OFFICIAL BOOK DESCRIPTION: A riveting memoir about war and peace from Canada’s former top soldier, General Wayne Eyre, on his career as a soldier and his thoughts on our Arctic sovereignty, our relationship with the United States, and our place in the world during Canada’s greatest time of need.
When a soldier steps forward to take on a difficult task, they say they are going “into the breach,” and few Canadian senior military leaders have jumped into the breach more often and with such conviction as our most recent Chief of the Defence Staff. General Wayne Eyre led the Canadian Armed Forces through multiple, overlapping crises and its most challenging period in generations. He was the most senior Canadian military officer ever permanently stationed in the Indo-Pacific region when he became the first non-American Deputy Commander in Korea of United Nations Command. He commanded the reconnaissance platoon in the Battle of the Medak Pocket, Canada’s largest battle between the Korean and Afghanistan Wars. And he commanded the unit mentoring the Afghan National Army in Kandahar, up to that time Canada’s largest ever combat advisory mission.
Not since Roméo Dallaire’s Shake Hands with the Devil and General Rick Hillier’s A Soldier First has a top Canadian general told his story, as Canadian generals do not have a tradition of capturing the history of their service. In Into the Breach, he recounts jumping right into the fire: leading peacekeeping missions in Cyprus, Croatia, and Bosnia, the Afghanistan evacuation, supporting Ukraine in their fight against Russian aggression, confronting Chinese intimidation in the Pacific and spy balloons over North America, and leading Canada’s contribution to the international effort to defend South Korea in a time of rapidly changing geopolitical dynamics. At home, he describes battling floods and forest fires across Canada, supporting the country during the worst of COVID, and, behind the scenes, fighting in the halls of power to get the resources needed to defend our nation as the threat levels increased every day, especially to our arctic sovereignty.
Into the Breach illuminates and is a tribute to the rich history of our military and its members in a changing age dominated by increasing threats, global disorder, and unrelenting operational demands for the Canadian Armed Forces.
Silent Strain: Understanding Infidelity in First Responder Relationships
- ASIN : B0GZ172PSQ
- Publisher : Fahad Speaks
- Publication date : July 3 2026
- Language : English
- Print length : 165 pages
- ISBN-13 : 978-1067721411
- Order Info: https://www.amazon.ca/Silent-Strain-Understanding-Infidelity-Relationships-ebook/dp/B0GZ172PSQ#detailBullets_feature_div
Silent Strain looks at why infidelity appears with regularity in first responder populations and what conditions make it more likely. Shift work, trauma exposure, emotional suppression, moral injury, and institutional culture do not cause infidelity. But they shape the environment where it develops. Ignoring that context produces explanations that feel satisfying but explain very little.
This book is not a self-help guide. It does not offer reconciliation scripts or recovery timelines. It does not excuse the behavior or remove accountability from the person who caused harm. What it does is examine the patterns, how they develop, why they recur, and what they cost the people living closest to them.
Written for first responders trying to understand what happened in their relationships, partners trying to make sense of betrayal, professionals working alongside this population, and agencies that want to do better by their people, this book names what is usually left unspoken.
The silence around these patterns has a cost. This book is an attempt to reduce it.
About the Author – Fahad Shaukat, MPA, BS
Fahad Shaukat spent over fifteen years in public safety, serving in frontline operations, hostage/crisis negotiation, and national staff training in use of force and law & policy. He teaches Justice Studies at the post-secondary level and leads a 24/7 anonymous peer support line for first responders and military members. He has also served in the Canadian Army Reserve. Silent Strain draws on fifteen years inside first responder institutions and years of sitting with people in crisis.
He earned a Master of Public Administration from RMC in 2025. He is currently completing a Doctor of Business Administration focused on artificial intelligence and machine learning, which he expects to complete in 2029.
Fahad Shaukat has more than 15 years of experience in public service. From 2012 to 2025, he served with Correctional Service Canada as a correctional officer and hostage and crisis negotiator. From 2019 to 2025, he also worked as a National Staff Training Officer, delivering training across Canada. He served with the Canadian Army Reserve’s 6 Intelligence Company from 2017 to 2024 and currently serves as Assistant Training Officer with 2137 RCACC. He now teaches Criminal Justice at the post-secondary level.
He is also the founder and president of the Alberta chapter of Boots on the Ground, a 24/7 anonymous peer-support line for first responders and military members. He established the chapter in 2022. More information is available at BOTGAlberta.com.
He also works as a public and keynote speaker on first responder and military mental health, and has presented at national conferences including the 2026 CIPSRT symposium.
