After friend's death, former soldier vows to help struggling vets

Originally aired February 2019.

Josh Muir picks up the phone and dials a number, hoping the man he is calling will pick up.

Muir doesn't know the man, a retired corporal, well but that doesn't matter to him. All that matters is that the corporal is a fellow veteran who, just a few weeks ago, was asking people to help him die by suicide.

The corporal picks up. 

During the conversation, Muir offers to ask his own doctor to take the corporal on as a patient.  When the two men were in the armed forces, a dedicated physician came with the job, but that kind of care doesn't continue once they retire.

"You need somebody dedicated to you, you need a proper GP," Muir tells the vet on the phone. Before the call ends, Muir promises to visit soon.

"We haven't forgotten, don't worry," he says.

When Muir heard this vet was suffering with mental health issues, he and other members of what Muir calls his military family started reaching out.  

Muir has visited the corporal, taken him out of the house, and helped connect him with a military chaplain, creating an informal network of support for this vet and others who are struggling with life after military service.

"I can't stand seeing other vets suffering," says Muir. "I can't help everyone, but I feel that I have an ongoing obligation to help fellow veterans because of the shared service, the shared hardship, shared experience. And I know it can be extremely difficult to figure out your path, post military, so I guess in some ways I feel like I'm still on watch."

Injured in Afghanistan 

Muir, 43, knows firsthand the loss people feel when they have to leave the military before they're ready.  

For nearly 14 years, he served in the Canadian Forces, mostly with the Seaforth Highlanders Regiment. The retired corporal did two tours in Afghanistan, and it was on the second tour in 2010 that Muir suffered an injury that would spell the end of his military career.   

His section was on foot patrol in Khandahar province, moving into a forward operating base that would allow them to disrupt Taliban supply routes.  As they rounded a bend along a compound wall, a remote-controlled IED exploded, knocking him against a wall, and seriously injuring his section-mate, Matt Lovell.   

"When I looked back, the smoke and debris was just clearing and at first I couldn't tell who was down," says Muir, "The shock and surprise probably only lasted a split second before virtually everyone sort of jumped into action."

Muir helped get Lovell on a stretcher, then helped carry his friend more than 600 metres to a waiting helicopter.

"I was at his lower body and using my left arm because I had to control my my weapon with my right hand," says Muir. Standard procedure is for soldiers to switch off carrying the street, but Muir refused to let go. Lovell, with all his gear, weighed more than 250 pounds. 

"Most of us didn't spell off because we were desperate to get him to proper care," says Muir. "You are friends with these people like they're your family, like they're brothers and sisters for real."

Lovell survived his injuries, but that day spelled the end of both his and Muir's military careers.  

That night Muir was in agony. He had permanently damaged his spine, and later required several surgeries. As a result Muir was forced to accept a military discharge in 2014.

Lost identity 

Muir doesn't regret anything about the day he helped carry Lovell to safety, but says that leaving the military was one of the hardest things he has ever had to do.

"I felt like I was losing a large part of my identity," says Muir. "It felt like I was losing my whole career, my whole focus, my family and everything that I'd loved for quite some time."

Muir didn't want to be released, and he says he didn't do enough to prepare for it, emotionally. 

After he was released, Muir searched for a way to stay connected. He was elected president of the Seaforth Highlanders Regimental Association and regularly attends meetings and ceremonial functions at the Armoury.

But whenever he visits the armoury, Muir passes the Light Armoured Vehicle monument out front, where his friend and fellow former Seaforth Highlander, Joe Allina, died by suicide in July 2018.  

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"I'd seen him two weeks earlier and we'd made plans to eventually meet up and do something," says Muir. "I wish that we could have been able to see into what he was thinking or feeling, but obviously he was just really quite lost with his loss of identity and his unwanted release from the military."

Allina's death has had a profound impact on Muir, who uses social media and an informal network to make connections with other vets.  

"The platitude of, 'If you're hurting reach out,' no longer feels like enough. If your friend, or even an acquaintance, seems to be exhibiting any kinds of of mental strain or stress, then it's more incumbent on you to reach out to that person," says Muir.

"Remind them that they do have friends, that there is someone there for them, whether it's to talk, to just hug it out, or go for coffee."