Child Abuse in the Military Part 1

by Eileen HF
(London, Ontario, Canada)

My Father was a soldier in the RCR for 22 years, he was Blackwatch during WW2, he was discharged from BW in 1945, as he had had a break down after a bomb threw him across the field of battle, they had been fighting for 36 days straight, he couldn't see when the medics found him in the field, he saw three men die when that bomb went off, He was taken to the Brits hospital, he was in the Brits army, as we had loaned some of our men to the british in the Canloan scheme, to help the allies who were running low on officers. He lied about his age in 41 to get in the army, so he was still just a kid, in 44. His vision returned but his mental state was never the same, he was lost to any form of sanity on this day. He begged to return to battle but they knew he wasn't capable and the war was ending so he was discharged. But a hero all the same. His father the Colonel was his whole reason for being in the army, his father was a paedophile who had beaten and molested his older sister and beaten my father Eric until Eric became the 6'2" lean healthy young man who finished high school at the age of 15. His father was small man 5'4" but a warrior, like his father before him. Eric was on his way to proving he was just the same as his military family, but he would prove he was much crazier, and for some reason was just promoted to his next rank.

I requested my fathers military file, everything, medical postings, reprimands court martials, all of it. I wish I had never seen it. I was trying to prove myself wrong about some horrible memories I have of his screaming crazed manic episodes, I remember him bragging about his conquests in korea, of the young girls, and how easy it was to get what you wanted and then break their little "nip" necks and how he loved the sound of that bone cracking and watching the life drain from their eyes. In his file you only find the evidence of his cases of Venereal Disease, his reprimands. He beat his wife in the very first year of marriage, his breakdown in WW2 was dismissed and he was then in the navy, cracked his skull open in 49, and moved straight from that apparent accident to a career in the RCR, He finds his little wife, in 1950, has his first child in 52, and leaves for Korea 4 months after her birth, he returns from this "police action" with his medals, and his suspected Malaria, He lies to the military, says he only has one more attack after Korea, as he would be discharged if they knew what he put my mother through, the chills and nights sweats, the screaming and fighting her away, with the cold cloths, she lived one hell of a life, she knew that gun in his drawer was for her, she was not allowed to leave.

Their little girl was so afraid she wet her bed, sucked her thumb, pulled out her eyelashes, at four she was still wetting the bed, these are all clear signs of molestation, in 55 when my middle sister is about to be born, my father comes to the realization in his mind that he was in fort churchil and Rivers, and he almost kills my mother and my sister in her belly, as he swears this child can't be his, and to this day none of us is sure, if he was right. But my mother was beaten almost beyond recognition, she had to leave the base, to hide until she healed, she went home with her child and had her second girl, he was going to have his boy, and she just didn't know how to stop him, he showed up in Ottawa and threatened her whole family would be dead if she didn't move with him to london ontario, so she packed and left for london, and it seemed better for almost a month, the pressure was building inside him, he drank and beat her, still saying my sister was a bastard and accusing every man he worked with of being my mothers screw.

The army decided to keep him moving, they sent him back and forth from rivers to london to bordon, doing training missions, while Joan kept their home in London. they lived out of the PMQS so at least everyone didn't know how he was beating his wife and child, my other sister he totally ignored, there is not one picture of him holding this child but a million of the other three. This became noticeable to me one day as an adult. In london ontario in 1956 a little 6 year old girl named Susan Cadieux was raped and murdered, found with an army boot lace around her neck. She hadn't died of the strangulation, she died with the tears frozen to her face. If they had of found her in time she would have lived, I requested my fathers file to prove to myself he was not involved in this murder or the murder of Lynn Harper and several other murders, I though his file would show me he wasn't in the area at that exact time. I was wrong, it proved he was there, and he was quite possibly the man who did these horrible things. MY oldest sister was molested from early childhood, he ignored my second sister totally, when Hanna left home at seventeen, I was twelve and he really started to try to get me to play with his penis and kiss him, I became a runaway, I wouldn't go home no matter how much trouble I would be in, unless my mothers car was home. He was a brutal drunk, and beat my little dog so badly, my mother took it to be destroyed before we got home from school, he was in a total manic state alot of the time.

The reason I am writing this, is because, the military allowed this to go on, he stole pay from the military, he must have friends or accomplises but his file shows it happening, and they do it throughout his career, he travels with us to Soest in the mid 60's, we are all in a state of fear and anxiety, by that time, he finally has his beautiful son, who is still my little buddy, although he wants nothing to do with my family now that my mother is gone. In this file I can find 11 reprimands of serious nature, but for some reason his court martials just disappear. My mother had married this man thinking it was her way out of that poor poor family, and into a family of stature, and money, my father hated his Colonel father, would take nothing. So she lived the life of a soldiers wife, alot of the wives in the PmQs looked like my mother, with their sunglasses and long sleeves all the time. The MPs would take them out of the home to sober up and they would be on the parade ground by morning.

See Part 2 below

Child Abuse in the Military Part 2

by Eileen HF
(London, Ontario, Canada)

Continued from Part 1 above: 
The file is missing one year, 1959, has not one doctors file, no reprimands, nothing, in his posting and pay roster, it shows us being in rivers manitoba and he is going back and forth to Camp Borden, These pages have been changed and replaced the forms they are done on are different for the years 59 and 60, they are the newer forms used near the end of his career, and I have photos of us three girls sitting on Ipperwash beach, I am just a little two year old girl playing in the sand beside her mom. We lived in a cottage right on the main beach, beside the bowling alley that was changed to a restaurant in 63. we loved living at the beach. but why does the file have that year missing and his whereabouts changed.

An air force man was suspected of Lynne Harper's murder, but he was exhumed and cleared. IN 1968 when my father was being discharged due to a bad back, that he says in his discharge papers, was due largely to him falling off Leos leap in Rivers Manitoba in 1959, Everything is in his file about the accident, 1958. He fell off Leo's leap twice once hurting his ankle and in Oct. of 1958 he hurt his lumbar spine. It has 5 pages in his file everytime he got a runny nose. but in 1959 his constant sinus problem since 1949, clears up and he doesn't fall off anything. no reprimands, nothing, the bad dreams I am having are much worse than in my younger years, When he tries to reup in 68 he is passed to move on to his next five years of service, and then all of a sudden he is discharged honourably, due to his back, he went right off the deep end. literally, he attempted to molest my three little school mates in our swimming pool, they came forward with this news when I was in my mid 30's when I bumped into one of my mates at her garage sale, she described my father showing up in the pool and all the neighbor kids were terrified of him so this made them want to leave but he was laughing and splashing so they stayed, he grabbed at their crotches, pulling down their suits and dragging them under to the point they felt as though they were drowning. as she told me this story, the whole day came flying back into my head, I felt such shame. IN that same year, Jacqueline English a 15 year old girl was raped and murdered and the next year Jacqueline Dunleavy, both girls murders have stuck in my head, all these years, in that same year he beat my little dog within a inch of it life and my mother took it to have it put down before we came home to see the bleeding little friend, the only friend I had left. This was the worst thing that could happen, she couldn't explain why she put Snoopy down, so I lost my dog and my mother and father in 1968.

If the military had discharged him and listened to the red flags, four young girls might still be alive and I might have been a half normal human being. This is a direct result of Military policing their own. and so was my father. My father was unnoticed because in the civil world he didn't exist, his military file show a child molester, violent criminal. I have this file for the world to see.