Hearing Loss – The Growing and Costly Military Problem

Marine Lance Cpl. David Goldich was operating the gun turret on top of a Humvee when a roadside bomb, rigged with a 155 mm artillery shell, detonated beside him.

“It knocked out our vehicle commander, blew out fuel tank, shredded our tire,” Goldich recalled about the summer night in 2006 outside of Fallujah, Iraq. The explosion caused physical damage to the serviceman, too; it punctured Goldich’s right eardrum.

Goldich had chosen not to wear personal ear protection because, like many others in the service who also choose not to wear ear protection on patrol, he feared it would reduce “situational awareness” and negatively affect his ability to hear distant gunfire, determine the direction from which it came and even recognize the type of weapon being used.

“We were all given ear protection when we deployed. We were made aware that this is what we should be doing,” Goldich said. “But the reality of the situation, in the summer of 2006 in Anbar Province, was no one gave a damn about hearing protection.”

Goldich doubts the military-issued earplugs would have saved his hearing because he was too close to the explosion that night in 2006. Goldich is one of many servicemen and servicewomen suffering from combat-related hearing loss or damage and most hearing experts attests that not enough is done to protect military members from harmful noise levels caused by weapons or extreme decibel levels encountered in routine training in military engine rooms, flight lines and firing ranges.

Veterans suffering from tinnitus, the condition commonly described as a “ringing” in the ear, increased by 92,300 in 2010. Tinnitus has become the most prevalent military-related disability followed by hearing loss, which affects 672,000 veterans. Tinnitus is also a very costly condition as 745,000 veterans are being compensated for the condition.

For more on the growing cost of hearing loss in the military, read the original Gazette article here: http://bit.ly/rpVsgr.