In Canada, a penny for a soldier’s service

Oh, Canada!

Cpl. Justin Stark, an infantry soldier with the Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders of Canada, killed himself in October 2011. He was just 22 years old.

Stark had been on a a seven-month tour in Afghanistan that started in 2010, including patrolling Nakhonay, a village southwest of Kandahar city.

Nobody really knows what pushed him to take his own life.

His mother, who visits her son’s grave every day, has been trying to get the military to consider his death work related, according to the CBC.

A few days ago, more than two years after Stark’s death, a check arrived in the mail from the government of Canada, “presumably for owed military pay,” the CBC reported.

It was for a penny.

cheque-to-dead-soldier

Related: Study Suggests Some Mental Health Problems in Army Precede Enlistment
(Time)