OTTAWA—When Ryan Elrick went to war for the Canadian Forces in 2006, he lost both of his legs in a roadside bomb strike.

Now he is going to war against the military.

The 38-year-old retired corporal has filed a lawsuit over a policy that says all military personnel must be fit enough to deploy to a war zone. He wants the Canadian Forces to make an exemption in his case.

More than 100 combat veterans who have lost arms and legs over the last decade in Afghanistan are at risk of being forcibly discharged from the military because they can no longer meet that standard, known as Universality of Service.

Many of the most grievously wounded Canadian soldiers have expressed frustration with the policy. Elrick is believed to be the first to have mounted a legal challenge.

“Everyone understands that soldiers should be fit. I spent 20 years in the infantry. I’m the first person to say that, yeah, soldiers should be fit and ready to deploy and everything like that — if you’re in that type of unit,” he said in an interview from his home in Winnipeg.

“I think that the way that they’re applying Universality of Service isn’t fair and we’re looking for a bit of a policy change here in the way that they apply it.”

Elrick’s decision to challenge the Department of National Defence has prompted other serving and retired soldiers to come forward, said lawyer Darryl Buxton.

“Have I been approached by others? Yes, I have,” he said. “I’ve been getting emails, I’ve been getting phone calls on a daily basis.”

The defence department wouldn’t comment on the substance of the lawsuit, but disputed that injured soldiers were being released from the military against their wishes.

“No (wounded-in-action) personnel have been released from the (Canadian Forces), unless they voluntarily requested to do so,” said Melanie Villeneuve, a spokeswoman for the Chief of Military Personnel.

After losing both his legs on June 21, 2006, Elrick’s career trajectory was put on hold because of what the military called his “employment limitations.” Despite this, he sought and received an occupational transfer that moved him from the infantry, where he was a gunner with the Edmonton-based 1st battalion of the Princess Patricias Light Infantry, to Winnipeg’s 1st Canadian Air Division.

There, he settled into and — by the accounts of his superiors — excelled as an intelligence operator, analyzing threats in the sky for the Canadian region of NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defence Command.

The pain from his injuries meant that he had to miss work on occasion. On three occasions, he said, he was relieved mid-shift because the pain was so intense.

“It was definitely physically and mentally taxing, but I was doing it,” he said.

His performance reviews in 2009 and 2010 (when he monitored the skies during the Vancouver Olympics) indicated that he should be promoted, that he had leadership potential and that he was fulfilling duties normally reserved for a sergeant.

“I was doing a job of a person two levels above my rank level and doing it well,” he said.

Still, he was frozen at the rank of a corporal — the level he was at when the Taliban bomb severed his legs from his body.

Shortly after his injury, Elrick was visited in hospital by then-chief of defence staff Gen. Rick Hillier, who told him, according to the statement of claim, “that his career in the Canadian Forces could and would continue and advance.”

“I was told that I had some semblance of a future. I realized that I was obviously going to have a limited career, but I thought I was going to have a career and now I don’t,” Elrick said.

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The lawsuit argues that the military’s policies violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms by discriminating against Elrick based on his disability.

He is also seeking unspecified damages based on the fact he was denied a promotion and a pay raise on three occasions, he has lost his employment and that the entire process has aggravated his mental health conditions associated with the 2006 roadside bomb blast.

A Star series last fall highlighted the medical, professional and bureaucratic challenges that injured Canadian soldiers face once they return home from war.

In addition to the feeling that they are being pushed out of the force as damaged goods, soldiers who were injured in Afghanistan after April 1, 2006 — the date that a new compensation policy came into effect — receive a fraction of the financial compensation that has been awarded to those injured before that date.

The most seriously injured — including double amputees like Elrick — now receive a one-time payment of $267,000.

Paul Franklin, a now-retired master corporal who lost both legs in a suicide bombing in January 2006 (just six months before Elrick’s injury), receives a cheque for $4,200 each month for the rest of his life.

One well-informed military source suggested that the constant complaints of wounded soldiers, as well as challenges like the one contained in Elrick’s lawsuit, would disappear instantly if injured soldiers were instead fairly compensated.

After the series ran, the government offered some increased compensation and assistance to the military’s wounded personnel. But the Canadian Forces appears to draw the line at making exemptions to its Universality of Service policy.

Jay Paxton, a spokesman for Defence Minister Peter MacKay, said the policy has already been relaxed to allow ill and injured personnel to become cadet trainers or serve with the Canadian Rangers. Soldiers with injuries who are able to remain in uniform will now also be considered for promotions in rank.

That announcement was made on March 25, 10 days after Elrick was forcibly retired from the Canadian Forces. It capped a years-long battle to remain with the organization for which he had risked his life.

Buxton says there is no argument that the military should open its doors to anyone regardless of physical fitness or limitations, but that the military leadership should have the discretion to make special exemptions for injured soldiers who can legitimately fulfill roles that don’t require them to be on the front lines.

“He’s not asking for special treatment,” Buxton said. “But for this blanket policy that’s discriminatory, he would be doing exactly what he … was doing for the last three years, and doing well, excelling at.”

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