- Top Features:
- War Room
- Glenn Greenwald
- Broadsheet
- Joan Walsh
- Camille Paglia
- Since You Asked
- Follow Salon:
Read other letters about this article
The sad fact is that many of the mental problems seen in returning soliders, sailors, marines and airmen are due to traumatic brain injury. TBI rates have been higher during Iraqi Freedom than any other U.S. combat mission, mainly due to the higher survival rate of previously fatal injuries -- a rate helped by new helmet materials and designs. Unfortunately, when the Pentagon decided to replace the PASGT "Fritz" helmets with lighter, stronger designs (namely, the Army Combat Helmet and the Marine Lightweight Helmet) the decision was made to save $3 per helmet and omit the foam padding found in the prototypes, in favor of a web suspension system that has been in use, in one form or another, since 1942. Though the new helmets are much more effective at preventing penetration by shrapnel and small-arms fire, their lower mass means that more force is imparted directly upon the wearer's skull and brain, force which was designed to be absorbed by the now-omitted foam.
That $3 savings is not only costing the Pentagon millions in training and retaining additional uniformed mental health professionals, but it has exacted an unfathomable toll on the lives of thousands of otherwise-healthy young men and women whose lives, and the lives of their families, will never be the same again.
