Vanguard Magazine

www.vanguardcanada.com JUNE/JULY 2022 33 reflections of a warrior THE LAST WORD I t took me just over two years to get to the 2020-turned-2022 Invictus Games The Hague, and it's difficult to articulate the power and emotions behind the whole experience. Joy; anticipation; anxiousness; frustration (at the two years of pandemic isolation); and the exhilaration of discovering sport and competing again to demonstrate our own unconquered spirit. To understand the full spectrum of emo- tion, it's worth explaining the journey that got me here. After decades of serving with CAF, I suspected I would be medically released in 2016. Coincidently at this time, I received an email about an upcoming ski camp with Soldier On, so I reached out to the team to get involved. In 2017, I attended a Soldier On ski camp at Mount Washington that truly changed and saved my life. After multiple tours in Afghanistan, I had some mental health is- sues that I had mistakenly thought I could deal with by ignoring them. I was strug- gling and coping poorly with my health in general. Midway through the ski camp week, I came home, and my kids greeted me at the stairs to the house. My son sug- gested I should ski all the time, as I was smiling, and I never smiled or seemed hap- py anymore. His offhand comment deeply affected me, and I decided I needed to get serious about my health and seek help. The opportunity to make these life changes presented itself when I applied for the Invictus Team. I initially applied on a whim and wasn't expecting to be accepted, but I was pleasantly surprised when the selection email arrived. The Nick Holyome ser ved in the Canadian Armed Forces for more than 26 years, before being medically discharged. Now employed by veteran-led start-up W ithYouW ithMe, Holyome upskilled in cyber security before being deployed by W ithYouW ithMe into Canadian Government. He recently competed in the Invictus Games The Hague and is a passionate advocate for veteran support and rehabilitation. In this personal article, Holyome reflects on the journey to get to the Invictus Games and the importance of ensuring veterans have the opportunity to contribute to a new mission. INVICTUS UNCOVERED: original team was sent to CFB Valcartier in September 2019 for our initial training camp. It was a rude awakening, as I had not been taking particularly good care of myself. I realized if I was going to put on the Team Canada uniform and get ready to represent my CAF peers at this pres- tigious event, I needed to get myself in physical and mental shape. At this time, I really knew nothing about Invictus Games other than the fact it had been set up by the Duke of Sussex in 2014. I was asked to pick a few sports that I might like to try and select a team sport. I wanted to do all of them, but I realized that might be a bit much considering I had an injured back and a variety of other musculoskeletal injuries acquired over a career in the CAF. I wanted to be on the Wheelchair rugby team, but my chiropractor, RMT and doc-

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