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It’s hard to see Sheila Fynes as threatening.

The diminutive 67-year-old has a pleasant demeanour and likes to serve homemade cookies to guests.

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But for some in the Canadian Forces, she became one of the most hated individuals in the country.

Fynes’s crime was that she wouldn’t shut up. She, and her husband Shaun, refused to stop speaking out about the suicide of their Afghan veteran son, Stuart Langridge. For seven years they continued to ask embarrassing questions and push for accountability from the Canadian Forces and military police.

In response, some in the Canadian Forces conducted a behind-the-scenes smear campaign. In more than 25 years covering the military, I’ve never seen such a vindictive attack.

The catalyst was a two-part series in the Ottawa Citizen in June 2009 which detailed the roadblocks the couple faced in trying to uncover answers about their son’s death.

Langridge, a model soldier and veteran of Bosnia and Afghanistan, was suffering from symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder when he killed himself at CFB Edmonton in 2008. He had attempted suicide five times before his death.