“Soldier On” Giving Back to Soldiers!

Interviewer: You had mentioned “Soldier On” and it’s only something that is coming out in the newspapers now and a little bit more of an awareness of the contribution that it’s making for soldiers like yourself. Tell us about your reasons for participating in “Soldier On” and maybe its purpose. Well for me I got involved in it, a friend of mine from here that was injured in Afghanistan who told me about it. It’s a lot about getting that physical back and I think that’s huge for anybody that’s been in any trade in the military is you have that pride of some sort of physicality whatever it is. If it is somebody that can run forever or do push ups forever or anything, everybody has some sort of physical pride. And there’s huge links between physical and mental, there’s all kinds of books written on that. This is giving it back. I went and did a ski camp in Mount Washington and there was a friend of mine from New Brunswick there and he had lost a leg and he was snowboarding down a mountain, I’m like, how amazing is that? And they had instructors there for anybody that needed help and they had instructors there, Mark Campbell was there and he was doing the sit skiing and I’m like just unbelievable to be able to lose both your legs and then be big mountain skiing right? They are giving back to people and it’s not just service injuries. It’s anybody that was injured while in service so they are helping get them back into sport and events like that. And it’s not like hard line sport. They do a golf one, they do a sailing one so it’s offering these big opportunities for people that might not necessarily get them. I know I never would have been able to afford to just throw and go to Mount Washington and go skiing so it was pretty special to do that and to be back in that kind of military culture for a little bubble of time. It was pretty neat too!

Mr. Lord speaks about the positive opportunities provided by the “Soldier On” program.

Justin Lord

Mr. Justin Lord was born in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island July 10, 1980. As a teenager he and his family moved to the town of Souris. Before attending university, Mr. Lord made the decision to join the Reserves. With encouragement from his cousin, he joined the 721 Communications regiment as a reservist and worked weekends while attending school. Mr. Lord completed basic training in Kingston, Ontario and experienced varied opportunities with the military. At age 23, he was given the opportunity to join the Royal 22nd Regiment Operation Athena Roto 1 with the regular force deploying to Afghanistan for a six month term in the Communication field holding rank of corporal. Returning home, Mr. Lord continued on as a reservist but his career path took a turn and in 2007 he sought employment with the Federal Government and now resides in Prince Edward Island with his family.