READ MASTER CPL. JODY MITIC’S COMPELLING STORY…
THE TORONTO SUN, JAN 31, 2009 –
For a trained sniper it was a routine patrol in deadly Afghanistan.

For a trained medic it was a routine medical emergency call that might involve death and dismemberment.

There is no such thing as routine for our strong men and women in the Canadian Armed Forces in a dangerous war zone.

And there is certainly nothing routine about what happened next.

As if it was scripted, the sniper and the medic’s love blossomed while he was on a stretcher fighting for his life and she was bent over him trying to save it.

But it is not a script. This is Master Cpl. Jody Mitic and Sgt. Alannah Gilmore’s real story.

Somebody call Canuck stars Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams because this is an all-Canadian story.

GREAT YARN

Not sure who is going to play four-month-old Aylah Mitic. But I do know this is one of the best love stories I have heard in the new millennium of war, death, rising taxes, a $150 hockey ticket and just as much amassed in parking tickets.

This is a story that will make you smile since it’s a story on the military other than one on hearses bringing home kids along the Highway of Heroes.

Mitic knows all-too-well he could have been in one of them.

Gilmore is one of the reasons why he wasn’t.

The sniper of 1 Royal Canadian Regiment should have died that day after stepping on a bomb that took both his legs. If not for Gilmore and a host of other well-trained war zone medics in 2 FDAMB, he very well may have.

Both of their lives changed Jan. 11, 2007.

“I was out there for an hour and I was asking the guys if they thought I would not make it. I knew one leg was blown off but I didn’t know for sure about the other. Then, when I saw her in the ambulance working on me, I felt a calm come over me,” said 32-year-old Mitic.

“I had met her once before but I really didn’t know her very well.”

But there was just something about the way she was.

Gilmore, 35, was too busy with tubes and IV’s to even notice who it was at first.

“I was surprised it was him,” she said. “We definitely felt a connection. We had a close feeling.”

Mitic was sent home soon after to heal and rehab. Gilmore continued on in the field with her fellow medics trying to save as many lives as possible.

“I thought about it,” said Mitic.

And then it happened. Both were stationed back to Petawawa and they ran into each other on the base.

It did not take long for sparks to fly. And, in September, Aylah was born.

It was meant to be! Serendipity!

TOUGH BUT SOFT

“I guess you have to say it was,” said Mitic, known more for his toughness than his softer side.

If you want to see that softer side, sit at a breakfast table at popular Petawawa restaurant Danny’s with Mitic and his wife and four-month old daughter. I have known Mitic since he came back – and before he became reacquainted with Gilmore – and remember a gruffer individual.

“Look at my little Peanut,” he says tenderly to his tiny daughter.

In the two years since his world was blown apart, and perhaps in his whole life, Mitic tells me he has never been happier.

“If I don’t lose my legs on that land mine, I think it is safe to say I would not be with them, so yeah it was a blessing in disguise,” Mitic said. “Would I trade getting my legs back for them not being in my life? No way.”

Life is good.

“I am enjoying my maternity leave and spending time as a family,” Gilmore said.

And Mitic is loving being back in uniform and assisting his fellow warriors again.

“It is good to be back at work,” he said of his role of assisting fellow soldiers who find themselves wounded in Afghanistan.

If anybody is an inspiration it would be Mitic.

“I think it’s important that you keep going and show that we are not like a piece of machinery that you just throw away,” he said. “The military has been very good to me and has given me the opportunity to show what a wounded soldier can do to contribute.”

Both said one day down the road if they are called once again to perform their trained duty for their country in Afghanistan they would be prepared to do it.

Nothing routine about these brave and proud Canadians.

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