"...once he got home, the problems really started. Barnes started drinking, then smoking pot and then inhaling gas from compressed-air canisters. He crashed his car four times." Davenport
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Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) is not a new thing. Throughout the 20th Century soldiers have been subject to blast effects from artillery, mortar fire, roadside bombs and other load noises that produce a shock wave or weapons which actually drive hard objects into one's skull.
IED's were very common in Vietnam. All roads in disputed territory had to be cleared every day and kept that way. We rode around in wheeled vehicles that had the floors packed with sandbags in a probably futile effort to mitigate blast effects.
The point? There are a lot of people out there with injuries like this from earlier wars.
Maybe this will explain why Uncle Fred was always a little strange after the war. pl
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/01/AR2010100106339.html?wprss=rss_metro
