\u201cIn childhood, I saw the effects on my grandfather, who\u2019d fought in the First World War in the trenches. In those days they called it \u2018shell shock.\u2019 Nobody had ever heard of PTSD; it wasn\u2019t called that,\u201d says Valgardson.<\/p>\n Valgardson also recalls his experience as a graduate student living in Iowa, seeing soldiers return from Vietnam and the effect the war had on them.<\/p>\n \u201cYou could see the missing arms and legs, but most people didn\u2019t pay attention to the tremendous emotional and psychological toll on the individuals, the soldiers coming back, and all their families, because psychologically and emotionally they had been so changed by their experience,\u201d says Valgardson.<\/p>\n Valgardson continued to work in Missouri after graduate school and, through that experience, had the opportunity to travel with his landlord\/next-door neighbour, who was a highway patrolman.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause of the way the law works there, he was able to take me patrolling with him,\u201d says Valgardson.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The experience allowed Valgardson to witness the incredible emotional cost of working as a first responder. When a former RCMP officer whom Valgardson knew and admired died by suicide, the author\u2019s focus turned once more to PTSD and its life-altering effects.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you know somebody who\u2019s affected, then you start to pay attention. Otherwise it\u2019s just, \u2018Oh, it\u2019s, you know, that newspaper report,\u2019 or it\u2019s something mentioned over coffee. But when it\u2019s someone you know, then you are affected individually,\u201d says Valgardson.<\/p>\n These experiences culminated in the creation of In Valhalla\u2019s Shadows<\/i>\u2019 protagonist, Tom Parsons, an ex-police officer struggling to pick up the pieces of his broken life after leaving Winnipeg for a small lakeside town.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cHe sort of appeared and started to tell me his story, and I had to gradually piece it all together: who he was and what his life was like and everything\u2014what had happened to him,\u201d says Valgardson. \u201cIt\u2019s an interesting process. It\u2019s not a matter of sitting down and making it up. In many ways, as a writer, it\u2019s learning to listen, so that potential stories that exist inside you\u2026 [so] you actually hear what is being told to you.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/WDValgardson-CREDIT-Janis-\u00d3l\u00f6f-Magnusson.jpg\")
<\/a>