Under(studied) Appreciation: Veteran Attitudes Toward the Departure with Dignity
By Anna McAlpine, Research Assistant at the CIDP
The CIDP’s Gender Lab has been working over the past five years with an Early Researcher Award (ERA) from the Government of Ontario to study gender mainstreaming in the military. Part of this project has been dedicated to analyzing the gendered dynamics of veteran transition through focus groups and one-on-one interviews. In our interviews, we dedicated much of our time to discussing the process of transitioning to civilian life with veterans and currently-serving members. What factors make for a smooth transition? Did they feel that their time in the military was recognized and valued?
Through this discussion, the practice of Departure with Dignity (DWD) ceremonies often came up as a memorable piece of the transition process, but DWDs are often forgotten in studies about Canadian veterans. While many, often those with extensive service and higher rank, felt appreciated and supported during their DWD, this was not a universal experience. Others felt left out, or even forced to participate.
The Departure with Dignity program was launched by the Chief of the Defence Staff in 2003 “to formalize the (retirement) process and to ensure that all [Canadian Armed Forces] members are given to appropriate recognition upon completion of their military service.” Every service member who has completed basic recruit training and is being honourably released qualifies for a DWD. For our research, we obtained access to the official DWD document that is circulated when planning retirement ceremonies through an Access to Information Request. The document, written in 2009, emphasizes the importance of making members and their families feel honoured and recognized throughout the ceremony; “the aim is to convey to all in attendance, the esteem with which their friends, the service, and their country hold the member. If at the end of the function, this message has been clearly conveyed to the member and their family, the ceremony can be considered a success.”
It is clear both in the guide presented to those planning DWDs and the testimony of those in our focus groups, that the CAF has made a considerable effort to ensure that members receive recognition through the DWD and that there is a sense of uniformity across ceremonies. That being said, many of those interviewed expressed frustration with the structured nature of the DWD, describing many of them as impersonal. An interviewee in Trenton stated, “you take the fun out of it, you make it ridiculous when it becomes a bureaucratic process as opposed to something that is organically initiated. You will show up, you will have fun, and it will be from 13:00 to 14:50.” Furthermore, many expressed frustrations with the fact that every retiree receives the essentially the same mementos and certificates, including near-identical letters from the Prime Minister, Premier, and Mayor. When asked by a veteran who retired prior to the DWD initiative to describe what it was, a servicemember from Kingston said, “you get lots of certificates, that’s all it means.”
Focus group participants also highlighted the impact of DWD ceremonies on family members. We learned that DWDs often include certificates for military spouses and children to thank them for the sacrifices that they have made in supporting the retiree’s career. Feelings about receiving these mementos were also mixed; some expressed that their spouses’ had felt grateful that their contributions had been recognized, while others said that a certificate or ‘thank you’ on the final day of one’s career is simply not enough for spouses who have struggled to manage the military lifestyle, or felt that organizational support was lacking when their spouse was deployed. Interestingly, this was the only area of our discussion about DWDs where gender-based differences seemed to emerge. Heterosexual male veterans were more likely to share that their spouse had felt frustrated with the support services she received during his career; female veterans tended not to mention their spouse’s feelings about the ceremony. This observation is consistent with our other findings that suggest that there remains a gendered division of labour in many military households. Like other elements of the DWD process, the experiences of family members on the day were coloured by their feelings about the military as an organization, and the support they had received.
In our interviews, we found that the DWD process is often the most complex when a member is medically releasing or releasing from the Joint Personnel Support Unit (JPSU). As in many cases, the JPSU is a final unit to assist those who are releasing medically, members posted to the JPSU often do not have the same relationships with their JPSU coworkers as they did at the other units they worked at throughout their career. An entire section of the DWD handbook is dedicated to addressing these cases; “a formal arrangement should be made between the responsible CO and the CO of member’s most recent unit to determine who would be the most appropriate choice to coordinate the DWD.” However, many veterans interviewed who released from JPSU did not have this experience; “at my DWD they had a guy read a speech, and since no one knew me, because I had been in recovery for 4 years, they were just listing courses I had been on.” Both the handbook we obtained, and the focus group participants emphasized that the DWD ought to be tailored to the needs and desires of the retiree and many of those releasing medically express that they are not interested in the DWD and wish to simply leave quietly.
Many of our focus group participants shared a mixture of positive and negative experiences with the DWD. The nature of the release (medical or voluntary), length of career, popularity in the unit, and rank all played a role in the event experience for both the retiree and attendees. Those who had positive DWDs emphasized the importance of making the DWD your own; having it at a favourite pub or golf course were popular choices. Overall, negative DWDs were the final straw in a negative transition experience characterized by lack of organizational support and a system of release that is, for many, challenging to navigate. As one veteran from Ottawa described, “treating guys okay before the releasing means more than going over the top on the day. Like, better treatment in the 6 months leading up to release would have meant more.” The DWD process is carefully structured to ensure that retirees receive fair treatment and that their careers are recognized. However, until the transition process is improved, while this can be fulfilling for many, certificates mean little to those who are already releasing from the organization with a bad taste in their mouths. We owe them more.
Anna is a third-year undergraduate student at Queen’s University, majoring in Global Development Studies with a minor in Political Studies. She is also a Research Assistant at the CIDP Gender Lab, where she has worked with her colleagues to study gender-based discrimination, work/life balance, and military to civilian transition in the CAF. Anna is passionate about combating sexual harassment and violence and is currently working on a research project with the help of a DND Targeted Engagement Grant to analyze sexual violence and harassment against Indigenous and other racialized service-members in the CAF.
