MONTREAL—Had Gerry Fostaty made it into the room 40 years ago where the dozens of military cadets in his charge were receiving explosive safety training, the shrapnel would have ripped into his back instead of the platoon commander’s belly.

Had Colin Caldwell not been in the barrack when the live grenade detonated the morning of July 30, 1974 at CFB Valcartier, near Quebec City, he reckons a decade of his life would not have been spent in a haze of grief and trauma.

“I was about six feet away when the grenade went off and I’m alive because the person in front of me was dead,” he said in an interview Friday. “I saw everything in the blink of an eye. Within seconds we were fleeing.”

In the chaos of the training exercise gone so horribly wrong, six young boys lay dead and 54 suffered injures, but it was only this week, following an intensive campaign by survivors, that the Canadian Forces ombudsman received permission to open an investigation — one that could pass judgment on how victims and their families were treated and why they never received a dime from the government.

By today’s standards the tragedy would have been front-page news for days, prompted a criminal investigation, multi-million-dollar lawsuits and triggered intensive government and military probes. Instead the cadets, between the ages of 14 and 16, were hustled away, told not to discuss what happened with their peers and even saddled with the blame, said Fostaty, who was then an 18-year-old platoon sergeant.

“During the investigation they actively tried to make it seem like one of the cadets brought in an explosive device. That was the key to the whole thing — trying to put the blame on the kids. And then they told us of course never to speak about it again,” he said.

The 30-year-old military instructor, Capt. Jean-Claude Giroux, was acquitted of criminal negligence charges in the case after the judge ruled it was a long string of failures, including lax handling of explosives and the failure to conduct inventories of the devices, that led to the grenade exploding while in the hands of 14-year-old Eric Lloyde.

The survivors’ unhealed psychic wounds, lack of blame and absence of an apology from the military has left dozens of those boys — now middle-aged men — struggling to cope with the trauma they witnessed at such close quarters.

“There has to be an accounting. Almost 100 kids who were in a tragic accident and nothing was done for them. The ones who had shrapnel lodged in various parts of their bodies received medical attention. I had hearing damage. Was there any followup? No,” said Caldwell, who now lives in Toronto.

“I’m sure there are kids who will not get involved in this only because it is still too painful for them — they don’t want to bring up those memories. But it has to be done for the sake of the integrity of the armed forces.”

NDP MP Élaine Michaud, who championed the cadets’ cause in Ottawa, said she would like to see recommendations about how the federal government can “concretely help” the survivors and the families of those killed.

“They received nothing at all. They should have been informed that they had a maximum of three years after the incident to file a request (for compensation) with the Department of National Defence. They didn’t know about that and so no one tried . . . There was no recognition, no programs, no money paid out,” the NDP’s deputy defence critic said, adding that the victims’ families and survivors aren’t necessarily looking for money.

“First and foremost they’re looking for recognition about what happened and a formal apology from the government,” she said.

Caldwell says that he no longer suffers the psychological effects of the traumatic incident, but said the decade that followed the blast, lasting into his mid-20s, was “jumbled together” as he tried to process what happened without the help of doctors or therapists.

No one can give him back that lost time, but recognition and an apology would help to ensure nothing like it happens again, he said.

“It’s like the apology that came 44 years after the Japanese internment,” he said. “It’s the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Are we still going to intern Japanese? Let’s hope not. Are we going to send First Nations and Inuit to residential schools? I hope not.”

The scope of the ombudsman’s investigation is unclear as permission from Defence Minister Rob Nicholson to proceed with the probe was only granted on Wednesday. But 40 years after the fact, the investigation will be focused heavily on the treatment and handling of the youth and their families who were killed, injured or otherwise affected by the incident, said Michelle Laliberté, an aide to the ombudsman.

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And it may also serve as a reminder to the military and the federal government that those under their charge — especially the wounded ones — need extra special care, whether they are cadets in 1974 or Afghan war vets in 2014, said Caldwell.

“I see it as the same mindset. Politicians don’t care about soldiers once they’re finished with them. Politicians certainly wouldn’t care about cadets — we didn’t even vote,” he said.