Introduction

When 17-year old Harold Strul joined the Army Reserves in Montreal, he says he had no idea of the adventures he would take or the second family he would meet. He was still underage in 1987, so his parents had to give permission for him to join.

After 34 years of service, both in the Reserves and Regular Army, Harold is training for the Invictus Games and enjoying being part of a military family again.

If the boot fits

One of Strul’s first adventures was during his nine years in the Reserves. He volunteered for a deployment in 1990 to Cyprus where he patrolled the buffer zone to keep tensions to a minimum between the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities. Not only did he get to meet other Canadian Armed Forces members, but he also met the Cypriots, whose lives he was trying to improve among the fragile civil peace. Harold got hooked on the adventure of going to different countries and meeting new people.

After moving to the Regular Force and being stationed in Valcartier, Québec, Strul was deployed to Haiti (1997) and East Timor (1999-2000). In preparation for supporting the East Timorese population, Harold and other CAF members joined the Australian Forces for two weeks of training. Strul says he enjoyed this deployment on the other side of the globe.

“The hard parts were the temperature and the insects and other creatures,” he says.

Not even an Eastern Ontario/Western Quebec humid summer day is on par with the heat and humidity of East Timor in the summer.

Resource challenges in Kabul

Strul was deployed to Afghanistan twice, first in 2004 and again in 2010-2011. During his 2004 deployment, he led his reconnaissance section from the Canadian Armed Forces base in Kabul and went up one of the nearby mountains to establish an observation post. There was just a slight problem: water—or more precisely, a lack of water.

During the day the temperatures soared, but at night the air lost all its warmth, and temperatures plummeted. This meant that the platoon had to carry enough gear for the observation post and their jobs, but also jackets, blankets, and heat sources to protect them from the desert night’s cold. The section’s packs weighed between 100 and 130 pounds. Walking up the mountain with all that gear during daylight required frequent stops for water to prevent heat stroke. Strul estimates that each member probably drank about 20 litres of water that day.

What was originally supposed to be 4 days at the observation post turned into barely 24 hours because the base wasn’t able to provide the section with more water.

“We had to come back down early, because you can’t function without water,” Strul says.

Highs and lows

After he returned from Afghanistan, Strul decided he wanted to try a different role. He requested a posting to the Canadian Forces Leadership and Recruit School in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Québec. There, he worked as an instructor to new recruits, teaching them the basics of everything they needed to know.

“I had a lot of fun times,” Strul recalls fondly of the three-year posting.

In 2009, he was promoted to Warrant Officer. That promotion came with a new posting back in Valcartier and an upcoming deployment.

“We had a year to prepare from 2009 to 2010. Then I was on the mission to Afghanistan from 2010 to 2011.”

The second deployment in Afghanistan was harder. Instead of being in Kabul, his infantry platoon was in Panjwai district, near the border of Pakistan, where there was a greater amount of engagement. He was the second in command, responsible for the discipline and logistics of the platoon.

He was also in charge of the medical evacuations when two of his men were shot.

On top of the daily dangers, Strul was away from his family, including his two young children.

“When I came back home in 2011, my three-year old didn’t know who I was,” he says. It’s one of the sacrifices that often gets forgotten when military service is discussed: the loss of time with loved ones.

Adding up the costs

After his second tour of Afghanistan, Strul began to notice the toll of military service on his body and mind.

In addition to the Middle East, he had volunteered for a deployment to Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1992 as part of the UN Protection Force. This was where he started to suffer injuries.

The explosions from arms going off damaged his hearing, first in Bosnia and then Afghanistan. During the Afghanistan deployments, the weight of the gear —and the lack of time to correctly lift things when being shot at—caused damage to his back. The mental toll of the active missions eventually resulted in a PTSD diagnosis.

“Be quick, be good, and get the job done” was the motto that he lived by during his military career.

Unfortunately, Strul learned that even if the mind doesn’t stop, at some point the body will. In 2021 Strul’s body finally had enough. He retired from the military in 2022.

Finding family (again)

Life post-service wasn’t easy either. Strul says he tried to keep busy in a decent job, but it wasn’t a good fit like the military had been. So, he came to VAC for support.

He noticed an application to the 2025 Invictus Games in a newsletter from Soldier On. He had always been athletic, swimming competitively at age 14 and skiing during winters in Québec.

He was both surprised and pleased that he got accepted.

According to Strul, the experience of the Invictus first training camp was a lot like the atmosphere during his military training in Wainwright, Alberta.

“You’re training 24/7 for a month [in the military], so you become a second family.”

That camaraderie of shared training was finally back, and there was even an extra surprise: one of his teammates was also one of his trainees at the Canadian Forces Leadership and Recruit School. The feeling of family, plus the shared culture and language style are some of the pleasures Strul emphasized from his experience being on Team Canada.

In the military, you had to get the job no matter what. “You push, and you don’t stop,” Strul explains. Expectations are different with Invictus.

“We’re surpassing ourselves and getting over our physical and mental health struggles.”

But they don’t push themselves to the point of re-injury. Instead, they’re learning what sports and exercises they can do without causing harm. It’s led Strul to training two days a week in the pool in preparation for swimming, which doesn’t aggravate his back injury. It also gave him the confidence to do the Army Run in Ottawa this past September at his own pace, something he wouldn’t have considered doing before Invictus.

When asked what he would tell young Canadians considering signing up for the CAF, Strul has this to say:

“Go for it! There are tons of careers and jobs, nurse to lawyer, infantry to tank driver. The benefits are good, you get a pension at the end. And you can go on lots of adventures and see different countries, meet new people and experience new cultures.”

Despite his service-related injuries, Strul still has a lot of appreciation for the CAF, especially the sense of adventure and camaraderie that he felt during his 34 years of service. Now, through Invictus Games 2025, he is once again part of a second family and, with them, embarking upon a brand-new adventure.

“It’s being part of a team again, it’s healing.”

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