Song shines spotlight on PTSD; helps recruit songwriter an army of fans

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This article was published 02/04/2015 (4127 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

J.P. Cormier’s Facebook page used to be a quiet corner of the Internet where fans could enjoy his music, get tour updates and watch new videos every week.

That all changed when he posted Hometown Battlefield early in 2014. The single, which urges society not to forget military personnel who’ve returned from wars, has been a beacon for soldiers and families battling the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Cormier’s Facebook site received one million page views in just a couple of weeks after the song’s release, and a lyric video for the song that was released later is at almost 700,000 hits on YouTube and continues racking up thousands of views a day.

The single’s sudden notoriety has led to a new record, The Chance, which gets a Winnipeg launch at the West End Cultural Centre on April 4.

It’s a big change for the multi-instrumentalist from Cape Breton Island, who has spent 30 years touring Canada’s folk circuit, recording and teaching music.

“Yes, it was a bit of a shock,” Cormier says of Hometown Battlefield‘s Internet success. “It’s just as big a surprise to me as anybody.”

The hometown battlefield Cormier describes in his song is one mostly taken for granted by Canadian society, he says. But the battlefield holds the same tragic potential for a suffering soldier as a firefight in Kandahar province or anywhere else a hot war is taking place.

“The reason why thousands are talking about it a year after is nobody has given this problem a voice, which is sad, as it should have been talked about,” Cormier says.

“It’s the story that the media doesn’t talk about.”

Hometown Battlefield‘s final chorus says it plainly: “Yes we pray the war is over / But the headlines do reveal / That another soldier died today / on the hometown battlefield.”

Cormier got a taste in 2007 of what Canada’s soldiers faced during the country’s mission in Afghanistan. He visited and performed for troops at Kandahar airfield, saw what life was like in Kandahar City and in Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul.

Two Canadian soldiers were killed during his two weeks in the country.

“It wasn’t pretty. It was a horrible place to be under fire. We lost two people… one soldier, we took him home with us in the belly of the plane,” Cormier recalls.

Tribute to Stompin’ Tom

Also on Cormier’s new disc is House of Plywood, an ode to Cormier’s fellow Maritimer, Stompin’ Tom Connors, who died in 2013.

“He’s like my father,” Cormier says. “I’ve known him for over 20 years. He was just a wonderful man. They’ll never be another man like him — ever.”

Cormier’s smooth singing style doesn’t have Connors’ rabble-rousing spirit, but his words show the same pride in Canada that Connors always felt.

“I’ve tried to follow him. I sought counsel from Tom many times, and he never steered me wrong,” Cormier says.

One way he continues to follow his idol is outspokenness. When interviewed just days before Parliament voted 142-129 to expand its military mission against the Islamic State to targets in Syria, Cormier feared the worst.

“It’s a fool’s errand,” he says. “(In Afghanistan) we could see the roads built, the children going to school, the women taking off their burkas, the hospitals and the infrastructure being built.

“This is not going to happen in Iraq and Syria. It’ll just be a bloodbath… It’s gonna be bad.”

 

alan.small@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @AlanDSmall