Five lessons from a Times investigation into exposure to artillery blasts

When U.S. military planners launched a ground offensive against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria in 2016, they knew that the American public was tired of the long wars in the Middle East, and that the operation would have to make do with very few U.S. troops on the border. the ground. So they relied on a strategy that had not been used much for decades: intensive bombardment by heavy artillery.

According to military guidelines, firing all those powerful artillery rounds was safe for the gun crews. But an investigation by The New York Times, including interviews with more than 40 armed crew veterans and their families, found that troops came home plagued by insomnia, confusion, memory loss, panic attacks, depression and, in some cases, hallucinations. among other symptoms. And because the military thought the shock waves were safe, it repeatedly failed to recognize what was happening to the troops.

Here are five takeaways from the Times investigation.

To defeat ISIS, the United States relied on artillery crews firing more intensively than ever before.

The big howitzers used at the height of the offensive against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, from 2016 to 2017, could hurl a 100-pounder around 24 miles, and gun crews fired them almost nonstop, day and night, for weeks.

The strategy worked as intended and the Islamic State was soon almost forgotten. But minimizing the number of U.S. troops involved required each gun crew to fire thousands of high-explosive shells—far more rounds than any U.S. gun crew had fired since the Vietnam War. Some troops fired more than 10,000 rounds in just a few months.

Many members of the gun crews developed devastating and puzzling symptoms.

Each howitzer blast unleashed a shock wave that shot through the bodies of the troops standing near the gun, shaking bones, striking lungs and hearts, and hurling at cruise missile speed through the most delicate organ of all: the brain.

Members of the gun crews began experiencing memory and balance problems, nausea, irritability and crushing fatigue. Those symptoms were signs of a concussion, but also what someone might feel after 20 hours of working in the desert and sleeping in foxholes. Crews trained to endure did not complain.

The crews were screened for signs of brain damage after deployment, but those screenings were intended to detect the effects of much larger explosions from enemy attacks – not repeated exposure to shock waves from routine weapons firing. Very few troops screened positive.

Crew members who were told they were healthy had difficulty understanding why panic and insomnia haunted them. Some thought they were going crazy.

When the troops started behaving strangely, they were often treated ineffectively or punished.

Nothing in the crew members’ records indicated that they had ever been exposed to damaging blasts in combat, so when some sought medical help from the military, doctors repeatedly failed to consider the possibility of brain damage.

Instead, troops were often told they had attention deficit disorder, depression or post-traumatic stress disorder. Many were given powerful psychotropic medications that made functioning difficult and did not provide much relief.

When job performance deteriorated or behavior became erratic, many crew members were seen not as injured, but as problems. They were passed over for promotion or punished for misconduct. Some were forced out of the service with punitive discharges and cut off from veterans’ health care.

Their problems have spilled over into civilian life, destroying marriages and making it difficult to keep jobs. Some are now homeless. A striking number have died by suicide. Many still have no idea that their problems can stem from exposure to explosions.

Studies are beginning to reveal the risk of explosion exposure, but progress has been slow.

Research shows that repeated exposure to the blast waves generated by firing heavy weapons such as cannons, mortars, shoulder-fired rockets and even large-caliber machine guns can cause irreversible microscopic damage to the brain. Large numbers of military veterans may have been affected.

But the damage is virtually impossible to document because no brain scan or blood test now in use can detect such small injuries in a living brain. Complicating the diagnosis, many of the symptoms can be identical to those of PTSD

As things stand, the microscopic damage from blast exposure can only be definitively documented by examining thin slices of brain tissue under a microscope after a person has died. Tissue samples taken from hundreds of deceased veterans exposed to blasts during their military careers reveal a unique and unique picture consistent pattern of microscopic scars.

The military says it now has security measures in place to protect against blasts, but it is not clear that much has changed.

Congress, at the urging of veterans groups, recently directed the Pentagon to begin assessing the explosion threat posed by weapons firing and developing protocols to protect troops. But the work is still in progress. Fundamental questions about what level of blast can cause injury and how repeated exposure can increase risk remain unanswered.

The Army and Marine Corps both say they now have programs to monitor and limit troops’ daily exposure. But Marines in the field say they haven’t seen the new safety programs, and troops across the military are still training with weapons that the Defense Department says could pose a risk.