Head Trauma In The Military

For the last 15 years, we have been fighting a war on terror. America has deployed its service members time and time again to numerous locations and expects them to function normally after multiple combat rotations. Recent wars, more so than earlier wars have had a greater effect on the mental stability of the service men and women within Special Operations Forces (SOF). If United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) expects its people to charge head first into battle, it must make valiant efforts to take care of them. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) are the core diagnosis of routine deployments within combat theaters. Many of our special operation soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines complain of head trauma due to improvised explosive devices, certain weapons, or accidents. Since …show more content…
The Department of Defense has incorporated steps to remedy the issues of our force. The Regiment has embedded Behavioral Health at the Group level consisting of psychologists and psychiatrists, but is this repairing or concealing the real problem? The United States Army Special Operations Command (USASOC) has not done enough to counter the significant mental effects years of continuous combat has placed on our service members. Shell shock, battle fatigue, and gulf war syndrome are only some of the names associated with PTSD. The idea is not new that extreme amounts of trauma lead to mental disorders. In fact, this same disease during the Civil War was labeled by the American Doctor Jacob Mendez Da Costa as the “Da Costa’s Syndrome” (Iribarren et al. 2005, 503-512). The Anxiety and Depression As-sociation of America defines PTSD as “a serious potentially debilitating condition that can occur in people who have experienced or witnessed a natural disaster, serious accident, terrorist inci-dent, sudden death of a loved one, war, violent personal assault such as rape, or other life-threatening events" (Anxiety