U.S. Army veteran Tegh Singh knows firsthand how challenging living with PTSD is. The former sergeant with the 3rd Battalion, 509th Parachute Infantry regiment moved to Calgary following a tour in Iraq and Afghanistan, and said there were many dark days as he tried to adjust to civilian life. “It’s difficulty sleeping: Falling asleep, nightmares, night terrors. Flashbacks during the day, so that’s not just like an intrusive thought, like a bad memory that comes back, it’s actually reliving a difficult experience all over again,” Singh said. “With anxiety being so high, it means that going out in public, I was prone to panic attacks. Even just going to the grocery store or being at my house, I had a lot of nervous behaviours where I constantly felt like my life was in danger all the time,” Singh continued. Singh’s wife, Rusveer Jones, explains things were particularly dark for him just before COVID-19, leading Singh to reach out to the Veterans Transition Network (VTN). “It gave him his life back. We know 100 per cent he would not be here with us if it wasn’t for VTN,” Jones said. “I met Tegh before he enlisted for the service. The man I knew and my best friend was not the man who came home from his deployment,” Jones added. That lifechanging impact led to Singh and Jones co-founding the Veterans Transition Network Ride in 2020. VTN is a Canada-wide non-profit focused on helping veterans transition from military to civilian life. After Singh joined group counselling, he became a peer support leader with VTN, on top of founding the fundraising bike ride. “Over the years we’ve had two, then three, then four people join. Last year we had over 40 people join the bike ride, which was really phenomenal,” Singh said. Singh says when he returned from his deployment, biking was one of the ways he would help manage his mental health and clear his head, so using that habit as a fundraiser to support veterans was the perfect fit. He also hopes that championing the value of mental health supports and VTN so publicly can help spread the message for any veterans who may benefit from the help. “I understand the feeling of sometimes we’re home and we feel like there’s no hope that we’re never going to get better. If you do the work, if you show up and you put yourself out there, you can get better,” Singh said. Veterans Transition Network Impact Oliver Thorne, the CEO of VTN, calls Singh’s bike ride “aspirational,” saying having a veteran champion mental health care the way Singh is can make a huge difference. “When we see folks like Tegh leading the way, leading by example, engaging in this work and speaking from a place of strength about it, I think it allows other folks to think, ‘Hey, maybe I could benefit from that,’” Thorne said. Thorne explained VTN provides group counselling programs for veterans. These programs are led by fellow Veterans like Singh and mental health professionals. Thorne and Singh both highlight the importance of that peer support. “The experience of service is so unique, and those of us in the civilian sector, we really don’t understand it. We don’t understand what it’s like, we don’t understand what it is to be exposed to some of those experiences that can be really challenging, can weigh on the mind,” Thorne said. “Through their trauma therapy program, it’s really based in cognitive behavioral therapy, and it looks at a very structured way, a safe way, of looking at our difficult experiences in a way that allows us to heal from them,” Singh added. Double the Donations Not including this year, this ride has raised more than $11,000 so far, and if you would like to donate to support Tegh and VTN you can do so here. “This year, each donation is being matched by a very generous but shy military family who is deeply connected to this cause. So for those who choose to support as well, your donation does double duty this year,” Thorne said. If you want to get involved, Jones says there will be another ride on November 15. This is due to strong winds on the originally planned date of November 8, so if you’d like to join the ride you can meet the group at the George C. King Bridge at 9:30 a.m.
