Disciplinarian

An evocative and deeply personal investigation into secrecy, accountability, and inherited trauma in the Canadian Armed Forces

On a warm spring night in 1971, spent drinking away his Korean War memories, Sergeant Martin Thompson took a life on home soil: He decapitated Phillip Birch with his shiny blue Chevy. With his military police privilege, Martin’s crime became a secret buried by both his Armed Forces family and his biological one.

When Kelly S. Thompson — a now-retired fourth-generation veteran — discovers her grandfather’s secret, she faces a choice: be complicit in silence or pursue the truth despite great personal cost. Overwhelmed with fear of betraying all that she loves, Kelly examines this dark secret to draw her loved ones closer while encouraging accountability in an organization that values loyalty above all else.

Disciplinarian masterfully weaves Martin’s crime with Kelly’s uncovering of it, exploring the legacies we inherit and how we might change our own to better the future. Combining absorbing time-hopping storytelling with present-day analysis, Disciplinarian unravels the stories of one tortured family, one deadly night, and the ways the military institution harms, the ways it unites, and how it might heal moving forward.