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The Hidden Brain Trauma Affecting Military Service Members | Bruce Parkman · Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman

• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Hey folks, Bruce Parkman here with another edition of Broken Brains, the official podcast of the Mac Parkman Foundation, where we look at two issues: repetitive ed impacts from contact sports, and repetitive blast exposure for our military veterans.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: And we call them repetitive brain trauma.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: And we look at what repetitive brain trauma is doing to the mental health, the futures, and the well-being of our servicemen, our kids, and our athletes.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Why is this important?
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the connection between repetitive brain trauma, damage to the brain, and mental illness is not taught in any medical, nursing, or psychological course in this country, which means the people that we entrust ourselves and our children to are not capable of making the right diagnosis and decisions.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: And this ends up being the largest preventable cause of mental illness and incarceration in our children, adult, and veteran populations.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: So it's very, very important that we start to understand this and be able to spread the word because it is preventable, and we can address this through better policy and through better decision making by informed persons just like you.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: Today I want to talk about an article that just came out in the New York Times about the Coast Guard, talking about the uh the issue of repetitive ed impacts that the Coast Guard, uh that Coast Guard service members take when they are in the boats that they that they serve in.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the connection between repetitive ed impacts and serving on a boat is just starting to be understood.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: This is not something that we really really have known.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: Okay and it's something that has just recently come to light.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: As a matter of fact, until last year at our summit, uh Dr.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: Daniel Pearl, who runs the military brain bank under uh the United States Health Services Academy, uh was uh, you know, unfortunately, when I say excited, you know, he was he was excited to show what they had found because this had never been seen before.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: And he sat there and he threw a scan up on the uh a brain, brain, two brain scans up on the wall.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: One was a normal brain, and the other one was a brain of a a SWIC boat operator.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh now the SWIC boat operators special warfare crewmen.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: There's actually another C there.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what it means.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: I can't remember right now.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um are the sailors that run the fast boats for the Navy SEALs.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: And what he showed us was the worst case of CTE that basically had ever been diagnosed.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like probably worse than Aaron Hernandez.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: And we are sitting there flabbergasted going, they run a boat.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: Well, think about it.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm a boat captain, all right?
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: When I go out, there is no white caps.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I might go out in two foot seas and maybe I'll go out to the sandbar or something, man.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: These guys drive these boats.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now, both the SWIC guys and the Coast Guard.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, Coast Guards, those are those are water, water folks.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know if you know this, but the Coast Guard's actually a law enforcement agency.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: They're not a branch of the military.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: They fall in the defense, Department of Homeland Security.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: And they do an amazing job.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: But both these components of the of the military and DHS are exposed to unbelievable amounts of repetitive head impacts.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like they get hit over and over again.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: Just think of how many waves that you hit when you got to drive a boat for eight hours, four hours, six hours, all right?
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: Bam, bam, bam, bam.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: You're talking a hundred to maybe more hits a minute.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: These crew members take millions of hits in their lifetime.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: They they surpass any known amount of exposure that we have ever seen.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: I've had these guys on um on our podcast before.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: I've had a couple of podcasts uh with them.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: Just go look them up.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: What they do is amazing.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: And Dr.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: Pearl also pulled up a video where these guys are on this boat, and all of a sudden, this guy they hit a wave so hard, you saw this guy's head jerk, and all you could hear him go, he crouched down and he goes, ah.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: That was his brain.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: Now think of what you know these service members do.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, you're in a boat.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: These fast boats can go like 70 miles an hour, and they don't play around.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: When you're a Navy SEAL or you're a Coast Guard and you've got to be on target, right?
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: You got to be at this point in the ocean or on land in a certain amount of time.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: Sea State doesn't matter.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: You got to be there.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: And guess, you know, guess how much control the Navy and Coast Guard have over the weather?
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: None.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: Only God controls that.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: So they have no choice.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: When they've got a tea time, a target time, they got to be there.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: They're gonna get there.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: And what it takes to get there to that target time, or say you've got a capsized boat out in the middle of a bay, out in the ocean, and you got to get help.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I know guys that take 20-foot boats out 30, 40 miles.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: I got almost a 40-foot boat.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: I don't like to do that.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, I don't like to fish because my boat gets dirty.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: But, anyways, these folks do it.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: And the Coast Guard needs to get out there and get on time.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so this, you know, when we look at this, this is a huge, huge cause of damage to the brain of the members of our military and DHS because they're strapped in.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: When you're driving these boats, you can't walk around.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: These boats are metal.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: If you've ever been on a ship, and I've been on a couple of them, and you're you know doing searches or you're walking around, you crack your knee, you crack your bones, and you are paying a price.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: That metal don't move.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: Now imagine yourself strapped into a boat with a massive amount of horsepower, and you are smacking these waves.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: Every time that you hit a wave, we'll say that's one tackle on the line.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's one hit in practice.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: In literally two minutes, they are taking more hits than any NFL guy has ever taken in one round of practice at all.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: So now you take that job and you multiply it by years of service.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: Or you take these special warfare crewmen and our Coast Guard guys, and we put them in, you know, combat.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: Where now you don't have control over not only when you have to be on target, the number of times you have to be on target.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: Because we have a job to do.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: Those special boat operators need to get those Navy SEALs on target.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: Our Coast Guard personnel have to get to that vessel and save those lives.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so they're moving.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: And they don't care what's in their way, the amount of sea state, the amount of I mean, the Coast Guard's actually got boats that roll over.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I've watched this out in Astoria, Portland, Oregon, uh, or Astoria, which is a town outside Portland, Oregon, where they train.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: And they will literally take these boats into massive waves and they will flip those boats over.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: They will get rolled over by the waves and they'll pop back up.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine that?
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's your job, you know.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so we are now understanding that these service members from both uh components have undergone one of the most incredible rates of exposure to repetitive ed impacts that we have ever seen.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: Now, last week an article was published by Dave Phillips, uh, who we know in the New York Times, covering down on this issue, much like he has covered down on repetitive blast exposure from artillery.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: And uh he did an amazing article on the Marines.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: He's uh done a lot of articles about special operations and and um and on and unfortunately as these occupations that you know are more exposed to the issue of repetitive blast exposure, or in this case, repetitive ed impacts.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it was just something that I don't think a lot of people looked at with the Coast Guard.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: But when you look at a lot of the Coast Guard boats, they're much smaller boats.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like you're in a in a cruiser, like a destroyer.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: The Coast Guard does have some big boats, but the large majority of Coast Guard boats are smaller vessels, you know, 40 feet and below.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: And they're used to do amazing things.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: And unfortunately, the smaller the boat, the more impactful the hits are because the the force is transferred uh into the boat from the wave more effectively.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of having this big behemoth that's crushing the waves, the waves are hitting the boat.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: And if you've ever been on a boat at high speed, you know, you can feel those, you can feel those waves.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, even a six-inch, you know, one foot state, you will know about it.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: When you start doing 20 knots, 20 miles, 30 miles an hour, you're gonna back off that throttle real fast.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: But these folks don't get that chance.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: They've got to do their job.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when we look at you know this issue, we also must understand that it is just coming to light.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: For whatever reason, good or bad, and I will say bad, because you know, we maybe shoulda, coulda, woulda, but we have been so focused on fighting wars and winning them, we never took a look at what it took to win them.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: And what it takes to win a war is a lot of training and a lot of war.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: And unfortunately, in both those instances, or in the Coast Guard, a lot of training and a lot of practice.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we've got millions of recreational craft in this country.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's not even talking about the commercial craft.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: Then a lot of the times when our Coast Guard needs to board vessels with arms in order to take the darn things over and you know, because they're violating, you know, laws and sanctions, treaties, whatever.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know if you know this, but Coast Guardmen are deployed around the world.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they not just protect this country, they protect the world.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: But we are just starting to understand what this is doing to our troops.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: And we are now seeing, you know, movement.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: We are seeing the military take this seriously.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, just uh I think uh last month, a contract was awarded to a company uh to conduct millions of scans of Department of War personnel for the first time ever.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: One contractor, not multiple contractors, is going to be using an amazing technology, it's called Cognitron, to go ahead and scan like all the soldiers' Department of War because we finally have a technology.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: There was a test, they kicked it.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: And but we're seeing these kinds of efforts being made.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we have the Blast Reduction Act, you know, we have more legislative mandates to address this than any country in the world.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: Now, how fast are we moving?
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: Well, some would say probably not fast enough.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I think, you know, Mr.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: Phillips, that's the point of his article that, hey, you know, we've got a problem here.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, at the same time, I will tell you that the military is on this and wants to do the best they can.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like all bureaucracies in large organizations, they are hampered by the amount of time it takes.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: But honestly, they're moving faster than our civilian population, who still refuses to accept the fact that contact sports is the largest preventable cause of mental illness and incarceration in our child and athletic communities.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: So even though the military, you know, is a little bit behind in understanding this issue, you know, because some, you know, folks will say, and I'll say, and I've said is like we know that blast, you know, we know that repetitive impacts has been around at least since CTE was diagnosed in 2009.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: For some reason, we never correlated blast exposure with damage to the brain.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's an oversight.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: You know, can we point fingers all day long and do something?
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, can we do it?
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, we can point fingers all we want.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: But I talk to military leaders all the time.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I've talked to Coast Guard leaderships all the time.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, not all the time.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: I've talked to Coast Guard leadership very, very recently, and they are on this.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that it's gonna take, you know, a change.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, it's not even gonna change.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna take courage to do the right thing.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I do hope, and I and I do think that the Coast Guard and the Navy, or the you know, special operations, I do know, because I've talked to both of them, that they have the courage to do something about this.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's what it's gonna take.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because right now, our Coast Guard and our special boat operators are the best people at their jobs in the world.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: Or none.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody does both, you know, what they do better in the world.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: And that takes a level of training and it takes a little level of experience that unfortunately has led to damaging the brains of some of these amazing service members.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: Now, how do we sustain that lethality, that uh expertise in times of war?
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: It means that you're not gonna be a special boat operator your whole life.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, your whole military career can't happen.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna get hurt.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: Or we're gonna train a lot less.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm sorry, boat simulators and driving a boat in bad weather and high seas, you can't replicate that, man.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: You can't, just like an airplane simulator.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: There is no way you can simulate driving a boat at night with nods in high seas and can't do it.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: But we can control how long you do.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: And we can now monitor your brain to see when it's starting to be degraded so that you can stop.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: So this means that our military or law enforcement agencies are going to have to look at, hey, how long can you be a cool guy and then not be a cool guy?
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: With the technologies that are out there now, we can actually identify when that brain's starting to be damaged and then when it's recovered enough to go back to the job.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: That means if you go to the schoolhouse, you're on the podium, you're not in the boat, right?
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: And we have to understand that these lifestyles, the long-term exposure of our special boat operators and our Coast Guardsmen uh to these or Coast Guards peoples, uh I don't know, Coast Guardsmen, that to these, to this, uh, to this to these conditions, you know, is going to have to change how we man the force, how we sustain the force, how we train the force, and then after, how we treat the force.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what's exciting about this is that the concerns are at a point now where these institutions want to start identifying the status of brains early enough so that they can start optimizing them through their not only the service, but that get them prepared for post-service life.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: Just think about it.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: When we started this foundation, we're all we were pretty pissed off, right?
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: I I have a dead son, okay?
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: I have a dead son because the knowledge that a lot of scientists, researchers, and neurologists had has never made it to the parents, made bad decisions, allowed my son to play sports, shouldn't have played them all, didn't know what mental illness looked like, you know, dead kid, sad dad.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, sucks.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: But as I have grown and as I have learned that when we start really dealing with this, dialing into the issue, which is total aggregate exposure, we lower that, we monitor the brain, we treat the brain, we're optimizing the brain.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: That means we get better boat operators.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: That means we get better Coast Guardsmen.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because we are managing the impact of the job on their brains, and we're allowing their brains to recover.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: And their brains, when they get older and they're more senior, are not as impacted.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: They're making better decisions.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: They have a better quality of life.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: They're more mindful.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: They have far better mental health.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and these are all positive outcomes that are going to take place.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: They're going to take in place now.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: And as I said, they're moving faster.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: The military and Coast Guard are moving faster than the entire civilian community with all its knowledge, with all its technology, without the ability to sustain a lethal force and train, they are still moving faster.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: And this will get done.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: You know, as a Green Beret, you know, we look at other servants, you know, we look at Navy SEALs and, you know, you know, Rangers and Delta and all these guys, you know, we all look at how manly everybody is, right?
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: Or how, you know, how badass people are.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we never look at the people that support us, you know, unfortunately.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we always kind of look down on our support guys.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when I was a sergeant major, I was the guy that knew the support guys really well because they had all the beans and bullets, and I wanted the most beans and bullets from my guys.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I was kind of unique.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: I I just I love my support guys, man.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, they, you know, there's good people, man, doing their job, right?
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: But it was amazing when Dr.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: Pearl showed up last year that I had never, and not just me, everybody's like, I never thought about the boat operators, man.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then when you start dialing it, you're like, holy cow, I never want to do that, I never want to do that job.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: These guys are badass, man.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm a boat dude.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: And then to take that to the Coast Guard, when we think of the Coast Guard, you know, we think of, you know, they're rescuing a boat, you know, I know we we don't think of these things.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: And not only do we not think of it, but so for some reason, we have not made the connection between these occupations, these amazing law enforcement and military organizations, and what their people have to do.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: But guess what?
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: We've made that connection now.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: And Dave Phillips' article has helped address that and publicize that.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not a bad thing at all.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so the beautiful thing about all of this, you know, despite the tragedies, don't get me wrong, man, we have to reach out.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we have a mission now, and that's part of our mission, is we have to go find, you know, those special boat operators.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: We got to go find those Coast Guard guys.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe we got to go find a bunch of fishing boat captains out there that might be suffering mental health because they've been hitting them waves too, right?
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: And we have to talk to them, we have to find them because now we can diagnose, we can validate, and we have treatment programs out there that we can help them find support and get funding to go through.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: So we have a mission on our side as well.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, not just the persons that are serving active duty.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: We've got a host of folks out here that for some reason, because they weren't special operations or heck artillery or mortarmen, you know, we're just starting to understand how many military occupational specialties are absolutely possible.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Heart of this problem.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: We have to find these kids and we have to let them know that, hey, you know, you are not crazy.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: You have a brain injury, and we can help you.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: But the beautiful thing about this, to get back to my point, is that change is coming.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: That we are now addressing this for the first time ever.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I am hopeful that the military will resource it.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: I am hopeful that our leaders will have the courage to say, you know what?
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: We need to change how we how we staff and sustain these occupations.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: We have to change the way that we train.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: Because training, just like practicing contact sports, is the largest contributor to this problem in the military side.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: On the Coast Guard side, they do a lot of training, but they also are on duty doing this all the time.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: They can't control that.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: Can't control the dumbass that wants to take his skiff out 30 miles and catch a big fish and don't have radio, whatever their problems are, right?
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: Both of them are, you know, extremely busy.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: But I am confident that change is coming.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I am hopeful that change is coming.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I am not as hopeful, but I still am hopeful that Congress, our political leadership, will understand that now that we've made the connection, it's too late for a lot of men and women that are no longer here.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: That we need to go back and find those folks.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a whole nother topic that we can talk on another time.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: But we need we got we we've got a big bill to pay, and we've got millions of veterans out here that still have to be assessed.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: So this goes both ways.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I am hopeful that with the change that's coming and the Coast Guard and Special Operations on this issue, that that will stimulate the conversation about our military veteran population.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because our suicide problem has a lot to do with this very issue.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's all one big circle.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I am very, very thankful that Dave Phillips wrote that article, man.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, he's always he's all about this issue of repetitive brain trauma.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: And um and I and I will I will push back a little bit on you know the military's, you know, you know, not understanding this or recognizing it.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: And and I and I do feel that it was something that maybe as it was known, because we had no idea in my day.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, of course, we never trained like they, you know, like they do now.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: We never had wars going on like they do now when I retired um early 01.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, you know, I and it maybe, you know, the car the correlation might have been understood a little while ago.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: But it I don't think, you know, in the heat of those wars, 2010, 2012, 2013, you know, everybody was focused on TBIs because that's what was happening.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: IEDs, bombs, rockets.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody was focused on, well, how often is this taken?
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: And how many times have you pulled the that, you know, the the the the trigger on that big tank, right?
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: How many how many rounds have you shot?
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: How many AT-4s have you shot?
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I wouldn't say until like 2014-2015 that we started to become aware that, ooh, we got a problem.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where you started seeing some of those blast conferences.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I will say that I am not satisfied with the level of change or movement that's happened.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: We still we're just getting to the point where we have blast exposures now fielded, so that's good.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so you know, that was a dramatic shift that we now recognize, and we're monitoring this just like radiological exposure.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: And that'll be part of our soldiers' veterans of their military records.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so the military is moving.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: And like I said, they're moving faster than anybody on this planet right now.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, our American military is taking this by the throat and is doing the best they can as a huge bureaucracy with you know all these acquisition timelines and pain.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you just cannot write a check in the military and say, I want this done, no matter how bad you want to, you know.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: So they're moving.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: And that's more than I can say for anybody in the civilian space, because we're not.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I am absolutely disgusted at the lack of knowledge that we have about the same issue.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like we have more knowledge and less awareness on the same issue across this country.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: And that is going to change.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: And that is why this podcast exists in order to help push that along.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: And you're all part of that journey.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to thank Dave Phillips for writing that article and bringing this out.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: I want to thank the Coast Guard leadership that I have talked to personally that has said they're on this, and I believe that.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to thank the innovators that are out there that are, that are creating technologies to address this issue and are fighting through enormous amounts of bureaucracy and politics to get these life-saving technologies to market because they are coming, and nobody is going to stop this.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: So now you're aware of a whole different perspective on this.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, who'd have thought boats, right?
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: The boats and damaged brains, oh my lord.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: But it's good to see that change is coming.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the Coast Guard is already talking about a brain optimization program for its service people.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: That would be amazing.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: Because just think, just like if we had a brain optimization program that could scale for our population, you know, just think if you got a brain check, every time you went into the doctor, once a year they checked your brain.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, it's a little off.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: I wonder why.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: Now we got a problem.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of waiting until we're sucking our thumbs, you know, this is gonna happen.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, let's hope they keep moving.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: Hope they keep moving forward.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and I'll I will support them all that I can.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyways, thank you.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: Till the next time on Broken Brains with your host, Bruce Parkman, the official podcast of the Mac Parkman Foundation.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate you.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: If you like this show, and I hope you do, please subscribe.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: You know, recommend this to all your partners.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: We are the fastest growing brain podcast on the internet right now, especially about this subject.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: We're the only ones talking about it.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, send that around to your friends.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: If you have any ideas for topics you want to recommend books, authors, researchers, scientists, folks you know, please, please send those in.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: We love to answer your questions.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: If you need help, please reach out and we'll take care of it.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: We've got a national network of providers and just people all in the brain space that we can absolutely send you to.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you so much for supporting our show.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: We really appreciate it.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: And uh keep those questions coming.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: And remember, you only got one melon.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: Take care of it.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: Till the next episode.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Bruce Parkman, and we are the Mac Parkman Foundation.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: We'll see you then.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: Take care and God bless.