The Invisible Injured: Psychological Trauma in the Canadian Military from the First World War to Afghanistan by Adam Montgomery (review)

Adam Montgomery's monograph, The Invisible Injured: Psychological Trauma in the Canadian Military from the First World War to Afghanistan, combines literature review with primary oral history research to explore the longterm effects of war trauma among veterans of the Canadian Armed Forces (caf). Montgomery's research adds to a diverse body of scholarship, which spans from veterans' personal memoirs, to social histories and intensely heated epidemiological debates, concerning Canadian veterans' return home and their struggles with the psychological trauma of war (or, more recently, peacekeeping).

In the first half of this book, (from chapters one to three), Montgomery primarily relies on secondary sources to outline a history of the treatment and perception of psychological illness in the caf. This discussion takes readers from shell shock during World War I, to battle exhaustion during World War II and the Korean War, to the creation of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (dsm), and the advent of post-traumatic stress disorder (ptsd) as a legitimate medical disorder in the late 1970s.

In the second half of this book, Montgomery changes gears significantly (from chapter four on), moving from secondary source material to an analysis of primary interview and witness testimonies from veterans in the post-Cold War period. Montgomery's goal was to get as close as possible to the lived experience of veterans, viewing each veteran's "trauma manifestation as a similar but distinct 'idiom of sickness"' (16). While some readers may be familiar with the literature on idioms of sickness (sometimes called idioms of distress), expansion here upon the theoretical framework informing the collection and interpretation of veterans' oral histories would strengthen Montgomery's manuscript.

In any case, to elucidate veterans' idioms of sickness, Montgomery conducted eight interviews with veterans who were members of the Operational Stress Injury Social Support (osiss) program, a peer-support program for veterans with operational stress injuries including ptsd. Montgomery also examined veterans' testimonies as preserved in the transcripts of the Croatia Board of Inquiry (boi), which was called in 1999 to interrogate the number of casualties from Canadian involvement in the United Nations Protection Force (unprofor) in the former Yugoslavia.

The collective recollections of the veterans that Montgomery weaves together from his interviews and the records of the Croatia boi contribute to our understanding of psychological trauma as experienced by veterans. In particular, veterans spoke about the hurt of apparent public indifference, the lack of resources available, the stigma of mental illness, and difficulties finding social support and transitioning from military to civilian life, as well as resilience in the face of hardship. In spite of the significant barriers to conducting this kind of oral history research, including the stigma of mental illness, caf members' reluctance to speak with someone outside of the military, and the short amount of time spent talking to only a few interview participants, Montgomery succeeds in bringing veterans' perspectives to the forefront. Montgomery's analysis also touches briefly upon a number of themes that could be expanded upon in future oral history research in this arena, one example of which might be female caf members' traumatic encounters with sexual assault in the military, and womens' unique experiences with war trauma, returning home, and participation in family and osiss support groups.

To summarize, as Montgomery promises with the title of his book, The Invisible Injured: Psychological Trauma in the Canadian Military from the First World War to Afghanistan delivers a review of the literature on psychological trauma among veterans of the caf from WWI to the present, while also offering an analysis of veterans' statements from primary interviews and the Croatia boi. This subject matter, combined with Montgomery's clear and compelling writing style, will undoubtedly be of interest to a broad audience including scholars and students in history, soldiers, veterans, their families...