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Is it TBI or PTSD?
MINNEAPOLIS, MINN.— Fully one-third of military personnel who have rotated through Afghanistan and Iraq may have traumatic brain injuries (TBI), for many unknown to them or their doctors. A large percentage of the troops who develop what is thought to be post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which is 18-20% of 1.4 million troops, may actually have TBIs. Dr. Ronald J. Glasser, former Army doctor, and the author of Wounded: Vietnam to Iraq says that it is difficult to determine which it is, since the symptoms can overlap and aren’t always immediately evident. (40-50% of PTSD becomes evident 4-6 months after discharge.) The symptoms may result in losing their job, yelling at their kids, or getting startled and ending up in a car accident. Another problem arises for National Guard members and reservists. The active military go to a base after discharge, where they can be observed. But, the National Guard and reservists get off the plane and they go home. Then for many, the symptoms start to show. Dr. Ronald J. Glasser reveals the new medical realities of this war. He conducted an unflinching investigation into this war's medical situation, in his book, Wounded: Vietnam to Iraq. Dr. Glasser is speaking at venues across the country, including at the 10th Annual Force Health Protection conference in August 2007 put on by the Deployment Health Clinical Center of Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Media Experience Dr. Glasser has appeared on The Today Show, CNN, MPR, and PBS. His articles have appeared in The Washington Post, Harper's Magazine, the Atlantic Monthly, the Washington Monthly, and Law & Politics. His books include 365 Days (a pivotal book on the Vietnam War)—nominated for the National Book Award and translated into nine languages, the best-selling Ward 402, and The Body is the Hero, Another War/Another Peace, The Greatest Battle, and The Light in the Skull. -30-
Wounded: Vietnam to Iraq
365 Days “The stories I have tried to tell here are true,” says Glasser in his preface. “Those that happened in Japan I was part of; the rest are from the boys I met. I would have liked to have disbelieved some of them, and at first I did, but I was there long enough to hear the same stories again and again, and then to see part of it myself.” Assigned to Zama, an Army hospital in Japan, Glasser arrived there in September 1968 as a pediatrician in the U.S. Army Medical Corps, primarily to care for the children of officers and high-ranking government officials. But with an average of six to eight thousand wounded per month, Glasser, along with all other available physicians, was called on to treat the soldiers. The death and suffering he witnessed were staggering. The soldiers counted their days by the length of their tour—one year, or 365 days—and they knew, down to the day, how much time they had left. Glasser tells their stories—their lives shockingly interrupted by the tragedies of war—with humane eloquence.
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