Before Sherri Wedel left for Germany with the Canadian military in 1989, she promised her parents two things: she would stay in touch, and she would never touch a grenade.
Ten years earlier, her brother Victor had made the same trip. Four years later, at age 24, he died in a grenade training incident.
“He left in 1979 … and we never saw him again,” Wedel said.
Victor had not even yet learned that his little sister was training to become a military police officer. A Father’s Day letter to their dad was the family’s last word from him.
“I had all these plans to share all these things with Vic,” Wedel said. “And yeah, that wasn’t going to happen.”
For Wedel, last month’s news from CFB Wainwright brought that loss rushing back. On Oct. 17, four soldiers died during live-fire training when a sudden shift in the wind drove a fast-moving fire toward them. Another 39 military members were injured.
On Remembrance Day, the tragedy raises questions about how Canada honours the individuals who died not in combat, but preparing for it.
Veterans say realistic training is essential, even though its risks can place a lasting burden on soldiers and their families.
“My heart was breaking and is breaking for the families of those people in Wainwright,” Wedel said.
“Accidents happen, but sometimes we question them,” she said. “You know, why? Why are our people, or our family members, put into that situation?”
Beyond the battlefield
The history of Canadian military training includes deaths from parachute jumps, explosive detonation, vehicle collisions and a range of other training activities.
Since the end of the Korean War in 1953, dozens of Canadian soldiers have died in military training incidents, according to the Department of National Defence. (The department did not confirm the exact number by press time.)
This number includes seven paratroopers who died in 1968 after a training jump carried them into the Ottawa River. Fifty-eight years later, survivors, families and military members gathered at the memorial cairn this spring.
It also includes the deaths of six military engineering students in 1988, following the premature detonation of explosives during training at CFB Chilliwack, B.C.
More recently, in June 2023, two pilots died during a nighttime Chinook training flight near Petawawa, Ont.
Veterans Affairs Canada commemorates soldiers killed in training the same way as those killed in combat, a department spokesperson told Canadian Affairs in an email. That includes its Virtual War Memorial, an online record of the names and service details of Canadians who died in military service.
“Commemorative and remembrance initiatives are based on service and sacrifice to Canada, rather than the specific circumstances surrounding a member’s death,” the spokesperson said.
Mike Blais, a CAF veteran and founder of Canadian Veterans Advocacy, has personally experienced training losses.
“I’ve had friends that were blown up by grenades,” he said. “I’ve had friends that were blown up by a double feed in a mortar in Germany where the training levels were very intense due to the imminent threat of a Soviet invasion.”
Blais sees such losses as tragic but inevitable.
“It’s very tragic when a training accident happens,” he said.
“But it would be more tragic if we started making all the training so safety-orientated that the training level is diminished, and those troops are not ready and not competently prepared to deal with what the Canadian government sent them into.”
Preparing for the real thing
Military training must prepare soldiers to act amid noise, obscured visibility and the movement of troops and heavy machinery.
For Blais, repeated drills train soldiers to act without hesitation — a critical instinct in combat, where delay can be fatal.
“The level of your training could determine life or death, not only for you, but for the guy standing beside you,” he said.
Retired colonel Ryan Jurkowski, who is today director of the Conference of Defence Associations Institute think tank, describes the battlefield as “controlled chaos.” Training builds the skills and confidence needed for individuals to make decisions that serve a shared objective.
That preparation progresses from basic tasks to complex exercises, he says.
“First and foremost, military training is not cavalier,” said Jurkowski. “Training clearly prepares any soldier for the rigours of what combat actually looks like, feels like — cognitively, mentally, physically.”
Erin O’Toole, a former Conservative leader who piloted helicopters in the Royal Canadian Air Force before entering politics, says safety checks and procedures aim to minimize the risks without rendering training ineffective.
“But it’s the military,” said O’Toole, who also served as minister of veterans affairs in 2015. “You can’t eliminate all the risk.
“It’s just a reminder that when someone wears a uniform of service, they’re putting service above self.”
What comes after
Accepting that risk exists does not settle whether certain deaths should have been prevented.
The Chilliwack explosion in 1988 led to a coroner’s inquest and a board of inquiry. The coroner’s jury ultimately made safety recommendations that changed how demolition training is conducted.
At Wainwright, investigators must now establish how the fire became deadly. The speed at which the fire spread, and the decision to train in those weather conditions, require scrutiny, says O’Toole.
The military has said it could take at least a month to make a determination. For survivors and the victims’ families, the loss will last much longer.
Traumatic experiences can leave injuries that persist after military service ends, says O’Toole. In 2009, O’Toole helped launch the True Patriot Love Foundation, a charity that supports military members and families by funding recovery, rehabilitation and transition programs.
Since its creation, the True Patriot Love Foundation has invested $62 million in veterans’ causes that have supported about 50,000 Canadians.
“There will be some that take injuries, and we owe it to them to support them and to provide treatment options for life,” O’Toole said.
For Jurkowski, Remembrance Day is an opportunity for people across the country to reflect on the contributions of military members — regardless of how they served.
“Remembrance Day is … to remind Canadians why service matters,” he said. “Not why war matters, not why combat matters, but why service matters.”
“The four soldiers [killed] and the multiple injured in Wainwright were preparing for the worst,” he said.
“They were preparing for operations. They were preparing for combat. They were preparing for what the government of Canada had asked them to prepare for, and they never had that opportunity.”
