From track star to military doctor, Dr. Darrell Menard reflects on a life in motion

Dr. Darrell Menard is calling it a day this month on a 51-year career with the Canadian Armed Forces.But the retired air force major—a military public health and injury prevention pioneer who recently published a memoir of his deployment on a peacekeeping mission to Bosnia in 1999—isn’t giving up medicine anytime soon.Nor running.Nor teaching.And certainly not the small scrap metal business he runs from his garage in Russell, a small Ontario municipality 15 minutes southeast of Ottawa.“I plan to keep working here part-time as a physician,” said Dr. Menard. “And I’ve got a few other things going on.”Sports in general—and running in particular—have always been base lines in Dr. Menard’s life.Read: What does a lung transplant thoracic surgeon do all dayBorn and raised in the quiet north-end Edmonton neighbourhood of Glengarry, he had a passion for sports at an early age.“I played typical Canadian things like hockey and baseball,” he said. “I wasn’t very academic.”His life changed in high school when he discovered endurance running. “It was—wow!” said Dr. Menard. “It lit a fire in me.”After winning several provincial high school races in the 1,500-metres category, Dr. Menard enrolled in physical education at his hometown University of Alberta in 1972 and joined its cross-country running team, the Golden Bears.His military career began two years later when he enrolled in the CAF’s Regular Officer’s Training Program as a physical educator.“I wanted to get married and was looking for a job that could provide income and an education,” said Dr. Menard. “The military offered both.”After getting married in 1975 and graduating in 1976, Dr. Menard spent the rest of the decade running competitively and training to be a military logistics officer and paymaster.He notably clocked 3:49.6 in the 1,500-metre—the premier middle-distance event in international competitions—at the 1976 Canadian national track and field championships.Though he finished fourth, Dr. Menard’s run was—and remains—the fastest ever recorded in the event by a member of Canada’s military.In 1980, after returning to U of A as a captain to do a graduate degree in exercise physiology, Dr. Menard captained the Golden Bears’ cross-country team to a Canadian national championship.That same year he won the Edmonton marathon with a time of 2:24:29.He also went to the Olympic Games for the Physically Disabled as a coach and guide runner for blind athletes. He helped Canadian paralympic Jacque Pilon win a gold medal in world-record time in the 1500-metres.After serving as a physical education officer, Dr. Menard was accepted into the military’s medical training program and enrolled in medical school at Queen’s University in 1984.In addition to his medical studies, he was a member and coach (and a future team physician) of the Canadian military’s cross-country running team, competing in four military world cross country championships.After finishing his medical degree and internship in 1989, Dr. Menard was posted to CFB Kingston as general duty medical officer for both the base and the 1st Canadian Signals Regiment.A year later he was later promoted to major and transferred to CFB Chatham as base surgeon.Transferred to national defence headquarters in Ottawa in 1992 as Health Promotion Coordinator for the military’s Directorate of Health Protection and Promotion, Dr. Menard played a key role in the development of both a health survey and a public health program for the military dubbed “Strengthen the Forces.”“There was a colonel who was intent on doing this and he thought I was the guy,” said Dr. Menard. “Back then no one in the CAF was doing health promotion and there was no training.”He said he alone designed and applied the first forces-wide Health and Lifestyle Information Survey, an initiative that would spawn various programs aimed at improving wellness and preventing injuries among Canada’s military men and women.“What I did was pretty austere but I’ve very proud to have started it,” said Dr. Menard. “Now there are maybe 100 people doing health promotion at two dozen sites within two headquarter groups.”After being transferred to the CAF’s Directorate of Medical Services, Dr. Menard was suddenly tapped for a seven-month mission as medical advisor to the commander of the Canadian contingent of NATO’s peacekeeping forces in war-torn Bosnia in 1998.“It was completely unexpected, right out of the blue,” said Dr. Menard. “I probably could have said no. But ethically I figured I’d have to leave the military if I did. I felt duty bound.”Though difficult for him and his wife Janet, a nurse practitioner, and their three young-adult children, Dr. Menard found the seven-month deployment was just what the doctor ordered.“Living in a tin can and doing meaningful work as part of a team seven days a week from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. was really invigorating,” he said. “It helped me get my mojo back.”Being a medical staff member at the base and clinic in NATO’s Camp Coralici in northern Bosnia also allowed him to see and experience the many impacts that deployments have on military members in theatre and on their loved ones back home.“You can quickly go from laughter and joy to frustration and loneliness,” he said. “Soldiers go through a lot and miss their families.” He said 11 NATO soldiers died during his time in Bosnia, including two Canadians.Dr. Menard detailed his observations and thoughts on the goings-on and activities at the camp in a daily journal he kept throughout the mission.It took 25 years, but those entries became the basis for Diary of a Deployed Doc, a book that Dr. Menard self-published in late 2024.“Most Canadians don’t know how hard their soldiers work,” said Dr. Menard. “That’s something I wanted to share with people.”Physicians too, he said, “might find it interesting from a clinical and human perspective.”He has sold nearly 1,000 copies of his book and donated another 500 to Canadian libraries and interested groups.The book received support from the Métis Veterans Legacy Program, a group that represents former soldiers of the mixed-race ancestry that Dr. Menard recently discovered he shares.He said he gets greatest pleasure from reading the many rave reviews his book has garnered online.Dr. Menard said he had neither the time nor the notion to write the book when he first returned from Bosnia.In addition to his daytime duties, he served regularly as chief medical officer for Canadian military teams and provided sports medicine coverage at dozens of elite amateur sporting events, including Canada and PanAm Games and world track and field championships.Though he retired fulltime from the CAF in 2005, Dr. Menard continued working with and for the military—both in and out of uniform—as both a consultant and a specialist advisor in sports medicine to the CAF’s surgeon general.He has now relinquished those roles.However, he continues to practice family and sports medicine in Russell and teach sports medicine at Queen’s and the University of Ottawa’s school of nursing.He also remains on the board of the Canadian Academy of Sports and Exercise Medicine.He also plans to continue picking up nuts, bolts and other bits of scrap metals he finds while walking and running along the roads in Russell.Over the past 15 years he and his daughter Rebecca have raised thousands of dollars to fund local school scholarships from the sale of scrap metal that they collect, clean and sort in his garage.“Everyone in town knows us,” said Dr. Menard. “People will come by and drop off whole boxes of metal. It’s a lot of fun and it keeps me busy.”

From track star to military doctor, Dr. Darrell Menard reflects on a life in motion

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