A military lab found distinctive damage from repeated blast exposure in every brain it tested, but Navy SEAL leaders were kept in the dark about the pattern.
  • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
    251·
    4 months ago

    I saw this article earlier.

    Regardless of politics (not sure it fits) and it’s subject matter (gut wrenching) it’s just incredibly well written.

    Maybe not the best reading before bed, but definitely deserves the 10-15 minutes to read it.

  • Maggoty@lemmy.world
    17·
    4 months ago

    Yup. The stuff that’s coming out is scary for anyone who was in Combat Arms for a long time. The thing is, you can look at the different sections of the military and see immediately where the brain damage occurs. Anyone adjacent to combat arms could have told you this decades ago. I didn’t mean that negatively. It’s apparent in the difference in culture, prevailing attitudes, and the soldiers around them continuously being quoted with stuff like, “there’s something crazy about those guys.”

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
      111·
      4 months ago

      Bro it’s not just combat…

      This is 100% engineers too.

      Like, if it was just symptoms I’d write it off as coincidence. But the method of damage they go into…

      It 100% is getting people outside of combat, if someone was having to wear hearing protection in their work space constantly, they were likely getting this damage, and it’s not showing up on brain scans or anywhere else.

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
        4·
        4 months ago

        Yeah Absolutely. I don’t know about heavy equipment operators. Like, I literally don’t know enough about what they do. But the sappers and route clearance teams that worked with us are exposed just as much. And training is as much of a problem as actual combat.

        • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
          91·
          4 months ago

          Yeah. I was an engine room, the entire time we were out to sea and working, it was insanely loud in addition to like 130F temps and damn close to 100% humidity.

          We knew it was bad for us, but no one thought about brain damage.

          But like, we had an E8 who had been in engine rooms forever. At the time we joked about him being old but he was early 40s max.

          Dude exhibited all the signs in the article, and so did anyone else who had a couple tours already.

          We just called it “salty” and choked it up to putting up with the Navy for so long.

          But with what this article is talking about…

          It’s just low grade brain damage, which fucking makes way too much sense now.

          Like how the old stereotype of football players being dumb and violent. With what we know now about CTE, those stereotypes are just making fun of brain damaged kids. This isn’t CTE, but it’s still brain damage that’s invisible on scans.