The Invisible Injured: Psychological Trauma in the Canadian Military from the First World War to Afghanistan.

Abstract

Some forty thousand Canadians served in the Afghanistan War from 2001 to 2011 in active operations, while training missions continued until 2014. During this time, 158 Canadians were killed and close to 1,900 physically wounded (209). Countless other unseen wounds were suffered by military personnel, as well as by aid workers, journalists, and police who served in noncombat roles. One of Canada’s two national newspapers, the Globe and Mail, has provided since 2015 a series of award-winning journalistic investigative stories exploring the effects of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and the mounting number of suicides, now over sixty, among members of the Canadian Forces and those who have left it after serving in Afghanistan. The mounting suicides have been labeled an epidemic. Adam Montgomery’s The Invisible Injured is a timely book that provides new insight into the war of the mind. The first two chapters lay the foundation of the many treatments associated with shell shock and battle stress in the world wars, although Montgomery draws heavily upon the already robust Canadian and international literature on these subjects. A historian well versed in military and medical history, Montgomery adds some nuance to the already established discussion, especially of First World War veterans struggling for rights and pensions. He observes that for each world war, the number of service personnel diagnosed with mental wounds increased dramatically after the war, their medical needs deepening over time. Also analyzed is the challenging interaction of veterans and the state, in which veterans were often left angry and frustrated at having to prove their illness, while state officials were seeking to uncover fraud and were wary of taking on long-term costs for injuries.