Did you know mild to moderate brain injuries can cause anxiety, depression, headaches, and sleep and memory issues?

Thank you for the share

Great information!

I served with the 1/92 Field Artillery in Vietnam. The unit was in Vietnam from March 1967 until October 1971. During that period we fired 508,653 155mm howitzer rounds, with each muzzle blast causing an mTBI for the gun crew of 6, and for anyone who happened to be in the range of the blast wave. We fired single round H&I missions, and 4-8 round per minute fire missions in close support of ground actions. Often after intense fire missions the gun crews would stumble around the FB in a daze. We have observed the effects of repeated exposure to muzzle blasts in ourselves and our battery mates over the years - we have reunions every two years - and they are not comforting to witness. These effects of Post-Concussive Syndrome (PCS) will send many of us into Dementia and Alzheimer's before our time, and eventually into Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy - all of which are fatal. Blast overpressure injuries such as these need to be recognized as a battlefield injuries, treated as such and compensated. That this protocol is only available to post 9/11 active duty service members and veterans is an insult to all who have served before...and especially to our wives who have stood by us through all of our trials, and who will receive nothing when we die early from hidden wounds suffered during active duty. The reason recognition has been slow in coming is obvious to me - if the VA, the DOD and Congress recognized all of the troops injured in this manner they could no longer afford to operate - it would bankrupt the system as it is structured presently. This injury is the very description of WWI "shell shock", and battle fatigue from WWI, WWII and Korea, and those soldiers are being denied benefits and treatment just like me and my brothers from Vietnam because of the "post 9/11" appellation to the legislation.

Many of my brothers-in-arms are diagnosed with PTSD, yet the symptoms of PCS and PTSD overlap, and where they overlap the conditions are exacerbated. I was under a 175mm howitzer in a bunker the first night I was in my new unit and got thrown out of my bunk at 2 AM by two guns firing simultaneously, and likely suffered a mid-brain stroke at the time (there are no other explanations in my medical history for the damage that is displayed in my MRI). To handle this as an outpatient issue, and to refuse to recognize it as a battlefield injury is doing all of us a great disservice.

I have suffered through listening to the claims of brain injuries by highly paid sports stars and college athletes, and have been working with a former Marine and his family who is also caught up in the discriminatory language that excludes servicemen who served prior to 9/11 but are dying from brain tumors, just like one of my battalion brothers did last February just the same. The Marine's family has lost everything - house, car, jobs - and there is not much that can be done.

It is time to change this dynamic and recognize these injuries as the true cost of war, and own up to the responsibility of caring for the warriors. We served - now serve us!