Source: military.com | Repost Duerson Fund 11/28/2022 –
It was 2009 at the Pentagon, and a group of military doctors and civilian experts was having a fight in front of two of the top generals in the U.S. military.
Gathered in a conference room at the Pentagon, the civilian doctors were insisting that the traumatic brain injuries service members were suffering were far more serious than the military realized.
The military doctors wanted more evidence that the brain injuries, which were starting to mount as deployed troops were facing the near-constant threat of roadside bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan, were going to have the long-lasting effects the civilians predicted.
“The two groups had a frickin’ food fight in front of [Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Jim] Amos and I, and we got up and said, ‘We’re out of here, this is ridiculous,'” then-Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Chiarelli recalled in a recent interview with Military.com. “We knew we had a problem.”
It was “three hours of hell,” Chiarelli recalled. “Military doctors were basically poo-pooing traumatic brain injury, and the civilian experts were saying, ‘Wait a second, you guys are way behind here.'”