Hearing loss the most prevalent injury among returning veterans

By Bill Briggs, NBC News contributor

After a decade of war,America is well schooled on post-traumatic stress, lost limbs and traumatic brain injury, but the most common injury sustained by U.S. troops is literally a silent wound: hearing loss.

Mark Brogan, a retired Army captain, can speak quite personally about almost all of those examples of combat carnage he suffered a brain injury, a spinal injury and a nearly severed right arm when a suicide bomber on foot detonated his weapon near Brogan six year ago in Iraq.

Courtesy of Mark Brogan

Mark Brogan sustained a spinal injury, a brain injury, a nearly severed arm - and severe hearing loss - when a suicide bomber blew himself up not far from Brogan in Iraq six years ago.

What does Brogan, 32, consider the worst of the physical trauma? Hearing loss and the brain injury, he said from his home in Knoxville, Tenn. He has profound unusable hearing in his right ear and severe hearing loss in his left, he said, along with constant ringing, or tinnitus, in his ears.

After the insurgent's bomb killed a soldier just behind Brogan along with the person who was wearing the device other U.S. troops quickly rushed Brogan's side and saw blood streaming from both ears, he said.

Youve been to a concert you know how your ears are ringing afterward? Its just like that my entire life, Brogan said. A lot of guys get home and they probably dont even think about getting their hearing checked.

According the Department of Veterans Affairs, the most prevalent service-connected disabilitiesfor veterans receiving federal compensation in 2011 were tinnitus and hearing loss, respectively, followed by PTSD.

"I suspect todays generation of veterans those who have been in a combat environment probably have a higher severity of hearing loss (than past generations), especially with the explosions and the IEDs and the ruptured ear drums theyve sustained, said BrettBuchanan, a VA-accredited claims agent with Allsup, a national provider of services with disabilities.

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Hearing loss the most prevalent injury among returning veterans