On March 15, 2008, Cpl. Stuart Langridge hanged himself in the barracks of an Edmonton military base -- a terrible ending to his struggle with depression and substance abuse.
But it took the Canadian military 14 months to hand over a copy of the soldier's suicide note to his devastated family.
In the letter, the 28-year-old veteran of Bosnia and Afghanistan had asked for a small family funeral. It was too late to grant him that wish.
"I was devastated, to be honest," Langridge's mother Sheila Fynes said Monday while testifying at a military inquiry into how the Department of National Defence handled her son's death.
"I just had an image of my son sitting there and going though a shopping list of people he thought were important to him...and then...nobody cared enough to think we might want to see it."
The military has said it withheld the note because it was part of the investigation into Langridge's death. But Fynes said it's a painful example of how poorly the military handled her son's suicide and his struggles leading up to it.
Fynes has long insisted that Langridge's death was preventable and that he wasn't properly treated for post-traumatic stress disorder after his tours of duty.
A debate about the adequacy of mental health services for Canadian soldiers and veterans has been brewing since last week in light of proposed job cuts at the DND that could see fewer mental health professionals available to treat the troops.
A recent report also showed that 20 Canadian military personnel – 19 men and one woman – committed suicide in 2011, an increase from the previous year. Langridge was not alone in his despair.
Upon his return from Afghanistan in 2005, he began using drugs and abusing alcohol, but never received proper care, his family has said.
"I truly felt like my son has been thrown under the bus," Fynes said Monday.
Fynes said her son's deployment to Afghanistan turned him into a different man. But the military believes substance abuse, not post-traumatic stress, was the root of Langridge's problems. A lawyer representing the federal government at the military hearing said Langridge told doctors that he had felt depressed and suicidal all of his life.
"The physicians all say they wish he was alive today, but they don't think they could have done more in these circumstances," Elizabeth Richards told reporters.
Langridge's mother disputes that and says her son fell through the cracks when he needed help the most.
"I do not believe Stuart received any care," Fynes said.
At the hearing Monday, she alleged that portions of her interviews with military investigators appear to be missing from audio recordings.
Lawyers suggested some of her interactions with them weren't reflected in transcripts of interviews, but she said the tapes appear to have been altered.
One of the portions missing was part of an interview with the military about Langridge's living arrangements just before his suicide, Fynes told the hearing.
She said when she received the tapes via an Access to Information Act request, that section was gone.
"I don't know who modified them," Fynes said.
With a report from CTV's Daniele Hamamdjian in Ottawa and files from The Canadian Press
