Advertisement

Vet's attack plan an extreme reaction to widespread frustration with Veterans' Affairs

Glen Gieschen gets 4 years for firearms, explosive charges

While they don’t condone what Glen Gieschen did, veterans’ advocates say the former soldier’s plan to attack a Veterans Affairs office in Calgary with guns and explosives shows what can happen when veterans try to get help for illnesses that are hard to link to their military service.

Gieschen was sentenced to four years in prison this week after pleading guilty to several weapons charges last November. He was given 18 months credit for time spent in custody since his arrest in January 2014.

Apparently he was upset at the way Veterans Affairs was handling his claim that he had developed multiple sclerosis as a result of a flu shot while still in the armed forces.

Gieschen’s wife called police when she became concerned he was suicidal. He was arrested under Alberta’s Mental Health Act but later charged criminally after police discovered a cache of guns, chemicals to make explosives, body armour and schematics for the federal government building that housed the Veterans Affairs office in downtown Calgary.

The Crown had asked for a term of four to six years, while Gieschen’s lawyer recommended three years.

"If Mr. Gieschen had followed through with all or part of his plan, the results would have been catastrophic for those working in the Bashaw building and for first responders who would have come upon a nightmare of death and destruction," Judge Sean Dunnigan said Tuesday in passing sentence, according to The Canadian Press.


Related stories:

Ex-soldier gets 4 years for planned attack on Calgary Veterans Affairs office

Agent Orange Canada bolstered by compensation push in Maine

Some veterans groups say new minister still marginalizing them


The connection between MS and vaccination is dubious at best, but it’s an indication of how some cases can reach dead ends within the Veterans Affairs bureaucracy that some claimants find maddening.

Many vets feel frustration with Veterans Affairs

Don Leonardo, who runs a group called Veterans Canada, said Gieschen’s unacceptable plan was as the extreme end of the frustration many veterans feel with their dealings with the department. Some turn their anger back onto themselves.

"I get a lot of people who’ve called me suggesting they want to take their own lives," said Leonardo, who runs a toll-free hotline where veterans can talk to other veterans to find help for their problems. “I get quite a few calls like that."

Disability benefits are based on Veterans Affairs table of disabilities, which was last revised in 2006. MS is not included on the list of military service-related illnesses, Leonardo said.

“You just can’t go and put a claim in for something that’s not in the table of disabilities,” he told Yahoo Canada News.

But Michael Blais, who heads Canadian Veterans Advocacy, said department protocols are supposed to give veterans the benefit of the doubt in an application for benefits or an appeal.

"But it seldom does," he said.

That sometimes drives veterans to extreme measures. For example, Pascal Lacoste chained himself outside then-veterans affairs minister Steven Blaney’s office and launched a hunger strike over inaction on his claim that handling depleted-uranium armour-piercing ammunition had resulted in a number of health problems. He ended his protest after Blaney promised a committee would look into the issue.

Then there’s the case of Leona MacEachern, who crashed her car head-on into a tractor-trailer outside Calgary on Christmas Day 2013. Her death was ruled an accident but her husband believes she committed suicide out of desperation at inadequate treatment of her post-traumatic stress disorder.

A spate of suicides by veterans and serving armed forces members has forced the government to respond with for more services for those battling mental illness as a result of their service.

“What drives them to that frustration?” Blais mused in an interview with Yahoo Canada News. “Clearly it exists at some level and clearly it’s Veterans Affairs’ responsibility to mitigate that level of stress before it goes to that level.”

Environmentally-related illnesses need better response

Veterans Affairs also should be doing a better job of addressing environmentally-related illnesses, he said.

“The environment the troops work in is fairly complex,” said Blais, noting for example the military used to dispose of potentially toxic materials in open burn pits.

“Sometimes the wind shifted and sometimes the guy that was on fire-watch sucked back a whole bunch of [smoke],” he said.

"How do you attribute that to service? Do you remember that day? Did you go to the doctor? Who the hell goes to the doctor because I breathed some fumes, right?

"When veterans come forward with illnesses that can be attributed to a variety of environmental exposures, including MS and various cancers, they should be accorded the benefit of the doubt. If they were serving operationally when that exposure occurred, we should treat them with the respect they deserve.”

Gieschen’s situation was “the perfect storm,” said Blais.

"We have a veteran who has sustained, he believes, a life-threatening condition as a consequence of his service," he said. "Then you have the frustration level that has built up to the point he’s planning this extraordinary event.”

That doesn’t justify how he responded, though.

“This could have been catastrophic, let’s face it,” said Blais. “There was no good way this was going to end once he put that in motion.”

Blais said he hopes Gieschen gets the mental health treatment he needs while he’s in federal prison. And perhaps that Veterans Affairs takes a closer look at the cases that fall into the grey zone.

“Many are suffering from wounds that they think are attributable to their service but are being ignored,” he said.