As a 17-year-old single mother living on the Gaspe Coast in Quebec, Lori Flowers never would have foreseen herself having a career in the military, let alone earning her way to the top ranks in the Canadian Armed Forces.
With 25 years now under her belt, Chief Warrant Officer Flowers was promoted to her current rank and appointment as technical services branch sergeant major at CFB Borden in June 2021 after a long and successful career that started in 1989 when she first joined as an administrative clerk.
“The reason I joined is not the reason why I am in today,” she told BarrieToday. “Back in the early '90s, I was a single parent. I had a baby when I was 17. I had moved to Borden because my sister and brother-in-law were in the armed forces, so I had moved here to be with them. I worked at the old McDonald's on base.”
It was during that time she says when she found herself at a bit of a crossroads and trying to figure out what to do with her life. They suggested she join the army.
“I literally went to the recruiting centre and joined up. I didn’t know tons about the military, but honestly that was the best day of my life. Ever since, I have come to respect it, I have come to love the uniform and I love the team building we have and the dynamic of the families,” said Flowers, who has six children and whose husband is also a member of the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF).
“I joined more as a single mom as something to do with my life and get stability, (but) over the last 25 years I have had such a passion for the military and I am so grateful. Who knows where my path would have gone. I feel like it actually save me and it’s created a great career for myself because I have achieved the rank of chief warrant officer — and only one per cent of the CAF get here. As a female, to have this rank and to have the work-life balance with my children, it’s certainly been the highlight of my life.”
Although a desire to be a soldier and serve the country may not have been the impetus behind her decision to join in the first place, it has however been what’s kept her making her way up the ranks to this day, telling BarrieToday she’s proud of the mark she’s left behind over the years.
In 2003, when posted to 2nd General Service Battalion in Petawawa as a resource management support clerk, Flowers deployed on a six-month tour to the Golan Heights region — located between Israel and Syria — as the support clerk, a deployment which left Flowers with an operational stress injury related to her experiences there that went undiagnosed until 2020.
“When I was there, we went on a couple of days of rest and relaxation and we went to Lebanon. Going to Lebanon was quite interesting because it’s a war-torn country. Going over there, walking through the streets, seeing the poverty. … These women were trying to give us their babies to take back to Canada to have a better life. That was very tough for me as a mom,” she said. “In those types of scenarios, where you’re dealing with mental health and things like that, I had a greater appreciation for what we have here in Canada.”
Seeing that, she said affected a lot of the soldiers who were there and prompted her to create casual “chat sessions” where soldiers could talk about what they’d seen and how it was impacting them.
“We knew we couldn’t take these children. The way I approach things with my troops is communication is key, and that’s where I go with it. I suffer from an operational stress injury and my husband suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), so it’s important that you keep that communication open so we are able to say it doesn’t matter what you’re feeling, just share it. It’s like a healing session, and knowing you’re not alone,” she said.
“When I was in places like Kuwait and Afghanistan, the things that bothered me the most was seeing the children. What I would do to help was find my group or peers to have those chats with. I found that was the best way to approach it at that time, and I still do that to this day.”
With more than two decades of experience, Flowers acknowledges that openness in communication — especially in discussing mental health — wasn’t always something that was so welcome, but she’s proud to say she’s played a key role in creating an environment of openness wherever she’s been deployed.
“Coming up, nobody wanted to go to the base hospital. Nobody said they were going to get help. Even though you were sick, nobody wanted to go to the hospital because it was that stigma. … I would say the last 10 or 15 years, since the Afghan days, it’s gotten a lot better. Now we encourage people to go,” she said. “There are still people who feel there’s still a stigma, but I don’t feel that because I am very open with my own mental health and getting help. They always say lead by example so that’s what I do. If I am going to get mental health (help) at my rank and at my level it’s OK for me to share.
"We have come leaps and bounds.”
Those deployments into war zones, she admitted, have helped her grow — not only as a soldier but also as a human being.
“When you see the poverty and the war, you are so grateful for what you have in this country that it humbles you. If anything it’s made me have more compassion for people,” she said. “I have a son who had 10 years of an addiction issue and when you’re always wondering if (he was) alive or dead my compassion for him after 10 years was gone. There’s a level, and you see what you have to witness, and you lose friends due to the war … so I think my compassion for the people of those countries grew and I brought that back to Canada. My compassion for people in general has grown.”
Earlier this week, Flowers met with a local Brownie Troop, and one of the questions she asked them was what does Remembrance Day mean to them. When asked that question herself, Flowers told BarrieToday Remembrance Day actually means a few different things to her.
In part, it's about remembering the soldiers from the First and Second World Wars.
"They were young men and women and their lives were gone before they really even started. There are still a few of these vets who wheel up to the cenotaphs with tears in their eyes," she said. "I feel for these people because they didn’t have the support we have today. They didn’t have veterans affairs so I think it’s important to remember these people.”
As time continues to move forward, Flowers said Remembrance Day will continue to be a way to honour every part of every veteran who has served and lost their life as well as those who are still living.
"They may have come back from the war, but they are not the same person that went to that war. It’s important we go and remember them, but that we also take the time to speak to these people because they need to sometimes tell that story and they need to be heard.”
