Video: Canadian grunts tackle PTSD, get help from Marines

[HTML1]In this week’s Marine Corps Times, you may have read with disgust the story of a man who lied his way into a circle of trust in Canada by posing as a Marine with PTSD.

Behind the story about the unscrupulous faker was the story of the REAL infantryman who became his victim. He is Cpl Chris Dupee, a  GRUNT with eight years in the 3rd Royal Canadian Regiment who actually has PTSD. He is a combat vet and is on a mission to help others deal with it, too.

His organization is called Military Minds and his Facebook page of the same name is up to almost 5,000 likes — and climbing — after only three months. The video you just watched (above) has gone viral with more than 25,000 hits in two days. The struggling artists who performed the song are in awe of the response.

“It went full-retard,” said Dupee, who believes the popularity of the song, the web site and the Facebook page  “shows people are listening.”

Dupee, who is on duty in Toronto now, started a mobile power washing company as a way of employing soldiers returning from Afghanistan, and when he realized that so many of his buddies needed a place to go where they could talk about their war zone experiences, he started the web site.

It’s not unlike so many of the organizations that have sprung up in the U.S. with wounded warriors helping other wounded. Stepping outside the traditional channels available for mental and emotional help, he said, “is what’s working for us, we’re being human about it, there’s no script, it’s a grassroots effort. We didn’t wake up one day and say, ‘hey, let’s start a PTSD movement.”

Canada’s regular force is about 65,000-strong (that includes navy, army and air force). In the more than 10 years since operations began in Afghanistan, 158 Canadians have been killed in action.

The people who pose as Marines always get caught because real Marines are like rabid pit bulls when it comes to digging them out. Those dogs alerted Dupee to the poser after Military Minds posted a video of him whining about his “war experiences.”

If there is one thing Dupee has learned from the experience of being stung by one of these dirtballs is that Military Minds is the only organization he fully trusts. He didn’t see this one coming, but he will see the next one… and he’s got some new friends in the Marine Corps who are only more than willing to help.

Military Minds, he said, “started as a Canadian movement, but it’s borderless. I built the stage for people who need a voice.”

Canadian Cpl Chris Dupee in Panjwai district, Afghanistan in 2009