‘It takes everything’: Veteran went ‘off the grid’ after torturing teen in Somalia left him with PTSD

Monday, February 1, 2016

This photo shows Kyle Brown while serving his sentence for manslaughter.

advertisements

In late 1998, former soldier Kyle Brown suddenly left his oilpatch job, walked out of his apartment, dumped his ID and disappeared “off the grid.”

For a long time, “the dark years,” Brown hid from his friends, from the government and from his past in a fog of drugs, alcohol and isolation.

Brown’s troubled past was hard to escape. The former Canadian Airborne Regiment soldier served 40 months in prison for manslaughter and torture for his role in the horrific beating death of 16-year-old civilian Shidane Arone in Somalia in March 1993.

It was a shameful episode for Canada’s military and led to the airborne being disbanded.

Cpl. Clayton Matchee who beat teenager Shidane Arone and later suffered brain damage in a suicide attempt.

layton Matchee, the senior soldier on guard who set out to “rough up” the prisoner, never went to trial after a failed suicide attempt two days after the events left him brain damaged.

When Brown got out of Bowden prison in 1997, he tried to start a new life, went back to school, found a job, wrote a book with journalist Peter Worthington called Scapegoat, and met a woman.

The Somalia mission left its mark on Brown — the trauma of events and possibly the side-effects of anti-malaria drug mefloquine with can cause nightmares, anxiety, aggression, cognitive impairment.

So the army was tracking me, the last people on earth I wanted in my life.
At home, Brown began to experience mood swings, anger, and re-living the trauma of the mission, a symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder, he was told. New studies show mefloquine poisoning can bring on symptoms similar to PTSD. Brown isn’t sure what causes his symptoms.

Brown agreed to a rare media interview — the first in years — because he wants to support a renewed push by former airborne soldiers to put a stop to the military’s use of mefloquine.

The group also wants Veterans Affairs to provide treatment for those still suffering from mefloquine’s side-effects, including damage to the central nervous system.

Brown’s PTSD-like symptoms flared up when the military came to his door, as happened every other year. The military needed Brown to provide evidence at a biannual hearing into Matchee’s fitness for trial.
“So the army was tracking me, the last people on earth I wanted in my life,” Brown said.

Each time, those visits took Brown right back to the horrific night, “in the pit with Matchee” and the dead teenager.

“The last time they found me in Fort McMurray, and I said, ‘You won’t fine me again.’ ”

For a long time, Brown holed up in Edmonton’s river valley, living under a tree in a tent, with a blanket and crack pipe.

Every few months, he would surface and let his family know he was still alive, then go underground again.

But in September 2008, his life took an unexpected turn.

“One day, I happened to be on the LRT and I picked up Metro newspaper and saw an article on Clayton Matchee.

“It said he was deemed unfit for trial, all charges were dropped and they were sending him back to his family.

“That was it, my private war with the government was over. My life changed.”

Brown found a job and a girlfriend and life began again.

But it is never easy. He struggles with alcohol, anger and an emotional roller-coaster.

You want to know what PTSD did to me? It’s the great destroyer and stealer of happiness. The great usurper, it takes everything.

“I can go from completely normal to rage in seconds. It’s affecting my marriage,” says Brown, who loves his three-year-old daughter.

He has been through rehab and lots of therapy. A few years ago, he went to Powell River, B.C. for intensive therapy that forced him to relive the fateful night with Matchee and Arone. “I did a lot of healing.

“You want to know what PTSD did to me? It’s the great destroyer and stealer of happiness. The great usurper, it takes everything. ”

“The symptoms never go away, you just manage them.”

Home
Email

Hiiraan Online