In this episode of Vanguard Radio, we continue our series on veterans and some of the challenges they face. In our last episode, J. Richard Jones spoke with LCol Chris Linford (Ret’d) about his journey with PTSD.
Today, we have joining us is Capt Phil Ralph (Ret’d) to talk about an Animal Assisted Therapy program that is helping injured and ill Veterans and First Responders. Phil currently serves as the National Program Director of Wounded Warriors Canada and has served in various capacities with the charity since its founding in 2006, including serving as Chair for two years. As Program Director he oversees the implementation of a robust and exciting slate of transformative programming benefiting Veterans, First Responders and their Families.
For over a quarter-century until releasing from the Canadian Armed Forces in 2016, Phil served our nation as the Regimental Chaplain to the 32 Combat Engineer Regiment (formally 2nd Field Engineer Regiment) in Toronto. In that capacity, he was exposed to the challenges and needs of today’s veterans.
Having seen firsthand the effects of deployments on our Veterans, he has a passion to contribute to assisting today’s Veterans towards wholeness and healing. As the son of a firefighter, whose family’s service extends back into the 1800’s, Phil has also witnessed first-hand the challenges of First Responders and their families as well.
Hear more about some of the highlights of his career in the Canadian Armed Forces, his current work as Director Health Services at Wounded Warriors Canada, and the Wounded Warriors’ Animal Assisted Therapy program. Learn more about how this program is helping Veterans and First Responders and how you can participate.
Vanguard has an active program in place where we are partnering with Wounded Warriors to spread the news about what Wounded Warriors is doing and also supporting financially through our subscription program. For each subscription to Vanguard magazine, we are donating a portion of it to Wounded Warriors so that Veterans, First Responders, and their families can benefit from programs like Animal Assisted Therapy.
To support, subscribe to Vanguard magazine by going to vanguardcanada.com/subscription.