Corporal Paul Woods is a retired RCMP member who has served in contract policing and UN Peacekeeping Missions. On retirement, Paul worked as an investigator in the Office of the Veterans Ombudsman. When Paul began his uniformed RCMP career in 1974 on northern general duty detachment in Alberta, traumatic situations immediately began impacting him. Helping other officers and their families deal with trauma and other impacts of duty became a passion: “I could see many were in the hurt locker and not getting help.” He now works as a Peer Support Volunteer and Mentor in the RCMP Support for Operational Stress Injuries (SOSI) program, the related Veterans program in Ottawa, and with Operational Stress Injuries and Social Support (OSISS). When initially deployed in Haiti in 1994, Woods was part of a small advance reconnaissance team charged with establishing the UN mission. Within the first couple of weeks, he and his team dealt with a mass casualty event where 32 Haitians suffered catastrophic injuries or death. Before retiring in 2009, Woods got involved in the Canadian Armed Forces OSISS Program because he wanted to bring something similar into the RCMP. Veterans Affairs Canada supports SOSI as it supports the OSI programs. Woods waited 35 years to get the help he needed, carrying the pain of post-traumatic stress disorder for his entire career. He wishes the help that exists today had been available to him back then.
