Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman
Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman is presented by The Mac Parkman Foundation
The mission of this show and the foundation is To serve as a source of information, resources, and communications to the community of parents, coaches/Athletic trainers, medical staff, and athletes that are affected by sports-related concussions and to raise awareness of the long-term implications of concussive and sub-concussive trauma to our children.
Broken Brains will also explore how Concussive Trauma impacts our Service Members and Veterans.
Join us every week as Bruce interviews leaders and experts in various Medical fields, as well as survivors of Concussive trauma.
Produced by Security Halt Media
Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman
Todd Strader: The Silent Toll of Blast Exposure in the Military
In this compelling episode of Broken Brains, host Bruce Parkman sits down with U.S. Army veteran and C3M policy advocate Todd Strader to confront one of the military’s most urgent and overlooked crises: repetitive brain trauma from blast overpressure.
Strader shares his personal journey—from enduring chronic headaches and memory issues to becoming a leading voice in the push for blast injury recognition and legislative reform. The discussion explores the hidden costs of training and combat-related blast exposure, and how this silent epidemic has gone unaddressed for far too long.
Together, they break down the Over Pressure Warfighters Act of 2025, the importance of wearable blast dosimeters, and how current legislation like the PACT Act could be expanded to provide real solutions for veterans. Strader outlines innovative proposals for protective gear, smarter training protocols, and the pressing need for government accountability and funding.
This episode is a call to action—for policymakers, service members, and the public—to recognize and treat the neurological injuries many warriors carry home.
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Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman is sponsored by The Mac Parkman Foundation
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Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Repetitive Brain Trauma
03:03 Todd Strader's Military Experience and Awareness
05:48 The Impact of Blast Exposure on Health
08:54 Creating Awareness and Community Support
12:03 Legislative Efforts and the Over Pressure Warfighters Act
15:12 Understanding Mortar Exposure and Its Effects
17:50 Mental Health Challenges Among Veterans
20:56 The Need for Better Treatment Options
23:56 Conclusion and Future Directions
29:40 Legislative Gaps and Accountability in Military Health
32:58 Innovative Solutions for Blast Overpressure Exposure
36:28 Funding and Legislative Support for Veterans
39:31 Maintaining Military Effectiveness While Addressing Health Concerns
44:57 Protective Gear and Training Innovations
48:51 The Path Forward for Veterans and Military Health
https://www.mpfact.com/headsmart-app/
Follow Todd on LinkedIn and follow her on social media today!
LinkedIn: Todd Strader
Facebook: C3M – Cohort of chronically concussed Mortarmen
Website: overpressure.com
Produced by Security Halt Media
Hey folks, welcome to another episode of Broken Brains with your host, bruce Parkman, sponsored by the Mack Parkman Foundation, where we look at the issue of repetitive brain trauma in the form of repetitive head impacts from contact sports and repetitive blast exposure to our veteran community and what these conditions are doing to their brains and causing what is right now, the largest preventable cause of mental illness in this country. Why is this important? Because it's not trained in our medical, psychological or nursing communities and very few people have the knowledge at this time to look at what's going on in our society and how to treat it. And so you now become that person, the informed individual. We reach out to researchers and patients and players and authors and all kinds of people to give you that 360 degree perspective on this problem that permeates all aspects of our society.
Speaker 1:Today, another exciting guest. I've met this gentleman before and he got up on several times let people know what he was thinking about the issue of sub-recussive trauma, repetitive blast exposure. This is Todd Strait. Todd Strait is a US Army veteran Thank you for your service, sir and a nationally recognized advocate for brain injury awareness to repeated low-level exposure After suffering from debilitating symptoms linked to blast overpressure. As a mortiman Strayed has transformed his personal struggle into a mission to protect and support his fellow members. He has founded Overpressured LLC, which is, I think, a 501c3 dedicated to raising awareness of blast overpressure injuries. I've seen him testify at several events since we've gotten into this.
Speaker 1:He created the cohort of chronically concussed mortars, c3m, a support network with nearly 3,000 members, and he's invented the PELTA-6, a helmet attachment that's designed to reduce the effects of blast pressure on the head and brains of our servicemen.
Speaker 1:He's contributed to national investigations in New York Times and other major outlets, collaborated with scientists, clinicians, on the issues and effects of repetitive blast exposure on the lives of our fellow veterans. He's briefed members of Congress in support of the introduction of the Overpressure Warfighters Act of 2025, which is a critical piece of legislation that really literally got the government to admit that we have a problem. What are we going to do about it now? And he advocates for approved military health policies, research funding and protective technologies for blast Exposed Troops. And he leads efforts to bridge that gap between lived experience, science and policy, because he feels that we must ensure that the invisible wounds of war are no longer ignored, which we find continuously in our veteran population. It's also why we have, you know, 10 times the amount of kids that died in war dying of suicide, and 8,000 more dying each year. Mr Trader, what was your rank?
Speaker 2:sir, I was an E4 with an Article 15.
Speaker 1:Oh, hey. Well, I had four of them myself.
Speaker 2:I won't make any holes of being a soldier of fame, but that's an average Joe.
Speaker 1:Ah, no, well, thank you for your service, todd, and welcome to the show Really appreciate it, man. Well, I've seen you. I've seen your passion. Right, I've seen your passion, so talk to a little bit about you. Know your military service, and when did you start recognizing the impact of that service on your life?
Speaker 2:I was a veteran of the end of the Cold War, gulf War era, so most of my exposures happened in the training environment. And because I wasn't maybe the best soldier ever, I was on the gun line a long time, almost six years, because you know, like I said, that Article 15 held me back a rank for a little bit, so I got to stay on the gun line a little bit longer than everybody else. But because of that I I I do have an extraordinary amount of of of these low level exposures, uh, that that I was exposed to back then. And back then it was something that you know we weren't even. We didn't uh Frank Larkin says it best we didn't know, we didn't know. Back then it really wasn't an issue, I think the military leaders you said making the connection to the behavioral health problems and the suicides. So anyway, back then we didn't know. What we didn't know Biggest thing we had to pay attention to was your hearing. They'd yell at you to put your earplugs in, whatever.
Speaker 2:But I do remember that during the time I was in I started developing these chronic headaches. Sometimes they were debilitating. One time I had one happen to me that was in the field and I literally fell out of the track, you know, onto my knees throwing up my head, just feeling like it was caving in. And you know, back then the medics just treated you. You know, drink water, take some Motrin, change your socks, and you know you're not going to get any medals for having a headache. So, uh, go back to go back to duty was basically. You know what you got back then. And back then I never thought anything of it that there was any kind of connection to my headaches and the and the blast over pressure. Uh, cause, to be fair, I had hit my head, uh, you know, in airborne school, on my last jump, pretty hard, but I never even thought that was a concussive event that I need to be worried about. It was the last day of airborne school. All I cared about was graduating.
Speaker 2:So you know, nobody's thinking about, you know, do I need to go see doc or anything like that? So years later, after I left service and then the headache stuck with me and then progressively over the next decade or so after I got out, they started getting really bad, where you know they would be debilitating, more common, more severe, with private medical health, you know, in the private medical healthcare system. Let me just jump in there real quick. I think it's a good time to interject that you know, because I've been affected by all these blasts. I may come across sometimes that like a watch that's been dropped a few too many times. So bear with me if I, if I stumble a little bit, Don't worry about it, man, I've been there, you got it, don't worry about it all right.
Speaker 2:So, uh, had these headaches treated, tweeted, treated with them in the civilian sector, had had an ongoing problem. And then my uncles, who were vietnam veterans, they suggested that I file a va claim for va disability and compensation for, for my headaches. So, uh, I did that and uh, because I knew, knew, I met all the criteria that I thought I needed to to to get to, to met, to get a VA compensation for, for that claim, uh, not surprisingly, I was denied on on my first claim, which didn't really surprise me. But what? What just dumbfounded me was the reason I was denied was that because they could not locate my in-service medical treatment records. Uh, and I didn't, I didn't take a copy when I got discharged. So they were denying me because they couldn't locate the records that they're responsible for keeping. So that just kind of incensed me and at that time I just started looking for ways that I could possibly connect these headaches to being in service, and it was around 2019 that I actually brought it with me. It was this article right here from the Wall Street Times and it says weapons training likely causes brain injury in troops, study says. And right on the cover you have a crew of mortarmen firing their mortar. So I read that and it went on to discuss the key prominent symptoms or headaches and migraines, and it turned out I started to check a couple other boxes that I was kind of symptomatic of. So instantly I saw the connection right there and it was like a light bulb. Of course this is the connection. It's obvious. This is it. From that on, for my own benefit, I started following the science to establish evidence for my own VA claim, to win that claim.
Speaker 2:But as I was doing so and learning the science, tracking down every study, then finding out who they referenced in that study, then go read their studies and that kind of thing study, then go read their studies and that kind of thing, as I was doing that I would share with these 11 Charlie or mortar centric Facebook groups that I belong to. You know what I was finding out. I would pull out the X you know excerpts from the study, from the conclusions or whatever, and say, hey, guys, you need to, you need to know this. And then that turned into making videos. You need to know this. And then that turned into making videos which use like mortars going off. You know you can see the big concussive wave and everything and the dust flying. And, you know, using that with, with, with the same excerpts from the study to kind of get more of the storytelling across to what's happening in the awareness, because I'm with you, I think.
Speaker 2:I think that the biggest thing is is that people need to be aware once. Once people are aware, that will change the, the landscape of everything. Just realizing that there's something going on and, you know, like before we didn't know that there was anything we needed to be worried about. And I I think that's where we're making a lot of, we're gaining a lot of ground, especially with the troops on the ground is getting them to realize that there is a connection to these blasts and brain hazard, brain health hazards that they need to be aware of. And knowing that that exists, they'll take that extra step, you know, like we did, to make sure your ears are plugged or whatever. I'm hoping We'd be able to make sure your ears are plugged or whatever. I'm hoping.
Speaker 2:So, made those videos and then I decided that I needed to go on and create my own Facebook group, so I did, which was Centric for Mortarmen, which you said, a cohort of chronically concussed mortarmen, and that was actually what we turned into the 501c3. We did it in name only, just to get it a seat at a, a table. We don't have any other, we don't have a board or anything. It's just me and my buddy, tim grossman, uh, but in any case, we, we founded that facebook group and it grew uh really well over years as word spread. Among other, you know, military people that are exposed to these. And uh, and early last year, um, I was contacted by Dave Phillips of the of the New York times, who did a story about the mortar, uh, us mortar men and he's.
Speaker 2:He sourced our Facebook group and uh, me and several other members of the group in his story and from really that point on, uh, things have kind of taken off for the Facebook group. Now we have nearly 3,000 members and they're all active duty veterans, families, researchers, journalists, you name it, they're all there. But it's all a sharing community. People share the latest science, tell stories of how they're feeling, what works for them. Guys ask for insight on how to handle their interviews with their doctors, things like that. Tell, uh, you know stories of how they're feeling, what works for them. You know, guys ask for insight on how to handle their their interviews with their doctors, things like that. So it's, it's become something I'm really proud of and in the last year it's been sourced, I think, about half a dozen times by everybody, from ABC news to NPR and and it's it's become a real, a real thing which I never thought would happen, but I'm pretty proud of that.
Speaker 1:Well, good on you, man. I mean, as we become more aware of this. I remember the first time I met you was at that MITRE conference, I think about a year and a half ago, and I watched you go up and I was really impressed with your knowledge and your ability to outline a lot of these issues. Now you were a mortimer in a mechanized unit. You mentioned track. Right that's right, good, good.
Speaker 2:So those are, yes, most of my time was in a mechanized armored vehicle, and then my last three years was just a mix of everything doing light.
Speaker 1:And you shot, you dropped those mortars, those mortar tubes. If you were not dismounted, we're inside the track Right and it popped up through the hatch. So I want our readers to know that you know, you know I speak on this a lot and if you're exposed to a blast right and you're outside, say you're on a door or you're, you know you're blowing something up, that blast wave is, you know, a certain amount of PSI when it hits you. If you're inside a building or you're inside a track which is like a cube, the amount of pressure that you experience it can be, I know, I know, for inside a building is 5X. It's five times more pressure because it's contained, it's bouncing all over the place.
Speaker 1:And Todd's point about having protective earring the easiest way to get into the brain is through the ear canal. There's nothing there. Now we're going to put a little piece of plastic and hope that this blast wave stays out. No, the blast wave goes through the whole body and the brain. But yeah, I just wanted folks to know that when you said track, I'm like, oh my God, he was dropped. I was folks to know that. When you said track, I'm like, oh my god, he was dropped.
Speaker 2:I was a mech guy my first tour in the in the, my first tour on the infantry in germany.
Speaker 1:So you know, exactly what we're talking about, and I was living in a hotel, so I was a tow gunner.
Speaker 2:Oh, were you so yeah, we have a lot of members of those in our cohort too, because they they get a significant amount of uh you know back pressure going back on them from the, from the lock rocket launching yeah, shoulder fires.
Speaker 1:You guys drop hundreds of mortars for every toe round, a toe gun. It gets to shoot. I don't know what they cost. A missile, right?
Speaker 2:you don't know, that's true, mortars are pretty much, uh, pretty close to the head of the table when it comes to eating this blast yeah, those are big bullets, man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you made a great point, great point being in and among hardened reflective surfaces magnifies the exposure. I like to tell when I'm on the line talking to people, imagine it as a ball of water coming out, just moving in 360 degrees as it's coming out of the muzzle. Here comes that blast over pressure. Whatever it hits, it's going to bounce off of and reflect up, just as almost you can imagine water doing so. Just as you said, as inside a room, it's going to hit each corner, it's going to bounce around, it's going to bounce around in your bucket and everything.
Speaker 2:So those real world circumstances really add to uh, the problem, the exposures that are going on. And I think and I think, if I could, just because you brought up such a great point, because I think a lot of the research doesn't take into account the real world circumstances that a lot of these weapons find themselves operating in, uh, you know, for example, you, you might have heard that the latest suggestions are, you know, and they make total sense from a scientific perspective is just well, distance yourself from the blast, uh, get further away. Or the latest one for more relating to mortars, is that they found that if you, if you stoop your body down, you know four, four or five more inches, you can reduce the exposure, uh, significantly. Sorry, that's my cat no problem.
Speaker 2:But what they what? But again, sometimes these happen in an enclosed space, where these bounce, these blast waves are bouncing around, where it totally moots the point of of stooping down or stepping back. And a lot of these weapons can't be fired from distances that they're suggesting. Like you know, a shoulder fired rocket can't be fired from 1.7 meters away.
Speaker 1:No, you can't drop a mortar and then run away away from the Blacksteel. That thing's popping off as soon as you drop it, man.
Speaker 2:Not while maintaining its effectiveness, its current effectiveness on the battlefield. That's a problem with, I think, some of these recommendations is that, without understanding what makes these weapons unique and effective and what they do, these recommendations kind of detract from that. Sometimes. I think and I think that might be one of the areas that the dod has pushed back on is, uh, you know, we can't really do that practically, and there are, you know.
Speaker 1:I remember back in my day we used to have those subcaliber mortar rounds where you would, you know, at least go through the drills. Because we know now that the only way to really not but to reduce the severity of the problem is to reduce the amount of exposure. Right, fire less mortar rounds. And and to you know, to a certain point, you know, you, once you get shooting a good, you're good with a rifle. You don't need to shoot every day, right, right, and we treat in the military P is for plenty, right, everywhere you go.
Speaker 1:And you know that when you take those mortar rounds out to the range, nobody wants to turn them into the ASP. So what happens? Right, you know, you shoot them all, but you bring up a good point too is that you know, regardless of your Article 15, you know much like a range safety officer. You were on the line, you know whether you were I guess you were probably teaching and doing everything that you know whether you were just running mortar rounds. But talk to us about the amount of exposure that you or the typical range safety officer might get when they're actually working a mortar range, and and that's their job, you know.
Speaker 2:Uh a mortarman, we, we, so we established our Facebook group to bring about awareness and then we uh a buddy. Uh team teamed up with me his name's Tim Grossman and we decided that we needed to do more than that. So we decided to propose some legislative action. We called it the Resolution to Change Law, and we were asking for a presumptive service connection for veterans who had illnesses that we thought were related to these occupational blast exposures. So in writing that resolution, we had to determine how many rounds we thought an average soldier was exposed to in their first four years of enlistment.
Speaker 2:Because when it comes to mortars, the soldiers who are going to have the most exposures are going to be the lower enlisted, because they're the ones who actually are the closest to the gun. The squad leader is usually standing back about three meters or so, still within a blast radius, but the ones who are going to be the most affected are the squad leader I mean, I'm sorry the gunner, the assistant gunner and the ammo bearer, and they're usually going to be E1s through E3s, you know, young, whatever. So in four years we calculated that about 1,000 rounds per year, and that's in peacetime. That doesn't include combat deployments, which would obviously increase that a great deal, and in environments too, where they'd be behind ESCOs or dug deep into mortar pits where the reflective waves would be even higher. So we calculated that basically about, in a four-year enlistment, around 4,000 rounds.
Speaker 1:Do you remember what the PSI overpressure was of a mortar, depending on the size of it?
Speaker 2:Well, it's all obviously the bigger the mortar. Back when I started we had the 4.2-inch mortar, the four-deuce, and it was, I think, 107 millimeters I think, and then today we have the 120 millimeter mortar. So, and the difference in the 100, even though the four deuce was a little bit smaller in diameter, it had a shorter barrel and a lower muzzle, so it exposed to the crew to just as much exposure as the bigger 120 with a much higher muzzle. I spoke with Dr Carr from Walter Reed last year and he was showing me these study results that he had that in the cumulative long-term aspect the 81 millimeter is almost indistinguishable from the 120 as far as the exposure it puts on the crew. So it there's really no, I would say. I guess, to answer your question, what is the general psi exposure that a soldier is getting right? Is that kind of what you want to know for those thousand exposures?
Speaker 1:well, that's what I was, you know, uh, working on because, um, I don't know if you remember that they came up with a GBEV, a generalized blast exposure variable. I just got done creating a spreadsheet so people can calculate their own. Okay, and they have five categories of weapons and I think mortars are two or three. Right, but it's because, like the OSHA standard for PSI being safe, we know that one mortar round exceeds that. But I didn't know what I forgot, what the number might be.
Speaker 2:But then you're talking. I would say conservatively that the average number would be well, would be over the 4 PSI.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm saying the 4 PSI per day. And one mortar round is, like you know, a 50-cal rifle is 15 PSI, I think. Exactly. And so in one round you've exceeded a day, and then you're shooting multiple rounds and that just starts hammering the brain, exactly.
Speaker 1:And of course we're soldiers, we like it. Oh, you get that tingling, you got that shockwave going through your chest. You're like, yeah, you know, and give me some more because we think it's harmless. I mean up until you read that article. I mean up until I just started studying this a couple of years ago. I had and that was probably you know from that article came out before my son died, but I had no idea that. You know of the impact of that, those concussive waves on the body. And I don't know if you know this, but I think last year they do. You know that there was never a diagnostic code for the brain. From last until last year they had a diagnostic code for every organ, every limb, everything but the brain. And they just came out with an ICD billing code and I just put it in my brief last year and hardly anybody knows about it. So you know it's it's crazy. You know that they had that Did you create the ICD code or you found it?
Speaker 1:Nope, I found it in an article. I was doing some research because we're doing these seminars and I'll go dig it up for you, but there is now. They just figured out that they had an ICD code for the colon and for the gut and for the lung and for the heart, because you know the blast right Coming through you Never not anything for the brain. So let me ask you a question of the you know, you own a Facebook group, 3000 kids in it. How many of those kids are having you know? You know headaches are one thing, right, I mean, that's that's that's those headaches usually are. Also, if they're associated with a damaged brain, there's usually some poor mental health outcomes that come with those. What is the prognosis of the group that you're that you're managing right now in terms of mental health? Are you seeing kids struggle with mental health that have been exposed to a lot of mortar, in this case heavy weapons?
Speaker 2:When it's online, in the social media presence. I think a lot of the guys who are truly struggling don't often, uh, really display it much. I think the veterans are more open about it in that, in that way, uh, you know when they, when they kind of struggle the soldiers, I see it when I'm, when I go visit them on the gun line, like when I went to the mortar competition and I can, I can just see the guys who were just wearing it. You know, I don't really it's, it's I don't know if it's a gift or a curse, but I can just see it on the guys when it's like a shadow or an aura over them.
Speaker 2:It's like, and I I see it too often and it motivates me to just dig in even further because this is an issue that just needs to be talked about more. It's not talked about because there's this stigma or this dogma that I think that somehow is associated with weakness or some kind of an inner flaw, and one of the tenets that I've been preaching for years is that when you know when, when you get to feeling weird, uh and and things start feeling weird it's, you need to step back and and take a moment to realize that maybe what you're feeling and how you're perceiving the world around you right now is might be the response of an injury to your brain, more than it is what you're really experiencing. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Maybe you can just take that half second to just go wait a minute when things get weird. You know, maybe, maybe, maybe it's just my head. I remember, you know I've been exposed to these booms. I've heard about all this awareness, you know, and uh, and that's that's really what I think is huge If people can just acknowledge that this is not a, not a character flaw or a personality disorder. It's, it's more the response to an injury, uh, than than anything, and I think that takes this kind of shame that people have away and and just kind of unburdens them and it just kind of.
Speaker 2:I've had a lot of anecdotal messages. People tell me how, how relieved they are that you know it all makes sense. Now, when, when you, when you point out the science and the mechanisms and you know's, here's why this might be. You know, this is, this is what's happening to your brain, and you know, no part of your brain is not affected by these blasts and there's no part of you that's not affected by your brain, and so just that's really been a key, key thing that I, I'd I like to see. So as my. As far as the pregnant prognosis, I think it's improving. Uh, this 22 a day thing, just it irks me and in fact I asked a researcher once if that was just hyperbole or is that really like the peak number you know? Or they said no, it's, it's.
Speaker 2:It's a real, it's real yeah, it just kind of dumbfounded me, and ever since then it's been one of my primary drivers. Is this, uh, the suicide aspect of things?
Speaker 1:And uh well, it's all about to you know part of what you're doing with the oh good.
Speaker 2:If I may, there was a study not too long ago. I wish I could remember the name of it, but they showed that suicide risk diminished greatly for veterans and soldiers who've been diagnosed with a TBI, being acknowledged that they have an injury.
Speaker 1:Well, and the issue is is that, as we create the awareness you know, your organization and ours, other out there, others like that we do give these guys some closure? What we have to do is move to the next step, because, even though they have a TBI or they have a damaged brain, if they go to the VA, most of the VA providers out there and most of the and TRICARE especially out here, man, I go to my VA guy out there. They're not educated on it and if they are, that's great, but all they can offer you is a bunch of drugs and therapy. My guy offered me Tai Chi Great, all right.
Speaker 2:How would you act?
Speaker 1:today. Yeah Right, all that stuff that can help fix the brain is completely off the books right now. And there is progress. Tricare is doing some super billing for HBOD and some of the you know ketamine maybe, but you know there has to be a definitive move in the approval of these modalities to help these veterans that are struggling with psychological disorders, mental illness, because we're not we're just not doing the right thing. Right, we're giving them drugs and therapy. Well, it's not impacting this and that's where you know the. What you're doing right now is is making that aware. Make it be aware. So talk about the Overpressured Warfighters Act of 2025. I mean, you were critical in getting that introduced to Congress. Tell us what that bill is all about. Where's it at?
Speaker 2:Tell us what that bill is all about? Where is it at and what is it trying to do for our veterans? So really, that's a bill that I wrote, that I came up with, really kind of standing on the shoulders of last year's legislation with the Blast Over Pressure Safety Act and what was included in the NDAA and also on a couple of DOD memorandums about blast overpressure. To their credit, dod is actually doing pretty good. As frustrated as we get sometimes, we have to keep in mind that DOD is still leading the world as far as tackling this overpressure Still got to fight wars man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'm wars man yeah, so I'm sorry what was the question.
Speaker 1:No talk to us about the Overpressured Warfighters Act of 2025. What's that all about?
Speaker 2:We got to discuss in different conversations with colleagues of mine journalists, other researchers, other people in industry, other affected we got to thinking you know this latest legislation of last year, it's awesome, it's a great step in the right direction, but in a lot of ways it falls short. And you know, for one thing, there's no real accountability for any of it. In the end of the day, it leaves it up to the unit commanders to do what they want and the army to spend the money how they want. If you know, that means if other priorities come up, they can spend it on other priorities, and there's there's no real kind of congressional oversight to to make sure these things are being enforced on it, as far as I know anyway. So I felt that maybe to fill these gaps we could offer a different solution. So I wrote this bill in a way that I thought okay, so what would put an end to this? Not just continue studying the problem, but really end it and I thought the way we need to approach this is. So the gold standard for me is you probably heard of dr pearl and his, his brain bank so the for me, the girl the gold standard of understanding what's happening to the brain. Uh is what he's found out, uh, through his uh, you know, looking at them. So I think everything needs to be kind of re-engineered back from that. So science should be looking at how does it, how do we get here, instead of trying to figure out, you know, does this path lead to that? Let's start with this is what's happening Now. Figure out all the ways you can prevent it from happening, if that makes any kind of sense.
Speaker 2:So I felt that in the Blast Over Pressure Safety Act we could apply some things. I feel that the DOD could use something like a BOP czar, like we have now for the border, just kind of a nonpartisan guy who just is somewhere between someone who understands all the perspectives of the DOD, the researchers, industry and the public, but is primarily concerned with the welfare of the soldier and can make sure that these DOD blast over pressure protocols are being implemented and they're having an effect and you know we're seeing a result from it. And then on the veteran side well, on the DOD side, let me just add on I feel that the only way to tackle this blast overpressure thing is that every soldier who is in occupation that is exposed to these blasts as part of their job. It's a job requirement. It's not a blast that happened by circumstance during their employment. This is a job requirement as part of being proficient in this job. Being proficient in this job, they should be issued a blast wearable blast gauge or some kind of blast dosometer device that instantly lets uh, you remember you, uh, you probably remember, you're old enough, like me, to remember the uh, the old miles gear, right, yeah, man, yeah, so something similar to that. But tells the soldier that you know a beat, goes off saying hey, you've had too much exposure. Exposure, you need to be looked at by the docs. Go sit down, what, what have you, and then, uh, I think that would do a good job of ending the problem.
Speaker 2:On the dod, I think on the uh on the veteran side, we were trying to fight for um presumptive service connection for veterans who were exposed to these blast over pressures. That didn't seem to be getting very far, but then, but then I had the notion that maybe we can use the PACT Act to help us, because I think a fair argument could be made that the blast overpressure alone could qualify as a toxic exposure to the crew. I think there would be a lot of pushback on that. But then I got to watching the videos of mortars firing and artillery firing and breachers they're surrounded by smoke and dust and particles and that that all that is filled with carbon and dust. So then I got to thinking well, if the blast over pressure and the smoke and dust you know carbon filled smoke and particulate dust it creates all in the same environment, now that could probably definitely be argued as a toxic.
Speaker 1:Just the. You know, I can remember the smell.
Speaker 2:You know of C4 when it cracks up.
Speaker 1:That is not good to breathe, right and you know we're doing CQB in rooms that are filled with dust from flashbangs and bullet fragments and the cordite right, all that stuff that you smell. You're inhaling that left and right.
Speaker 2:We knew from the burn pits, those, those, those, those smoke. That smoke has toxic, you know particulates in it. So I felt that you know, jackpot, that's how we, that's how we get presumptive service connection for veterans who are exposed to these blasts is we tie it into the PACT Act. And then that seemed to be the lowest hanging fruit to me. So that was the real big core of what I wanted to do with the Overpressure Warfighters Act. Just to be clear, it hasn't been introduced by anyone. I'm trying to find a home for it to be introduced. Anyone who would really have the backbone to introduce it or at least provide a good explanation as to what they think is wrong with it. I think it's worthy at least of being talked about.
Speaker 1:Well, maybe we've got legislation no, we've got legislation with Van Orden, congressman, van Orden, navy SEAL right now to provide, you know, the awareness, diagnosis, treatment and then insurance and billing coverage for repetitive blast exposure. You know veterans, you know veterans that have had a lot of repetitive blast exposure, and that would be an interesting thing to talk about, because I never thought about that. That's a unique take on it.
Speaker 2:So maybe we could get the funding to come out of the PACT Act or get supplemental funding to the PACT Act for those veterans that do display you know, I think I think, with with with the money environment that it is around capitol hill, I think I think I think there's no excuse for not coming up with some sort of creative way to fund this, for you can't doge this dude we own this man.
Speaker 1:We created it. These kids are hurting.
Speaker 2:You know we're asking for amounts to a rounding error and in the budget.
Speaker 1:They do. You know, budget dust man doesn't even, yeah, doesn't even make a sense to not discuss it, right?
Speaker 2:I, I firmly believe that my bill, uh, in 20 years, uh, you know, I did an AI model over the cost savings and whatever over the long run, in 20 years we can cut the suicides in half for the population that's exposed to these blasts.
Speaker 1:I wouldn't doubt it If you took some of these modalities on a cost-benefit basis, if you did the analysis whether it's HBOT, tms, some of the psychedelics, we can get veterans back on their feet way faster, with better brain health, than we can charging $500, whatever we charge for these pills in a lifetime of inactivity, of suffering in silence, of poor mental health outcomes, physical health outcomes and suicidality. Right, there's no doubt in my mind that there's a significant it's not behind everything but there's a significant segment of the population that have taken their lives, that were impacted by combat and training as a result of repetitive blast exposure that was never diagnosed, never assessed and we need to fix this. I mean, that's just, you know I've suffered from it. I was to fix this. I mean, there's just. You know I've suffered from it, I was diagnosed with it. You know you've been diagnosed with it and I'm not looking for myself. God's been good to me.
Speaker 1:What I am looking out for is all these other kids out there and I meet them all the time. You know they're struggling, they're living under bridges. They can't get their act together because they can't get their brain together. It's not, and then everybody gives up on him. I was talking to somebody that day, their, their brother-in-law, you know, took their life and they were like he was hopeless. He was. He came back from Fallujah. He was a disaster. Well, and I'm thinking to myself like well, you know, he might've been a disaster because of Fallujah because of his service.
Speaker 2:Nobody ever stopped to consider. Maybe he's behaving. Maybe what you're seeing in him are are the presentations of an injury to his brain. You know right?
Speaker 1:not a hopeless veteran that killed some people and whatever right now. He was in combat. So he's crazy. No, he's got a. He's got a biological origin to his mental illness. He's self-medicating. He is acting crazy because his brain hurts. So can we do something for his brain? And I think it's going to be efforts like yours that are going to be able to get us over the hump. And to your point, I mean, I think, even since we met at MITRE a year and a half ago or so, man, things are improving. I mean, there is a lot of awareness on this. Us SOCOM is taking this up big time.
Speaker 1:But let me ask you a question, because everybody's worried about what's this going to do to the force? You know, and I am you know of the of the moment to get your take on it. But how do we make you know, how do we maintain the most lethal force in the world? We still need more of it, right? You're going to have AI or robotic dogs dropping mortars down tubes and all that. It still needs to be done, and I think that there's a way to minimize the exposure. What are your thoughts on all of this? Because we still got to train, we still got to fight.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and I'm actually pretty optimistic. Uh, I and I, and I think I sympathize with the dod's perspective or the army's perspective a little bit too, and I don't. I don't think this blast over pressure thing is some seven heaven, some seven headed hydra we have to run from and stick our head in the sand from, or obfuscate, say.
Speaker 1:Like we've been doing for the last 25, since 9-11.
Speaker 2:If we just turned and faced it and locked shields and drew it out into the light, we could slay this thing pretty easy With just smart training, like I said, I think the key to that is Like I said, I think the key to that is I give pushback when we're starting to see where the academics and the politicians are starting to set operational procedures because of what they think is what the lab results tell them.
Speaker 2:You know, without really consulting with the guys who live it every day on the ground and whatnot.
Speaker 2:So I think it, and I think a great way to do that is to we have to let dod keep operational control of how they, how they do these things, because it's what's made, it's what makes us so great at what they, what they do, or them so great at what they do.
Speaker 2:I think the key to that is giving command control of when, uh, the soldiers had enough by allowing them to wear, mandating that they have to have these sensors on. You know, when a sensor goes off just like with the miles gear back in the day you can't turn it off yourself. You have to have an evaluator come by and you know he can do hold up three fingers and you know, ask you what day it is, or you know this guy needs a break, or he can reset it and say you're good to go back to the line. I think just that right there would take a huge bite out of the excessive exposures. You know another thing you said with the too many rounds instead of firing them all off, why not give the unit commander some kind of funding credit for turning the rounds back in or something like that. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:And they're talking. And, to your point, who is like you know? The Army. Just, I mean, I'm from the Cold War, like you, right. I mean, when I first got the Special Force, we basically had sticks. We had nothing, dude. We didn't have CQB. We didn't have nothing, dude, we didn't have CQB. We didn't have flashbangs. We didn't have grenades, we had rifles and we went downrange and we taught guys how to and we had mortars right, loved mortars, man. As a matter of fact, when I served in the war in El Salvador, I made sure I did two things I went to the SF medical course and the SF mortar course before I went down range because we had not we didn't even have helicopters or howitzers in that war. We had nothing Right. So we had mortars but the you know.
Speaker 1:The issue becomes that you know, in training we don't have to. You know. You know, once you're good at mortars, you're good at mortars, not that you still need to. You know you can do subconcussive round trade, you can set up them tubes all the time and honestly, you look, you're 11 series. I think everybody should be a mortar. So why don't you rotate out to the squad right, be a grunt, carry rifles and let the grunts become. I mean 11, age 11, charlie 11, bravo, we're all left, right and so I think, even rotating through these different MOSs, because it's all about reducing the total amount of exposure, that's the only way to clear this up.
Speaker 1:But good, good, no, but if we know it's going to hurt you, then to your point, when you get out of the Army, the Army owns the damage that is caused to you in order to defend this wonderful and amazing country and maintain the most lethal force in the world. You get disability and you get treatment, because if we do treat the brain I mean, I'm 63 years old, I just had my nightmare, like two and a half years ago we're talking to kids that are dealing with this in the Army then they get out. We can't cure this, but we can make their lives better, like, like to the point where it's. It's it's it's not debilitating. They get on with their life and their service was worth it because there is, it is. There's so much fun serving your country, it's so honorable serving your country and, yeah, I'll take what I, what I went through. I do it all over again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I don't want to educate the VA like I had to on repetitive blast exposure to get my disability. I'm like, come on, and I wasn't even looking for disability. I just said I want to stop stuttering, I want to remember where my car keys are and I don't want to be angry, no more. So can you fix this? And they said, yeah, you've got a messed up brain, drugs and therapies. So I went and treated myself, but to your point, I think you're absolutely right. It's about total exposure and we can train better. I like your idea of a blast page. This course is going to get all these scientists and you made a point earlier we don't need to research TBIs anymore. We don't even need to research repetitive blast exposure. We know it's an issue. We know it harms our guys it harms our girls.
Speaker 2:We need to stop action. We have enough science now action, action.
Speaker 1:Take that, all that knowledge just smarter talk, hey, talk about this pimp yourself, man. Talk to talk to me about. Talk to me about what he called the petra six pelta pelta six.
Speaker 2:it means yeah, what is it? So it the Petra 6. Pelta 6. It means yeah, what is it? Go over there?
Speaker 1:and get it. That's behind you, right, hang on. Yeah, go get that. You had that at that show that day. This is pretty cool.
Speaker 2:It's Old Greek for Little Shield at your 6 o'clock. Okay, so I'm a mortar man and, as you know, when mortar men hang the round and they fire the round, they turn their head away and that exposes the back of their head and their cerebellum to the glass waves.
Speaker 2:In fact, almost every heavy weapon crew does that. Okay so, and I have my own problems in the back of my head there. So I thought maybe there's a connection. And then one day I just happened to be looking at footage of all the the different weapons firing and everybody turns their head away from the blast, uh, leaving the cerebellum and the top of the spine yeah, because you tilt your head back up all this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, wow with mortars that can be an arm's length away from the blast. So I thought you know maybe some protective gear there could help do that and you know it's been a success. We think it can cut the blast exposure by 50% when we get it on soldiers.
Speaker 1:You've been able to do any studies on that.
Speaker 2:What's that?
Speaker 1:Have you done any studies on that? Has anybody tested it like on a range?
Speaker 2:Yes, we have that. So we've done some field testing with first special forces group on a test mannequin and then we did some testing with virginia tech in their blast simulator. Wow, just uh. So we've pretty much proved the concept and we presented those results at the latest. Uh, nato researchers, uh, meeting up in toronto. Uh, but to dovetail on what you're saying, what the, what the dod can do about, about it, that's just another thing. Smarter training, protective gear. There's a lot of ways that protective gear can be used. That would probably take a good chunk of the exposure out of these guys.
Speaker 1:Yeah, going back to the helmets that actually cover the ears, I know they're heavier but that can prevent the blast from getting to the ear canals, or or, you know, because these things don't help, you know, your peltors or whatever you got, they don't prevent, they don't stop that from coming through, you know, and and sometimes for these kind of you know situations maybe, working the problem solving instead of the you know no, we have to research it's a whole new terra incognita of research that they'd love to go explore.
Speaker 2:But we have enough, and there's soldiers and veterans that are in need right now of solutions and that we have enough to provide it to them. And I think, just being acknowledged, when a soldier or veteran goes to the doctor and is complaining of these concussive-type symptoms, they can't no longer be made to feel that they're the problem. You know. Look, you don't have a documented TBI incident, so therefore you're the problem. You know what I mean? Yeah, so I would like to see in the DOD and VA, just like when you go into triage for anything else, they ask if you're a smoker or you're a drinker, yes, no, whatever, I'd like to see them ask you know, were you exposed to blast occupationally in the service?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that should be part of every VA.
Speaker 2:That should be part. Yeah, part of every va, it should be part. Yep, if you were, the new triage goes this way, and then everything, because then we need to start looking at the brain being the central cause of everything that's going on, with absolutely common denominator.
Speaker 1:Uh, you know so I think that's what we're.
Speaker 2:Yep, that's the goal, just smart steps like that, no longer running from this monster and instead just turn and facing it. We can we're americans, we can solve anything, especially soldiers. You know what I mean and you got to make it right.
Speaker 1:Man, these kids didn't do anything wrong. I mean, god, that the stories I run into out there and you know the, it's just horrible and and and and and it's. It's not curable but it is. You know, it is treatable, it's and we can make it a lot better with what's out there.
Speaker 2:And, like you said earlier, you know we soldiers, we don't, we'll take it, I don't. You know, I'll go do it all over again. A soldier doesn't care. You know, I didn't really want to be a mortar man, but when I became one, I thought, after becoming one, I had seen what they could do. I thought they were the coolest thing ever. Heck yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, I, I, I didn't never want to be a mortar when I saw you guys helping those tubes and the plates.
Speaker 1:And then I said then one day they, you know, our guys said hey, we're going to dismount and carry a tow. I'm like what we had to carry the tripod, that big box. I was like man, I wish I was a mortar man. It was horrible, man wouldn't wish it long. Oh, man, I love, I love. We used to carry those little 60 millimeter, those little baby mortars. Man, those are a lot of fun. Dude, we shot you know that's.
Speaker 2:That's a good point. Even the 60 millimeter puts off a pretty good punch, because the the key thing with the 60 millimeters you're so close to it, you're almost yeah, that thing's like less than an arm's length away from you know boom and it don't stick over your head, man, that thing's below you.
Speaker 1:You blow your head, you know exactly, wow, dude.
Speaker 2:So uh, sure, yeah, soldiers shouldn't have to veterans, or they shouldn't have to go. Especially veterans shouldn't have to go through some kind of evidentiary process to try to prove that they're hurting from something that was a job requirement.
Speaker 1:I like your term presumptive man. That's pretty cool. I like it, man. You've done a lot.
Speaker 2:Todd man, I'm really, really proud of you. I appreciate the kind words. I think it's great.
Speaker 1:What do you got? So how do people find you, man? What's your next steps? Talk about Todd here a little bit before we close out.
Speaker 2:Okay, our website Website is wwwoverpressurecom, and what we are we're still just about our core is spreading awareness and offering solutions of how we, how we pull this thing out of the dark and beat the shit out of it.
Speaker 2:You know. So we offer, you know, awareness through our community collaboration there, where, you know, a place for people to go and talk about. Hey, this is new to me. It's starting to make sense. How do I find out more? How do I explain this to my doctor? What science can I show them that kind of thing? And then you know, on the legislative front, great, you know, great strides have been made, but we're still a long way to go. So, you know, we felt that we could offer a solution there. You know, that's why we came up with the overpressure warfighters act.
Speaker 1:Uh, it's a big upfront cost but, like you said, we could find that money now and it'll pay for itself 10 times over 10 times over man and every life we save is worth that entire bucket of money because they, these kids, don't need to go and they're just leaving us too soon and it's horrible to even think about man, but no well, thank you for all you're doing.
Speaker 2:Todd, you're an amazing American, great to be here, great talking to you.
Speaker 1:Thank you for your service. I hope to get our friend Paul Scanlon on. Of course I'll have to get up at like three in the morning to interview him or something. I would love to see that interview or something.
Speaker 2:I would love to see that. Well, that would be a lively conversation for sure, that would be a lively conversation.
Speaker 1:Hey, denny, put Paul Scanlon on the list. We'll have to make that one happen. Yeah and uh, but uh, no, he's a great guy, man, but uh. Thank you so much, todd, for coming on. Reach out to the Mack Parkman Foundation for a collaboration perspective. Please feel free to come out to the summit on the 2nd and 3rd If you want to put a table up. You know, talk to everybody. It's all about repetitive blast exposure. You're one of the industry experts on it and we really appreciate everything you're doing for our servicemen and women out there. Man, thank you so much and God bless you.
Speaker 2:Likewise, bruce, I know you're very passionate and fully invested in this as well, and it's been something that's been neat to me as I entered into this over the last year or so is seeing how many other passionate, invested people there are and trying to solve this problem and put an end to it and bring understanding to it. So I salute you guys as well.
Speaker 1:And thank you for giving me the time to come on and talk to you. Great minds, great people. We'll get it done, man. We do great things.
Speaker 2:Great minds, great people, great things. I think of my cohort a lot as like a Roman cohort I noticed that, man, you got all that Gladiator stuff going on. Man, that's pretty cool the shields are locked right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like that I'll. That was very good, cool, all right, folks, another great episode of Broken Brains with myself, bruce Parkman, sponsored by the Mac Parkman Foundation. Really appreciate your presence today. Don't forget I say it every time If you've got children, you've got grandchildren, you're going to have children Get this book. It's on our website. It's free. Everything you know about contact sports and what we can do to make sports safer. It's free Everything you know about contact sports and what we can do to make sports safer. Just like we talked about making the military safer which we can we're going to make sports safer for yourselves and your children. Don't forget the second international summit on repetitive brain trauma is going to be held in Tampa September 3rd and 4th. We'll go ahead and get all that on our website here pretty soon. A lot to be, a lot going on. So take care of yourselves, take care of your brains. Thanks for listening. We'll see you on another episode of Broken Brains and take care you.