Posted on Jul 3, 2025
Don’t keep that near-miss – or repeated - blast off your medical record
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Have you ever been on a patrol where you took mortar or RPG fire, or maybe an IED-blast – but no shrapnel – and just continued mission like it was another day on the job?
What about time spent at the range or a shoot house with lots of high caliber rounds or other explosives detonating near you?
I did all of the above… and my first thoughts were, “it’s not that big of a deal. I don’t want to see the medics and leave my guys behind.” I never gave a second thought to go get these things noted in my medical record.
Pride and inexperience can be a dangerous thing for “future you.”
It turns out that our brains don’t forget as many things as we seem to [citation: https://rly.pt/ScienceDirect].
I’ve been out of the military for a while now and I deal with sleep and other issues that may have come from these past incidents.
If this sounds similar to your experiences, some other symptoms you may want to look for include unexplained vision, balance, hearing, headaches, memory issues, emotional challenges, or incidents losing your temper with your team, family, or friends.
If you are still actively serving in the military, make sure you raise your concerns to your doctor and mention the concussive events so they are documented in your medical records. If you don’t want to bring it up now because you are not sure if you really have these symptoms and don’t want it to keep you from your next promotion, I get it. Just make sure you have these issues documented the moment you drop your papers to end your military service.
That single piece of documentation – made while you are still serving – will be key for the VA to determine benefits and treatment available to you later in life.
If you, like me, are already out of service, and you didn’t have anything documented and are looking for a path forward, then go talk to your doctor. If your doc is not at the VA, consider getting VA care as their docs see a lot more brain trauma patients than most of their civilian counterparts: https://rly.pt/VAapply.
Also, for many reasons (see my last post here: https://rly.pt/ReactToContact), stay in touch with those who served with you. It can be their eyewitness accounts of things you experienced together that can help you if you don’t have the things I mentioned above documented to get the benefits you have earned.
What about time spent at the range or a shoot house with lots of high caliber rounds or other explosives detonating near you?
I did all of the above… and my first thoughts were, “it’s not that big of a deal. I don’t want to see the medics and leave my guys behind.” I never gave a second thought to go get these things noted in my medical record.
Pride and inexperience can be a dangerous thing for “future you.”
It turns out that our brains don’t forget as many things as we seem to [citation: https://rly.pt/ScienceDirect].
I’ve been out of the military for a while now and I deal with sleep and other issues that may have come from these past incidents.
If this sounds similar to your experiences, some other symptoms you may want to look for include unexplained vision, balance, hearing, headaches, memory issues, emotional challenges, or incidents losing your temper with your team, family, or friends.
If you are still actively serving in the military, make sure you raise your concerns to your doctor and mention the concussive events so they are documented in your medical records. If you don’t want to bring it up now because you are not sure if you really have these symptoms and don’t want it to keep you from your next promotion, I get it. Just make sure you have these issues documented the moment you drop your papers to end your military service.
That single piece of documentation – made while you are still serving – will be key for the VA to determine benefits and treatment available to you later in life.
If you, like me, are already out of service, and you didn’t have anything documented and are looking for a path forward, then go talk to your doctor. If your doc is not at the VA, consider getting VA care as their docs see a lot more brain trauma patients than most of their civilian counterparts: https://rly.pt/VAapply.
Also, for many reasons (see my last post here: https://rly.pt/ReactToContact), stay in touch with those who served with you. It can be their eyewitness accounts of things you experienced together that can help you if you don’t have the things I mentioned above documented to get the benefits you have earned.
Posted in these groups: 
Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)
TBI
Medal of Honor
DisabilityMedically Unexplained Symptoms (MUS)
Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) TBI Medal of Honor DisabilityMedically Unexplained Symptoms (MUS)
Posted 6 mo ago
Responses: 52
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Don’t believe it, I have a documented head injury and the VA has refused to allow me service connection saying it is 50/50 liklihood of service connection and I took it all the way to the judge; I have major depression, tinnitus, sleep apnea and hearing loss and even though the head injury is stated in my discharge document it is less likely service connected because I never sought treatment until I got hooked up with the VA and they only see me cause my private insurance reimburses them.
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That so true I was an older Soldier stationed at Fort Hood and was bounced around pretty hard was riding a five-ton semi during training and reported the head injury. When I retired many years later it was documented in my records. In the end after 22 years of service I ended up with 80% disability. Remember to report everything.
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Unconscious 5 times. Medical records were lost and no docs. VA not allowing TBI. Been taking meclizine since I retired in 97.
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When I was in the Marine Corps I got dropped on my head. At 6’6”, it was quite a drop. I walked out of my barracks room into one of our memorable hallway wrestling events. Normally I would have joined it but I had stuff to do. Unfortunately, the guy on the bottom of the stack wanted out so he grabbed the first thing he could grab, which was my feet. He grabbed and yanked. I fell straight back on my head bounced a couple times… I think. Not real sure as my recollection from then on wasn’t. There were other bonks to the noggin, some pretty severe but those weren’t recorded. The one from the barracks was the one that was recorded. I was going through my records from back then and found a paper from the local hospital indicating I had a “head injury”. Cool. At some point, post-retirement, I started having really bad issues with migraines, severe memory issues and nightmares. I talked it over with my VA PCM who asked if I had any head injuries. I told her about the non documented hits but I forgot about the barracks injury. Then, once again, I was going through my records and I found the discharge form from the hospital. I took it straight away to a nurse call and got it added to my record. They had me tested in less than three months. Their testing confirmed my symptoms. As an aside, I take multiple prescriptions daily. It’s a bitch remembering them. I talked that over with the PCM, who sent me to occupational therapy. They reviewed my history and determined I needed a memory aid. That’s when they issued my first cell phone. It was an early I-phone in which I used to record everything I needed to do every day and all appointments. Since then I’ve been issued phones whenever my current one dies. I average 4-6 years with each phone.
If you have memory issues, migraines and/or nightmares, get help. Don’t pass go, do not collect $200.00. Go to the nearest VA and go through the wickets. Having my phone has been a life savior. I rarely miss appointments or miss medicine times and I keep in touch with my PCM team.
Do give up, get the help you earned.
If you have memory issues, migraines and/or nightmares, get help. Don’t pass go, do not collect $200.00. Go to the nearest VA and go through the wickets. Having my phone has been a life savior. I rarely miss appointments or miss medicine times and I keep in touch with my PCM team.
Do give up, get the help you earned.
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I can only concur based on my own experience that everythig SSG Romesha says here is absolutely valid, and very important if it applies to you. This is a great and very important and useful post- thank you so much SSG Clint Romesha, both for this and your service to our country, and to your brothers and sisters here on RP! Documentation, as always in the military, is especially important here.
-Ed
-Ed
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Make a full copy of your medical records as well. The VA will purge information from your file if not careful.
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I bring this up during my VA appointments and it is like deer in the headlights. They are not well informed about this from what I have seen so far. Who feeds them this information?
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So question when will the military finally get off there ass and put the Purple heart they should have award for those before 08. To those who have tbi and was exposed to multiple IEDs...
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Hit my head numerous time s on the leading edge of my plane while doing work
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I went through the TBI clinic, was having daily migraines, couldn't sleep, etc. Was told I had 20+ brain bleeds, but they were only going to call it migraines because I was "still too high functioning." I was eidetic begore the injury. Got 10%. It was moved up to 30% for migraines last year, and I got 100% cummalatively from a host of problems. Was never able to redo the TBI clinic for the comp exam because Optum kept scheduling during the time I told them I was unavailable in another state. I still deal with stroke-like symptoms and aphasia, but at least I'm independent again for the most part. My rep told me not to re-file since I got the 100 anyways. I definitely should have had the TBI diagnosis back in 09 when I was medically retired.
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