Those hurt or disabled while serving the armed forces face new challenges after combat ends.
Not least of those is proving the injuries happened.
Many service members can’t or don’t document their troubles and what caused them, be it the firefight in
which they were shot or the equipment that accidentally fell and injured them. But a lack of proof,
while understandable considering the circumstances, often stuns vets for the second time when they’re
asked to provide it to support their medical claim.
That’s what prompted Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, to push a bill to better track the injuries of veterans,
as many as 300,000 of whom suffer from post traumatic stress. Another 25,000 troops face mild traumatic
brain injuries, according to Brown’s office.
With any injuries, veterans are required to provide written testimony from others who witnessed the
injury, supporting medical documentation, or military orders that support the claim.
That information can be difficult to piece together, particularly if health problems surface later in
life. And with post-traumatic stress and brain injury, there’s often no sign of a problem until much
later.
The Department of Defense records significant events for every military unit, but those events are not
currently transferred to the files of individual members of that unit.
The senator worked with Michael Fairman, an Ohio veteran, in developing the Significant Event Tracker
Act, which would allow service members to self-report injuries and the events that cause them.
Brown appeared in at the VFW in Northwood Wednesday with Fairman and Alexander Powell, a local veteran
and University of Toledo student who also spoke in support of the measure.
"When veterans seek claims for war-related injuries like post traumatic stress and traumatic brain
injury, the burden for establishing the connection should be on the Department of Defense, not on the
veteran," Brown said in a statement.