For years after his release from the Canadian military Marty Boudreau’s mental health kept him—literally and figuratively—stuck in the basement.

“It was my trap. I took a nasty dive,” the 34-year Navy Veteran says.

Boudreau was drinking, suffering from anxiety and depression and felt unable to cope with everyday things like crowds in grocery stores. But these days, with lots of therapy, sobriety, exercise, a supportive spouse, and sunrise beach walks with his dog—he is back on the ground floor with the sun streaming in.

“I got out of there [the basement] for a reason. And now I go back there for gold. Everything I deal with now is through physical fitness,” he says with a smile. “Invictus has lit a fire in me.”

He goes back to his basement now for workouts in his home gym and on his rowing machine as he prepares to be a member of Team Canada at the Invictus Games in Vancouver-Whistler in February 2025. He now starts each day walking his old English sheepdog, Eddie, on the flats of the Northumberland Strait—300 metres from the picturesque Prince Edward Island home he and his wife Kathy renovated. Then he heads back to the basement.

“I get my mind free. Then it's weights and rowing. Any frustration I have, anything that wobbles in my mind, I can get rid of it down there.”

At the Invictus Games, Boudreau will represent Team Canada in swimming, indoor rowing, wheelchair rugby and skeleton.

Athleticism is not new for him.

When he began his military journey in the early 1980s, he was a 20-year-old junior hockey player packing groceries in a mall in Moncton, New Brunswick. As he realized his dreams of playing in the NHL wasn’t in the cards, he felt he needed a new goal.

Boudreau made a life-changing visit to a nearby military recruiting centre. A few weeks later, on 14 May 1982, he signed his oath of allegiance to Queen Elizabeth II and was off to CFB Cornwallis for basic training.

“I was joining with my eyes wide open; there was so much to learn.”

His first posting was at CFB Halifax where he had the opportunity to be posted to three different ships: HMCS Margaree, Saguenay, and Ottawa. He was then posted to HMCS Huron and HMCS Gatineau. Boudreau had found the joy of being at sea. He remembers leaving the Port of Halifax in a big winter snowstorm. “You're heading down the Caribbean on a two-day transit. You're in the Gulf Stream and all of a sudden, your jackets are off and oh, yeah, it's great.”

His three-decade military career saw him on ships doing everything from fishery patrols off Newfoundland’s Grand Banks, to port visits south, to Trinidad and Tobago on the east coast of the Americas. He was involved in NATO deployments to northern Norway and as far south as Cape Verde off the coast of Africa. He sailed in the Mediterranean and many ports along the way.

As the finance guy (pay writer), he was often a ship favourite among the sailors— “the guy holding the money bag.” Before Internet and e-transfers, he dealt in cash, exclusively. He was especially popular when they would dock in foreign ports doing money exchanges in that country’s currency. It was a demanding job, keeping an entire ship’s company payroll straight on long stretches at sea. “It was a lot of pen to paper in those days.”

“There is so much training that goes into all this, you're never home. Your mind was always racing at nights. I never really had a chance to breathe.” After taxing deployments and long separations from Kathy and their two kids, his stress and anxiety were growing. “Kathy raised our two kids. I was gone all the time.”

Then he was posted back to Halifax to army command, Land Forces Atlantic. “It was on a whole different level because it was all budgets, long hours, very intense. You'd come home so mentally tired,” he explained. In 2004, he was posted to CFB Shearwater. This was his first human resources position after being in finance for his entire career. The goal was to help prepare him for future deployments on ship as a Chief Clerk.

This proved to be the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.“I was just working all the time and focusing so much on my job,” he said. “I crashed and burned.” On the drive to work one morning, with his heart pounding in his chest, he bypassed the office and went right to the base medical clinic.

“I said, ‘I'm not going to work today. I can’t. I’m mentally not there. My chest is all tight, my mind’s racing.’

He was offered one week off. This turned into a few more weeks when he finally got the mental health support he needed. “I think I had about ten visits with a social worker. It scratched the surface of what was going on. In the end I knew I had to suck it up if I wanted to continue to serve—so that’s what I did.”

“In retrospect, I was just stressed to the max. I didn't know how to get out of it,” he said. “I didn't know how to relax. And the only exit from that was to drink.” In 2005, he was posted to HMCS Athabaskan as Chief Clerk. This would be a steep learning curve since he had not been with the Navy for over a decade. As well he and hadn’t been on this class of ship for almost 20 years.

Between work stress and drinking to cope, there wasn’t much left over for his family. That created feelings of guilt. This all led to his 2015 release which, he says, was difficult. “I felt like I was being pushed out. I did not leave on my terms. It wasn’t a good way out.”

In October of 2021 Boudreau received a call from Veterans Affairs which he says, “saved my life. I had a full mental health breakdown on the phone. I had been drinking for most of the day and I was in the basement.” Within two weeks he had a case manager, then a social worker. Things got progressively better from there.

In January 2022, he made another life-saving decision—to quit drinking. “I decided to live. I made a choice right there,” he states. “I've had excellent people support me along the way. I have ups and downs. It's a rollercoaster. But … the swells are not too steep now.”

The support and camaraderie he’s found through Invictus has put him back in the driver’s seat of his own life. “It's an excellent group of people to be with because we all have our stories, but we all suffer pretty well the same,” he explained. “We can talk about anything. If you have a little tear, you have a little cry it doesn't matter because we’ve all done it. We’ve all been there. You can be honest.”

“I'm looking at this as my send off. It's my retirement party. I didn't leave the military well, but this is making up for it in leaps and bounds.”

With courage, integrity and loyalty, Marty Boudreau is leaving his mark. He is one of our Canadian Armed Forces Veterans. Discover more stories.

The well-being of Canadian Veterans is at the heart of everything we do. As part of this, we recognize, honour and commemorate the service of all Canadian Veterans. Learn more about the services and benefits that are available to Veterans and their families.

If you are a Veteran, family member or caregiver, the support of a mental health professional is available anytime at no cost to you. Call 1-800-268-7708.