May 12, 2025 • 56 mins
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.
👉 Follow, like, and subscribe to Broken Brains on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube to stay informed and inspired as we continue to shine a light on brain trauma and veteran health.
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
Two Days. One Mission. Protecting Brains, Saving Lives. September 3rd and 4th in Tampa, Florida.
Save the date for our international event focused on protecting young athletes and
honoring our veterans through real solutions to brain trauma.
Brought to you by The Mac Parkman Foundation.
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Saturday, June 28th, 1:30 PM – 9:00 PM EDT
Produced by Security Halt Media
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Hey folks, welcome to another episode of Broken
Brains with your host, bruceParkman, sponsored by the Mack
Parkman Foundation, where welook at the issue of repetitive
brain trauma in the form ofrepetitive head impacts from
contact sports and repetitiveblast exposure to our veteran
community and what theseconditions are doing to their
brains and causing what is rightnow, the largest preventable
(00:32):
cause of mental illness in thiscountry.
Why is this important?
Because it's not trained in ourmedical, psychological or
nursing communities and very fewpeople have the knowledge at
this time to look at what'sgoing on in our society and how
to treat it.
And so you now become thatperson, the informed individual.
We reach out to researchers andpatients and players and
(00:55):
authors and all kinds of peopleto give you that 360 degree
perspective on this problem thatpermeates all aspects of our
society.
Today, another exciting guest.
I've met this gentleman beforeand he got up on several times
let people know what he wasthinking about the issue of
sub-recussive trauma, repetitiveblast exposure.
This is Todd Strait.
Todd Strait is a US Armyveteran Thank you for your
(01:17):
service, sir and a nationallyrecognized advocate for brain
injury awareness to repeatedlow-level exposure After
suffering from debilitatingsymptoms linked to blast
overpressure.
As a mortiman Strayed hastransformed his personal
struggle into a mission toprotect and support his fellow
members.
He has founded OverpressuredLLC, which is, I think, a 501c3
(01:41):
dedicated to raising awarenessof blast overpressure injuries.
I've seen him testify atseveral events since we've
gotten into this.
He created the cohort ofchronically concussed mortars,
c3m, a support network withnearly 3,000 members, and he's
invented the PELTA-6, a helmetattachment that's designed to
reduce the effects of blastpressure on the head and brains
(02:05):
of our servicemen.
He's contributed to nationalinvestigations in New York Times
and other major outlets,collaborated with scientists,
clinicians, on the issues andeffects of repetitive blast
exposure on the lives of ourfellow veterans.
He's briefed members ofCongress in support of the
(02:26):
introduction of the OverpressureWarfighters Act of 2025, which
is a critical piece oflegislation that really
literally got the government toadmit that we have a problem.
What are we going to do aboutit now?
And he advocates for approvedmilitary health policies,
research funding and protectivetechnologies for blast Exposed
Troops.
And he leads efforts to bridgethat gap between lived
(02:47):
experience, science and policy,because he feels that we must
ensure that the invisible woundsof war are no longer ignored,
which we find continuously inour veteran population.
It's also why we have, you know, 10 times the amount of kids
that died in war dying ofsuicide, and 8,000 more dying
each year.
Mr Trader, what was your rank?
Speaker 2 (03:08):
sir, I was an E4 with an Article 15.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Oh, hey.
Well, I had four of them myself.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
I won't make any holes of being a soldier of fame
, but that's an average Joe.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Ah, no, well, thank you for your service, todd, and
welcome to the show Reallyappreciate 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, andwhen did you start recognizing
the impact of that service onyour life?
Speaker 2 (03:40):
I was a veteran of the end of the Cold War, gulf
War era, so most of my exposureshappened in the training
environment.
And because I wasn't maybe thebest soldier ever, I was on the
gun line a long time, almost sixyears, because you know, like I
(04:03):
said, that Article 15 held meback a rank for a little bit, so
I got to stay on the gun line alittle bit longer than
everybody else.
But because of that I I I dohave an extraordinary amount of
of of these low level exposures,uh, that that I was exposed to
back then.
And back then it was somethingthat you know we weren't even.
We didn't uh Frank Larkin saysit best we didn't know, we
(04:39):
didn't know.
Back then it really wasn't anissue, I think the military
leaders you said making theconnection to the behavioral
health problems and the suicides.
So anyway, back then we didn'tknow.
What we didn't know Biggestthing we had to pay attention to
was your hearing.
They'd yell at you to put yourearplugs in, whatever.
But I do remember that duringthe time I was in I started
(05:02):
developing these chronicheadaches.
Sometimes they weredebilitating.
One time I had one happen to methat was in the field and I
literally fell out of the track,you know, onto my knees
throwing up my head, justfeeling like it was caving in.
And you know, back then themedics just treated you.
You know, drink water, takesome Motrin, change your socks,
(05:24):
and you know you're not going toget any medals for having a
headache.
So, uh, go back to go back toduty was basically.
You know what you got back then.
And back then I never thoughtanything of it that there was
any kind of connection to myheadaches and the and the blast
over pressure.
Uh, cause, to be fair, I hadhit my head, uh, you know, in
airborne school, on my last jump, pretty hard, but I never even
(05:47):
thought that was a concussiveevent that I need to be worried
about.
It was the last day of airborneschool.
All I cared about wasgraduating.
So you know, nobody's thinkingabout, you know, do I need to go
see doc or anything like that?
So years later, after I leftservice and then the headache
stuck with me and thenprogressively over the next
(06:08):
decade or so after I got out,they started getting really bad,
where you know they would bedebilitating, more common, more
severe, with private medicalhealth, you know, in the private
medical healthcare system.
Let me just jump in there realquick.
I think it's a good time tointerject that you know, because
(06:31):
I've been affected by all theseblasts.
I may come across sometimesthat like a watch that's been
dropped a few too many times.
So bear with me if I, if Istumble a little bit, Don't
worry about it, man, I've beenthere, you got it, don't worry
about it all right.
So, uh, had these headachestreated, tweeted, treated with
them in the civilian sector, hadhad an ongoing problem.
And then my uncles, who werevietnam veterans, they suggested
(06:54):
that I file a va claim for vadisability 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 Ineeded to to to get to, to met,
to get a VA compensation for,for that claim, uh, not
surprisingly, I was denied on onmy first claim, which didn't
(07:14):
really surprise me.
But what?
What just dumbfounded me wasthe reason I was denied was that
because they could not locatemy in-service medical treatment
records.
Uh, and I didn't, I didn't takea copy when I got discharged.
So they were denying me becausethey couldn't locate the
records that they're responsiblefor keeping.
So that just kind of incensedme and at that time I just
(07:37):
started looking for ways that Icould 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 herefrom the Wall Street Times and
it says weapons training likelycauses brain injury in troops,
study says.
And right on the cover you havea crew of mortarmen firing
(07:59):
their mortar.
So I read that and it went onto discuss the key prominent
symptoms or headaches andmigraines, and it turned out I
started to check a couple otherboxes that I was kind of
symptomatic of.
So instantly I saw theconnection right there and it
was like a light bulb.
Of course this is theconnection.
(08:19):
It's obvious.
This is it.
From that on, for my ownbenefit, I started following the
science to establish evidencefor my own VA claim, to win that
claim.
But as I was doing so andlearning the science, tracking
down every study, then findingout who they referenced in that
(08:40):
study, then go read theirstudies and that kind of thing
study, then go read theirstudies and that kind of thing,
as I was doing that I wouldshare with these 11 Charlie or
mortar centric Facebook groupsthat I belong to.
You know what I was finding out.
I would pull out the X you knowexcerpts from the study, from
the conclusions or whatever, andsay, hey, guys, you need to,
(09:00):
you need to know this.
And then that turned intomaking videos.
You need to know this.
And then that turned intomaking videos which use like
mortars going off.
You know you can see the bigconcussive wave and everything
and the dust flying.
And, you know, using that with,with, with the same excerpts
from the study to kind of getmore of the storytelling across
to what's happening in theawareness, because I'm with you,
(09:21):
I think.
I think that the biggest thingis is that people need to be
aware once.
Once people are aware, thatwill change the, the landscape
of everything.
Just realizing that there'ssomething going on and, you know
, like before we didn't knowthat there was anything we
needed to be worried about.
And I I think that's wherewe're making a lot of, we're
(09:42):
gaining a lot of ground,especially with the troops on
the ground is getting them torealize that there is a
connection to these blasts andbrain hazard, brain health
hazards that they need to beaware of.
And knowing that that exists,they'll take that extra step,
you know, like we did, to makesure your ears are plugged or
whatever.
I'm hoping We'd be able to makesure your ears are plugged or
(10:02):
whatever.
I'm hoping.
So, made those videos and then Idecided that I needed to go on
and create my own Facebook group, so I did, which was Centric
for Mortarmen, which you said, acohort of chronically concussed
mortarmen, and that wasactually what we turned into the
(10:25):
501c3.
We did it in name only, just toget it a seat at a, a table.
We don't have any other, wedon't have a board or anything.
It's just me and my buddy, timgrossman, uh, but in any case,
we, we founded that facebookgroup and it grew uh really well
over years as word spread.
Among other, you know, militarypeople that are exposed to
these.
And uh, and early last year, um, I was contacted by Dave
(10:45):
Phillips of the of the New Yorktimes, who did a story about the
mortar, uh, us mortar men andhe's.
He sourced our Facebook groupand uh, me and several other
members of the group in hisstory and from really that point
on, uh, things have kind oftaken off for the Facebook group
.
Now we have nearly 3,000members and they're all active
(11:09):
duty veterans, families,researchers, journalists, you
name it, they're all there.
But it's all a sharingcommunity.
People share the latest science, tell stories of how they're
feeling, what works for them.
Guys ask for insight on how tohandle their interviews with
their doctors, things like that.
Tell, uh, you know stories ofhow they're feeling, what works
for them.
You know, guys ask for insighton how to handle their their
interviews with their doctors,things like that.
(11:29):
So it's, it's become somethingI'm really proud of and in the
last year it's been sourced, Ithink, about half a dozen times
by everybody, from ABC news toNPR and and it's it's become a
real, a real thing which I neverthought would happen, but I'm
pretty proud of that.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Well, good on you, man.
I mean, as we become more awareof this.
I remember the first time I metyou was at that MITRE
conference, I think about a yearand a half ago, and I watched
you go up and I was reallyimpressed with your knowledge
and your ability to outline alot of these issues.
Now you were a mortimer in amechanized unit.
(12:08):
You mentioned track.
Right that's right, good, good.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
So those are, yes, most of my time was in a
mechanized armored vehicle, andthen my last three years was
just a mix of everything doinglight.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
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 knowthat you know, you know I speak
on this a lot and if you'reexposed to a blast right and
you're outside, say you're on adoor or you're, you know you're
blowing something up, that blastwave is, you know, a certain
(12:43):
amount of PSI when it hits you.
If you're inside a building oryou're inside a track which is
like a cube, the amount ofpressure that you experience it
can be, I know, I know, forinside a building is 5X.
It's five times more pressurebecause it's contained, it's
bouncing all over the place.
(13:04):
And Todd's point about havingprotective earring the easiest
way to get into the brain isthrough the ear canal.
There's nothing there.
Now we're going to put a littlepiece of plastic and hope that
this blast wave stays out.
No, the blast wave goes throughthe whole body and the brain.
But yeah, I just wanted folksto know that when you said track
, I'm like, oh my God, he wasdropped.
I was folks to know that.
(13:25):
When you said track, I'm like,oh my god, he was dropped.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
I was a mech guy my first tour in the in the, my
first tour on the infantry ingermany.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
So you know, exactly what we're talking about, and I
was living in a hotel, so I wasa tow gunner.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Oh, were you so yeah, we have a lot of members of
those in our cohort too, becausethey they get a significant
amount of uh you know backpressure going back on them from
the, from the lock rocketlaunching yeah, shoulder fires.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
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 (13:52):
you don't know, that's true, mortars are pretty
much, uh, pretty close to thehead of the table when it comes
to eating this blast yeah, thoseare big bullets, man.
Yeah, you made a great point,great point being in and among
hardened reflective surfacesmagnifies the exposure.
I like to tell when I'm on theline talking to people, imagine
(14:16):
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 overpressure.
Whatever it hits, it's going tobounce off of and reflect up,
just as almost you can imaginewater doing so.
Just as you said, as inside aroom, it's going to hit each
corner, it's going to bouncearound, it's going to bounce
(14:39):
around in your bucket andeverything.
So those real worldcircumstances really add to uh,
the problem, the exposures thatare going on.
And I think and I think, if Icould, just because you brought
up such a great point, because Ithink a lot of the research
(14:59):
doesn't take into account thereal world circumstances that a
lot of these weapons findthemselves operating in, uh, you
know, for example, you, youmight have heard that the latest
suggestions are, you know, andthey make total sense from a
scientific perspective is justwell, distance yourself from the
blast, uh, get further away.
(15:20):
Or the latest one for morerelating to mortars, is that
they found that if you, if youstoop 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.
But what they what?
But again, sometimes thesehappen in an enclosed space,
(15:44):
where these bounce, these blastwaves are bouncing around, where
it totally moots the point ofof stooping down or stepping
back.
And a lot of these weaponscan't be fired from distances
that they're suggesting.
Like you know, a shoulder firedrocket can't be fired from 1.7
meters away.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
No, you can't drop a mortar and then run away away
from the Blacksteel.
That thing's popping off assoon as you drop it, man.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
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 understandingwhat makes these weapons unique
and effective and what they do,these recommendations kind of
detract from that.
Sometimes.
I think and I think that mightbe one of the areas that the dod
(16:32):
has pushed back on is, uh, youknow, we can't really do that
practically, and there are, youknow.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
I remember back in my day we used to have those
subcaliber mortar rounds whereyou would, you know, at least go
through the drills.
Because we know now that theonly way to really not but to
reduce the severity of theproblem is to reduce the amount
of exposure.
Right, fire less mortar rounds.
And and to you know, to acertain point, you know, you,
(17:01):
once you get shooting a good,you're good with a rifle.
You don't need to shoot everyday, right, right, and we treat
in the military P is for plenty,right, everywhere you go.
And you know that when you takethose mortar rounds out to the
range, nobody wants to turn theminto the ASP.
So what happens?
Right, you know, you shoot themall, but you bring up a good
point too is that you know,regardless of your Article 15,
(17:24):
you know much like a rangesafety officer.
You were on the line, you knowwhether you were I guess you
were probably teaching and doingeverything that you know
whether you were just runningmortar rounds.
But talk to us about the amountof exposure that you or the
typical range safety officermight get when they're actually
working a mortar range, and andthat's their job, you know.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Uh a mortarman, we, we, so we established our
Facebook group to bring aboutawareness and then we uh a buddy
.
Uh team teamed up with me hisname's Tim Grossman and we
decided that we needed to domore than that.
So we decided to propose somelegislative action.
We called it the Resolution toChange Law, and we were asking
(18:10):
for a presumptive serviceconnection for veterans who had
illnesses that we thought wererelated to these occupational
blast exposures.
So in writing that resolution,we had to determine how many
rounds we thought an averagesoldier was exposed to in their
first four years of enlistment.
(18:30):
Because when it comes to mortars, the soldiers who are going to
have the most exposures aregoing to be the lower enlisted,
because they're the ones whoactually are the closest to the
gun.
The squad leader is usuallystanding back about three meters
or so, still within a blastradius, but the ones who are
going to be the most affectedare the squad leader I mean, I'm
(18:51):
sorry the gunner, the assistantgunner and the ammo bearer, and
they're usually going to be E1sthrough E3s, you know, young,
whatever.
So in four years we calculatedthat about 1,000 rounds per year
, and that's in peacetime.
That doesn't include combatdeployments, which would
obviously increase that a greatdeal, and in environments too,
(19:14):
where they'd be behind ESCOs ordug deep into mortar pits where
the reflective waves would beeven higher.
So we calculated that basicallyabout, in a four-year
enlistment, around 4,000 rounds.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
Do you remember what the PSI overpressure was of a
mortar, depending on the size ofit?
Speaker 2 (19:33):
Well, it's all obviously the bigger the mortar.
Back when I started we had the4.2-inch mortar, the four-deuce,
and it was, I think, 107millimeters I think, and then
today we have the 120 millimetermortar.
So, and the difference in the100, even though the four deuce
(19:58):
was a little bit smaller indiameter, it had a shorter
barrel and a lower muzzle, so itexposed to the crew to just as
much exposure as the bigger 120with a much higher muzzle.
I spoke with Dr Carr fromWalter Reed last year and he was
showing me these study resultsthat he had that in the
(20:22):
cumulative long-term aspect the81 millimeter is almost
indistinguishable from the 120as far as the exposure it puts
on the crew.
So it there's really no, Iwould say.
I guess, to answer yourquestion, what is the general
(20:43):
psi exposure that a soldier isgetting right?
Is that kind of what you wantto know for those thousand
exposures?
Speaker 1 (20:50):
well, that's what I was, you know, uh, working on
because, um, I don't know if youremember that they came up with
a GBEV, a generalized blastexposure variable.
I just got done creating aspreadsheet so people can
calculate their own.
Okay, and they have fivecategories of weapons and I
(21:12):
think mortars are two or three.
Right, but it's because, likethe OSHA standard for PSI being
safe, we know that one mortarround exceeds that.
But I didn't know what I forgot, what the number might be.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
But then you're talking.
I would say conservatively thatthe average number would be
well, would be over the 4 PSI.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
Yeah, I'm saying the 4 PSI per day.
And one mortar round is, likeyou know, a 50-cal rifle is 15
PSI, I think.
Exactly.
And so in one round you'veexceeded a day, and then you're
shooting multiple rounds andthat just starts hammering the
brain, exactly.
And of course we're soldiers, welike it.
Oh, you get that tingling, yougot that shockwave going through
(21:54):
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 thatarticle.
I mean up until I just startedstudying this a couple of years
ago.
I had and that was probably youknow from that article came out
before my son died, but I hadno idea that.
You know of the impact of that,those concussive waves on the
(22:19):
body.
And I don't know if you knowthis, but I think last year they
do.
You know that there was never adiagnostic code for the brain.
From last until last year theyhad a diagnostic code for every
organ, every limb, everythingbut the brain.
And they just came out with anICD billing code and I just put
(22:42):
it in my brief last year andhardly anybody knows about it.
So you know it's it's crazy.
You know that they had that Didyou create the ICD code or you
found it?
Nope, I found it in an article.
I was doing some researchbecause we're doing these
seminars and I'll go dig it upfor you, but there is now.
They just figured out that theyhad an ICD code for the colon
(23:05):
and for the gut and for the lungand for the heart, because you
know the blast right Comingthrough you Never not anything
for the brain.
So let me ask you a question ofthe you know, you own a
Facebook group, 3000 kids in it.
How many of those kids arehaving you know?
You know headaches are onething, right, I mean, that's
that's that's those headachesusually are.
(23:27):
Also, if they're associatedwith a damaged brain, there's
usually some poor mental healthoutcomes that come with those.
What is the prognosis of thegroup that you're that you're
managing right now in terms ofmental health?
Are you seeing kids strugglewith mental health that have
been exposed to a lot of mortar,in this case heavy weapons?
Speaker 2 (23:51):
When it's online, in the social media presence.
I think a lot of the guys whoare truly struggling don't often
, uh, really display it much.
I think the veterans are moreopen 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
(24:14):
line, like when I went to themortar competition and I can, I
can just see the guys who werejust 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 seeit on the guys when it's like a
shadow or an aura over them.
It's like, and I I see it toooften and it motivates me to
(24:35):
just dig in even further becausethis is an issue that just
needs to be talked about more.
It's not talked about becausethere's this stigma or this
dogma that I think that somehowis associated with weakness or
some kind of an inner flaw, andone of the tenets that I've been
(24:56):
preaching for years is thatwhen you know when, when you get
to feeling weird, uh and andthings start feeling weird it's,
you need to step back and andtake a moment to realize that
maybe what you're feeling andhow you're perceiving the world
around you right now is might bethe response of an injury to
(25:17):
your brain, more than it is whatyou're really experiencing.
You know what I mean.
Maybe you can just take thathalf second to just go wait a
minute when things get weird.
You know, maybe, maybe, maybeit's just my head.
I remember, you know I've beenexposed to these booms.
I've heard about all thisawareness, you know, and uh, and
(25:40):
that's that's really what Ithink 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 toan injury, uh, than than
anything, and I think that takesthis kind of shame that people
have away and and just kind ofunburdens them and it just kind
(26:04):
of.
I've had a lot of anecdotalmessages.
People tell me how, howrelieved they are that you know
it all makes sense.
Now, when, when you, when youpoint out the science and the
mechanisms and you know's,here's why this might be.
You know, this is, this iswhat's happening to your brain,
and you know, no part of yourbrain is not affected by these
(26:24):
blasts and there's no part ofyou that's not affected by your
brain, and so just that's reallybeen a key, key thing that I,
I'd I like to see.
So as my.
As far as the pregnantprognosis, I think it's
improving.
Uh, this 22 a day thing, justit irks me and in fact I asked a
(26:46):
researcher once if that wasjust hyperbole or is that really
like the peak number you know?
Or they said no, it's, it's.
It's a real, it's real yeah, itjust kind of dumbfounded me, and
ever since then it's been oneof my primary drivers.
Is this, uh, the suicide aspectof things?
Speaker 1 (27:05):
And uh well, it's all about to you know part of what
you're doing with the oh good.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
If I may, there was a study not too long ago.
I wish I could remember thename of it, but they showed that
suicide risk diminished greatlyfor veterans and soldiers
who've been diagnosed with a TBI, being acknowledged that they
have an injury.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
Well, and the issue is is that, as we create the
awareness you know, yourorganization and ours, other out
there, others like that we dogive these guys some closure?
What we have to do is move tothe next step, because, even
though they have a TBI or theyhave a damaged brain, if they go
to the VA, most of the VAproviders out there and most of
the and TRICARE especially outhere, man, I go to my VA guy out
(27:53):
there.
They're not educated on it andif they are, that's great, but
all they can offer you is abunch of drugs and therapy.
My guy offered me Tai Chi Great, all right.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
How would you act?
Speaker 1 (28:04):
today.
Yeah Right, all that stuff thatcan help fix the brain is
completely off the books rightnow.
And there is progress.
Tricare is doing some superbilling for HBOD and some of the
you know ketamine maybe, butyou know there has to be a
definitive move in the approvalof these modalities to help
(28:26):
these veterans that arestruggling with psychological
disorders, mental illness,because we're not we're just not
doing the right thing.
Right, we're giving them drugsand therapy.
Well, it's not impacting thisand that's where you know the.
What you're doing right now isis making that aware.
Make it be aware.
So talk about the OverpressuredWarfighters Act of 2025.
(28:50):
I mean, you were critical ingetting that introduced to
Congress.
Tell us what that bill is allabout.
Where's it at?
Speaker 2 (29:01):
Tell us what that bill is all about?
Where is it at and what is ittrying to do for our veterans?
So really, that's a bill that Iwrote, that I came up with,
(29:25):
really kind of standing on theshoulders of last year's
legislation with the Blast OverPressure Safety Act and what was
included in the NDAA and alsoon a couple of DOD memorandums
about blast overpressure.
To their credit, dod isactually doing pretty good.
As frustrated as we getsometimes, we have to keep in
mind that DOD is still leadingthe world as far as tackling
this overpressure Still got tofight wars man.
Yeah, so I'm wars man yeah, soI'm sorry what was the question.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
No talk to us about the Overpressured Warfighters
Act of 2025.
What's that all about?
Speaker 2 (29:50):
We got to discuss in different conversations with
colleagues of mine journalists,other researchers, other people
in industry, other affected wegot to thinking you know this
latest legislation of last year,it's awesome, it's a great step
in the right direction, but ina lot of ways it falls short.
And you know, for one thing,there's no real accountability
(30:13):
for any of it.
In the end of the day, itleaves it up to the unit
commanders to do what they wantand the army to spend the money
how they want.
If you know, that means ifother priorities come up, they
can spend it on other priorities, and there's there's no real
kind of congressional oversightto to make sure these things are
being enforced on it, as far asI know anyway.
(30:33):
So I felt that maybe to fillthese gaps we could offer a
different solution.
So I wrote this bill in a waythat I thought okay, so what
would put an end to this?
Not just continue studying theproblem, but really end it and I
thought the way we need toapproach this is.
(30:56):
So the gold standard for me isyou probably heard of dr pearl
and his, his brain bank so thefor me, the girl the gold
standard of understanding what'shappening to the brain.
Uh is what he's found out, uh,through his uh, you know,
looking at them.
So I think everything needs tobe kind of re-engineered back
from that.
(31:16):
So science should be looking athow does it, how do we get here
, instead of trying to figureout, you know, does this path
lead to that?
Let's start with this is what'shappening Now.
Figure out all the ways you canprevent it from happening, if
that makes any kind of sense.
So I felt that in the Blast OverPressure Safety Act we could
(31:38):
apply some things.
I feel that the DOD could usesomething like a BOP czar, like
we have now for the border, justkind of a nonpartisan guy who
just is somewhere betweensomeone who understands all the
perspectives of the DOD, theresearchers, industry and the
(31:58):
public, but is primarilyconcerned with the welfare of
the soldier and can make surethat these DOD blast over
pressure protocols are beingimplemented and they're having
an effect and you know we'reseeing a result from it.
And then on the veteran sidewell, on the DOD side, let me
just add on I feel that the onlyway to tackle this blast
(32:21):
overpressure thing is that everysoldier who is in occupation
that is exposed to these blastsas part of their job.
It's a job requirement.
It's not a blast that happenedby circumstance during their
employment.
This is a job requirement aspart of being proficient in this
job.
Being proficient in this job,they should be issued a blast
(32:42):
wearable blast gauge or somekind of blast dosometer device
that instantly lets uh, youremember 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 youknow a beat, goes off saying hey
, you've had too much exposure.
Exposure, you need to be lookedat by the docs.
Go sit down, what, what haveyou, and then, uh, I think that
(33:04):
would do a good job of endingthe problem.
On the dod, I think on the uh onthe veteran side, we were
trying to fight for umpresumptive service connection
for veterans who were exposed tothese blast over pressures.
That didn't seem to be gettingvery far, but then, but then I
had the notion that maybe we canuse the PACT Act to help us,
(33:26):
because I think a fair argumentcould be made that the blast
overpressure alone could qualifyas a toxic exposure to the crew
.
I think there would be a lot ofpushback on that.
But then I got to watching thevideos of mortars firing and
artillery firing and breachersthey're surrounded by smoke and
(33:46):
dust and particles and that thatall 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 knowcarbon filled smoke and
particulate dust it creates allin the same environment, now
that could probably definitelybe argued as a toxic.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
Just the.
You know, I can remember thesmell.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
You know of C4 when it cracks up.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
That is not good to breathe, right and you know
we're doing CQB in rooms thatare filled with dust from
flashbangs and bullet fragmentsand the cordite right, all that
stuff that you smell.
You're inhaling that left andright.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
We knew from the burn pits, those, those, those,
those smoke.
That smoke has toxic, you knowparticulates in it.
So I felt that you know,jackpot, that's how we, that's
how we get presumptive serviceconnection for veterans who are
exposed to these blasts is wetie it into the PACT Act.
And then that seemed to be thelowest hanging fruit to me.
(34:46):
So that was the real big coreof what I wanted to do with the
Overpressure Warfighters Act.
Just to be clear, it hasn'tbeen introduced by anyone.
I'm trying to find a home forit to be introduced.
Anyone who would really havethe backbone to introduce it or
(35:08):
at least provide a goodexplanation as to what they
think is wrong with it.
I think it's worthy at least ofbeing talked about.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
Well, maybe we've got legislation no, we've got
legislation with Van Orden,congressman, van Orden, navy
SEAL right now to provide, youknow, the awareness, diagnosis,
treatment and then insurance andbilling coverage for repetitive
blast exposure.
You know veterans, you knowveterans that have had a lot of
(35:43):
repetitive blast exposure, andthat would be an interesting
thing to talk about, because Inever thought about that.
That's a unique take on it.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
So maybe we could get the funding to come out of the
PACT Act or get supplementalfunding to the PACT Act for
those veterans that do displayyou know, I think I think, with
with with the money environmentthat it is around capitol hill,
I think I think I think there'sno excuse for not coming up with
(36:14):
some sort of creative way tofund this, for you can't doge
this dude we own this man.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
We created it.
These kids are hurting.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
You know we're asking for amounts to a rounding error
and in the budget.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
They do.
You know, budget dust mandoesn't even, yeah, doesn't even
make a sense to not discuss it,right?
Speaker 2 (36:33):
I, I firmly believe that my bill, uh, in 20 years,
uh, you know, I did an AI modelover the cost savings and
whatever over the long run, in20 years we can cut the suicides
in half for the populationthat's exposed to these blasts.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
I wouldn't doubt it If you took some of these
modalities on a cost-benefitbasis, if you did the analysis
whether it's HBOT, tms, some ofthe psychedelics, we can get
veterans back on their feet wayfaster, with better brain health
, than we can charging $500,whatever we charge for these
pills in a lifetime ofinactivity, of suffering in
(37:15):
silence, of poor mental healthoutcomes, physical health
outcomes and suicidality.
Right, there's no doubt in mymind that there's a significant
it's not behind everything butthere's a significant segment of
the population that have takentheir lives, that were impacted
by combat and training as aresult of repetitive blast
exposure that was neverdiagnosed, never assessed and we
(37:37):
need to fix this.
I mean, that's just, you knowI'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 diagnosedwith it and I'm not looking for
myself.
God's been good to me.
What I am looking out for is allthese 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 acttogether because they can't get
their brain together.
It's not, and then everybodygives up on him.
(37:59):
I was talking to somebody thatday, their, their brother-in-law
, you know, took their life andthey were like he was hopeless.
He was.
He came back from Fallujah.
He was a disaster.
Well, and I'm thinking tomyself like well, you know, he
might've been a disaster becauseof Fallujah because of his
service.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
Nobody ever stopped to consider.
Maybe he's behaving.
Maybe what you're seeing in himare are the presentations of an
injury to his brain.
You know right?
Speaker 1 (38:26):
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 tohis mental illness.
He's self-medicating.
He is acting crazy because hisbrain hurts.
So can we do something for hisbrain?
And I think it's going to beefforts like yours that are
(38:47):
going to be able to get us overthe hump.
And to your point, I mean, Ithink, even since we met at
MITRE a year and a half ago orso, man, things are improving.
I mean, there is a lot ofawareness on this.
Us SOCOM is taking this up bigtime.
But let me ask you a question,because everybody's worried
about what's this going to do tothe force?
You know, and I am you know ofthe of the moment to get your
(39:13):
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 orrobotic dogs dropping mortars
down tubes and all that.
It still needs to be done, andI think that there's a way to
minimize the exposure.
(39:33):
What are your thoughts on allof this?
Because we still got to train,we still got to fight.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
Absolutely, and I'm actually pretty optimistic.
Uh, I and I, and I think Isympathize with the dod's
perspective or the army'sperspective a little bit too,
and I don't.
I don't think this blast overpressure thing is some seven
heaven, some seven headed hydrawe have to run from and stick
our head in the sand from, orobfuscate, say.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
Like we've been doing for the last 25, since 9-11.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
If we just turned and faced it and locked shields and
drew it out into the light, wecould slay this thing pretty
easy With just smart training,like I said, I think the key to
that is Like I said, I think thekey to that is I give pushback
when we're starting to see wherethe academics and the
(40:26):
politicians are starting to setoperational procedures because
of what they think is what thelab results tell them.
You know, without reallyconsulting with the guys who
live it every day on the groundand whatnot.
So I think it, and I think agreat way to do that is to we
(40:48):
have to let dod keep operationalcontrol of how they, how they
do these things, because it'swhat's made, it's what makes us
so great at what they, what theydo, or them so great at what
they do.
I think the key to that isgiving command control of when,
uh, the soldiers had enough byallowing them to wear, mandating
that they have to have thesesensors on.
(41:08):
You know, when a sensor goesoff just like with the miles
gear back in the day you can'tturn it off yourself.
You have to have an evaluatorcome by and you know he can do
hold up three fingers and youknow, 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 theline.
I think just that right therewould take a huge bite out of
(41:29):
the excessive exposures.
You know another thing you saidwith the too many rounds
instead of firing them all off,why not give the unit commander
some kind of funding credit forturning the rounds back in or
something like that.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
And they're talking.
And, to your point, who is likeyou know?
The Army.
Just, I mean, I'm from the ColdWar, like you, right.
I mean, when I first got theSpecial 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 hadrifles and we went downrange
(42:05):
and we taught guys how to and wehad mortars right, loved
mortars, man.
As a matter of fact, when Iserved in the war in El Salvador
, I made sure I did two things Iwent to the SF medical course
and the SF mortar course beforeI went down range because we had
not we didn't even havehelicopters or howitzers in that
war.
We had nothing Right.
So we had mortars but the youknow.
The issue becomes that you know,in training we don't have to.
(42:29):
You know.
You know, once you're good atmortars, you're good at mortars,
not that you still need to.
You know you can dosubconcussive round trade, you
can set up them tubes all thetime and honestly, you look,
you're 11 series.
I think everybody should be amortar.
So why don't you rotate out tothe squad right, be a grunt,
carry rifles and let the gruntsbecome.
(42:51):
I mean 11, age 11, charlie 11,bravo, we're all left, right and
so I think, even rotatingthrough these different MOSs,
because it's all about reducingthe total amount of exposure,
that's the only way to clearthis up.
But good, good, no, but if weknow it's going to hurt you,
(43:11):
then to your point, when you getout of the Army, the Army owns
the damage that is caused to youin order to defend this
wonderful and amazing countryand maintain the most lethal
force in the world.
You get disability and you gettreatment, because if we do
treat the brain I mean, I'm 63years old, I just had my
nightmare, like two and a halfyears ago we're talking to kids
that are dealing with this inthe Army then they get out.
(43:35):
We can't cure this, but we canmake 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 andtheir service was worth it
because there is, it is.
There's so much fun servingyour country, it's so honorable
serving your country and, yeah,I'll take what I, what I went
(43:56):
through.
I do it all over again.
Yeah, but I don't want toeducate the VA like I had to on
repetitive blast exposure to getmy disability.
I'm like, come on, and I wasn'teven looking for disability.
I just said I want to stopstuttering, I want to remember
where my car keys are and Idon't want to be angry, no more.
So can you fix this?
And they said, yeah, you've gota messed up brain, drugs and
(44:19):
therapies.
So I went and treated myself,but to your point, I think
you're absolutely right.
It's about total exposure andwe can train better.
I like your idea of a blastpage.
This course is going to get allthese scientists and you made a
point earlier we don't need toresearch TBIs anymore.
We don't even need to researchrepetitive blast exposure.
We know it's an issue.
(44:40):
We know it harms our guys itharms our girls.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
We need to stop action.
We have enough science nowaction, action.
Speaker 1 (44:48):
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 calledthe petra six pelta pelta six.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
it means yeah, what is it?
So it the Petra 6.
Pelta 6.
It means yeah, what is it?
Go over there?
Speaker 1 (45:02):
and get it.
That's behind you, right, hangon.
Yeah, go get that.
You had that at that show thatday.
This is pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
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 theround, they turn their head
away and that exposes the backof their head and their
cerebellum to the glass waves.
In fact, almost every heavyweapon crew does that.
Okay so, and I have my ownproblems in the back of my head
(45:39):
there.
So I thought maybe there's aconnection.
And then one day I justhappened to be looking at
footage of all the the differentweapons firing and everybody
turns their head away from theblast, uh, leaving the
cerebellum and the top of thespine yeah, because you tilt
your head back up all this.
Yeah, wow with mortars that canbe an arm's length away from the
blast.
So I thought you know maybesome protective gear there could
(46:02):
help do that and you know it'sbeen a success.
We think it can cut the blastexposure by 50% when we get it
on soldiers.
Speaker 1 (46:10):
You've been able to do any studies on that.
Speaker 2 (46:13):
What's that?
Speaker 1 (46:13):
Have you done any studies on that?
Has anybody tested it like on arange?
Speaker 2 (46:17):
Yes, we have that.
So we've done some fieldtesting with first special
forces group on a test mannequinand then we did some testing
with virginia tech in theirblast simulator.
Wow, just uh.
So we've pretty much proved theconcept and we presented those
results at the latest.
Uh, nato researchers, uh,meeting up in toronto.
Uh, but to dovetail on whatyou're saying, what the, what
(46:37):
the dod can do about, about it,that's just another thing.
Smarter training, protectivegear.
There's a lot of ways thatprotective gear can be used.
That would probably take a goodchunk of the exposure out of
these guys.
Speaker 1 (46:52):
Yeah, going back to the helmets that actually cover
the ears, I know they're heavierbut 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'tstop that from coming through,
you know, and and sometimes forthese kind of you know
situations maybe, working theproblem solving instead of the
(47:16):
you know no, we have to researchit's a whole new terra
incognita of research thatthey'd love to go explore.
Speaker 2 (47:24):
But we have enough, and there's soldiers and
veterans that are in need rightnow of solutions and that we
have enough to provide it tothem.
And I think, just beingacknowledged, when a soldier or
veteran goes to the doctor andis complaining of these
concussive-type symptoms, theycan't no longer be made to feel
(47:46):
that they're the problem.
You know.
Look, you don't have adocumented TBI incident, so
therefore you're the problem.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, so I would like to see inthe DOD and VA, just like when
(48:08):
you go into triage for anythingelse, 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 youexposed to blast occupationally
in the service?
Speaker 1 (48:16):
Yeah, that should be part of every VA.
Speaker 2 (48:18):
That should be part.
Yeah, part of every va, itshould be part.
Yep, if you were, the newtriage goes this way, and then
everything, because then we needto start looking at the brain
being the central cause ofeverything that's going on, with
absolutely common denominator.
Speaker 1 (48:29):
Uh, you know so I think that's what we're.
Speaker 2 (48:31):
Yep, that's the goal, just smart steps like that, no
longer running from this monsterand instead just turn and
facing it.
We can we're americans, we cansolve anything, especially
soldiers.
You know what I mean and yougot to make it right.
Speaker 1 (48:44):
Man, these kids didn't do anything wrong.
I mean, god, that the stories Irun into out there and you know
the, it's just horrible and andand and and it's.
It's not curable but it is.
You know, it is treatable, it'sand we can make it a lot better
with what's out there.
Speaker 2 (49:02):
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 allover again.
A soldier doesn't care.
You know, I didn't really wantto be a mortar man, but when I
became one, I thought, afterbecoming one, I had seen what
they could do.
I thought they were the coolestthing ever.
Heck yeah.
Speaker 1 (49:19):
You know, I, I, I didn't never want to be a mortar
when I saw you guys helpingthose tubes and the plates.
And then I said then one daythey, you know, our guys said
hey, we're going to dismount andcarry a tow.
I'm like what we had to carrythe tripod, that big box.
I was like man, I wish I was amortar man.
(49:43):
It was horrible, man wouldn'twish it long.
Oh, man, I love, I love.
We used to carry those little60 millimeter, those little baby
mortars.
Man, those are a lot of fun.
Dude, we shot you know that's.
Speaker 2 (49:48):
That's a good point.
Even the 60 millimeter puts offa pretty good punch, because
the the key thing with the 60millimeters you're so close to
it, you're almost yeah, thatthing's like less than an arm's
length away from you know boomand it don't stick over your
head, man, that thing's belowyou.
Speaker 1 (50:02):
You blow your head, you know exactly, wow, dude.
Speaker 2 (50:05):
So uh, sure, yeah, soldiers shouldn't have to
veterans, or they shouldn't haveto go.
Especially veterans shouldn'thave to go through some kind of
evidentiary process to try toprove that they're hurting from
something that was a jobrequirement.
Speaker 1 (50:18):
I like your term presumptive man.
That's pretty cool.
I like it, man.
You've done a lot.
Speaker 2 (50:22):
Todd man, I'm really, really proud of you.
I appreciate the kind words.
I think it's great.
Speaker 1 (50:26):
What do you got?
So how do people find you, man?
What's your next steps?
Talk about Todd here a littlebit before we close out.
Speaker 2 (50:32):
Okay, our website Website is wwwoverpressurecom,
and what we are we're still justabout our core is spreading
awareness and offering solutionsof how we, how we pull this
thing out of the dark and beatthe shit out of it.
You know.
So we offer, you know,awareness through our community
(50:56):
collaboration there, where, youknow, 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 mydoctor?
What science can I show themthat kind of thing?
And then you know, on thelegislative front, great, you
know, great strides have beenmade, but we're still a long way
(51:16):
to go.
So, you know, we felt that wecould offer a solution there.
You know, that's why we came upwith the overpressure
warfighters act.
Speaker 1 (51:24):
Uh, it's a big upfront cost but, like you said,
we could find that money nowand it'll pay for itself 10
times over 10 times over man andevery life we save is worth
that entire bucket of moneybecause they, these kids, don't
need to go and they're justleaving us too soon and it's
horrible to even think about man, but no well, thank you for all
you're doing.
Speaker 2 (51:45):
Todd, you're an amazing American, great to be
here, great talking to you.
Speaker 1 (51:49):
Thank you for your service.
I hope to get our friend PaulScanlon on.
Of course I'll have to get upat like three in the morning to
interview him or something.
I would love to see thatinterview or something.
Speaker 2 (51:56):
I would love to see that.
Well, that would be a livelyconversation for sure, that
would be a lively conversation.
Speaker 1 (52:00):
Hey, denny, put Paul Scanlon on the list.
We'll have to make that onehappen.
Yeah and uh, but uh, no, he's agreat guy, man, but uh.
Thank you so much, todd, forcoming on.
Reach out to the Mack ParkmanFoundation for a collaboration
perspective.
Please feel free to come out tothe summit on the 2nd and 3rd
(52:23):
If you want to put a table up.
You know, talk to everybody.
It's all about repetitive blastexposure.
You're one of the industryexperts on it and we really
appreciate everything you'redoing for our servicemen and
women out there.
Man, thank you so much and Godbless you.
Speaker 2 (52:33):
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 enteredinto this over the last year or
so is seeing how many otherpassionate, invested people
there are and trying to solvethis problem and put an end to
it and bring understanding to it.
(52:54):
So I salute you guys as well.
Speaker 1 (52:57):
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 (53:02):
Great minds, great people, great things.
I think of my cohort a lot aslike a Roman cohort I noticed
that, man, you got all thatGladiator stuff going on.
Man, that's pretty cool theshields are locked right.
Speaker 1 (53:13):
Yeah, I like that I'll.
That was very good, cool, allright, folks, another great
episode of Broken Brains withmyself, bruce Parkman, sponsored
by the Mac Parkman Foundation.
Really appreciate your presencetoday.
Don't forget I say it everytime If you've got children,
you've got grandchildren, you'regoing to have children Get this
book.
(53:33):
It's on our website.
It's free.
Everything you know aboutcontact sports and what we can
do to make sports safer.
It's free Everything you knowabout contact sports and what we
can do to make sports safer.
Just like we talked aboutmaking the military safer which
we can we're going to makesports safer for yourselves and
your children.
Don't forget the secondinternational summit on
repetitive brain trauma is goingto be held in Tampa September
(53:53):
3rd and 4th.
We'll go ahead and get all thaton 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 anotherepisode of Broken Brains and
take care you.
Hey folks, welcome to another episode of Broken
Brains with your host, bruceParkman, sponsored by the Mack
Parkman Foundation, where welook at the issue of repetitive
brain trauma in the form ofrepetitive head impacts from
contact sports and repetitiveblast exposure to our veteran
community and what theseconditions are doing to their
brains and causing what is rightnow, the largest preventable
(00:32):
cause of mental illness in thiscountry.
Why is this important?
Because it's not trained in ourmedical, psychological or
nursing communities and very fewpeople have the knowledge at
this time to look at what'sgoing on in our society and how
to treat it.
And so you now become thatperson, the informed individual.
We reach out to researchers andpatients and players and
(00:55):
authors and all kinds of peopleto give you that 360 degree
perspective on this problem thatpermeates all aspects of our
society.
Today, another exciting guest.
I've met this gentleman beforeand he got up on several times
let people know what he wasthinking about the issue of
sub-recussive trauma, repetitiveblast exposure.
This is Todd Strait.
Todd Strait is a US Armyveteran Thank you for your
(01:17):
service, sir and a nationallyrecognized advocate for brain
injury awareness to repeatedlow-level exposure After
suffering from debilitatingsymptoms linked to blast
overpressure.
As a mortiman Strayed hastransformed his personal
struggle into a mission toprotect and support his fellow
members.
He has founded OverpressuredLLC, which is, I think, a 501c3
(01:41):
dedicated to raising awarenessof blast overpressure injuries.
I've seen him testify atseveral events since we've
gotten into this.
He created the cohort ofchronically concussed mortars,
c3m, a support network withnearly 3,000 members, and he's
invented the PELTA-6, a helmetattachment that's designed to
reduce the effects of blastpressure on the head and brains
(02:05):
of our servicemen.
He's contributed to nationalinvestigations in New York Times
and other major outlets,collaborated with scientists,
clinicians, on the issues andeffects of repetitive blast
exposure on the lives of ourfellow veterans.
He's briefed members ofCongress in support of the
(02:26):
introduction of the OverpressureWarfighters Act of 2025, which
is a critical piece oflegislation that really
literally got the government toadmit that we have a problem.
What are we going to do aboutit now?
And he advocates for approvedmilitary health policies,
research funding and protectivetechnologies for blast Exposed
Troops.
And he leads efforts to bridgethat gap between lived
(02:47):
experience, science and policy,because he feels that we must
ensure that the invisible woundsof war are no longer ignored,
which we find continuously inour veteran population.
It's also why we have, you know, 10 times the amount of kids
that died in war dying ofsuicide, and 8,000 more dying
each year.
Mr Trader, what was your rank?
Speaker 2 (03:08):
sir, I was an E4 with an Article 15.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Oh, hey.
Well, I had four of them myself.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
I won't make any holes of being a soldier of fame
, but that's an average Joe.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Ah, no, well, thank you for your service, todd, and
welcome to the show Reallyappreciate 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, andwhen did you start recognizing
the impact of that service onyour life?
Speaker 2 (03:40):
I was a veteran of the end of the Cold War, gulf
War era, so most of my exposureshappened in the training
environment.
And because I wasn't maybe thebest soldier ever, I was on the
gun line a long time, almost sixyears, because you know, like I
(04:03):
said, that Article 15 held meback a rank for a little bit, so
I got to stay on the gun line alittle bit longer than
everybody else.
But because of that I I I dohave an extraordinary amount of
of of these low level exposures,uh, that that I was exposed to
back then.
And back then it was somethingthat you know we weren't even.
We didn't uh Frank Larkin saysit best we didn't know, we
(04:39):
didn't know.
Back then it really wasn't anissue, I think the military
leaders you said making theconnection to the behavioral
health problems and the suicides.
So anyway, back then we didn'tknow.
What we didn't know Biggestthing we had to pay attention to
was your hearing.
They'd yell at you to put yourearplugs in, whatever.
But I do remember that duringthe time I was in I started
(05:02):
developing these chronicheadaches.
Sometimes they weredebilitating.
One time I had one happen to methat was in the field and I
literally fell out of the track,you know, onto my knees
throwing up my head, justfeeling like it was caving in.
And you know, back then themedics just treated you.
You know, drink water, takesome Motrin, change your socks,
(05:24):
and you know you're not going toget any medals for having a
headache.
So, uh, go back to go back toduty was basically.
You know what you got back then.
And back then I never thoughtanything of it that there was
any kind of connection to myheadaches and the and the blast
over pressure.
Uh, cause, to be fair, I hadhit my head, uh, you know, in
airborne school, on my last jump, pretty hard, but I never even
(05:47):
thought that was a concussiveevent that I need to be worried
about.
It was the last day of airborneschool.
All I cared about wasgraduating.
So you know, nobody's thinkingabout, you know, do I need to go
see doc or anything like that?
So years later, after I leftservice and then the headache
stuck with me and thenprogressively over the next
(06:08):
decade or so after I got out,they started getting really bad,
where you know they would bedebilitating, more common, more
severe, with private medicalhealth, you know, in the private
medical healthcare system.
Let me just jump in there realquick.
I think it's a good time tointerject that you know, because
(06:31):
I've been affected by all theseblasts.
I may come across sometimesthat like a watch that's been
dropped a few too many times.
So bear with me if I, if Istumble a little bit, Don't
worry about it, man, I've beenthere, you got it, don't worry
about it all right.
So, uh, had these headachestreated, tweeted, treated with
them in the civilian sector, hadhad an ongoing problem.
And then my uncles, who werevietnam veterans, they suggested
(06:54):
that I file a va claim for vadisability 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 Ineeded to to to get to, to met,
to get a VA compensation for,for that claim, uh, not
surprisingly, I was denied on onmy first claim, which didn't
(07:14):
really surprise me.
But what?
What just dumbfounded me wasthe reason I was denied was that
because they could not locatemy in-service medical treatment
records.
Uh, and I didn't, I didn't takea copy when I got discharged.
So they were denying me becausethey couldn't locate the
records that they're responsiblefor keeping.
So that just kind of incensedme and at that time I just
(07:37):
started looking for ways that Icould 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 herefrom the Wall Street Times and
it says weapons training likelycauses brain injury in troops,
study says.
And right on the cover you havea crew of mortarmen firing
(07:59):
their mortar.
So I read that and it went onto discuss the key prominent
symptoms or headaches andmigraines, and it turned out I
started to check a couple otherboxes that I was kind of
symptomatic of.
So instantly I saw theconnection right there and it
was like a light bulb.
Of course this is theconnection.
(08:19):
It's obvious.
This is it.
From that on, for my ownbenefit, I started following the
science to establish evidencefor my own VA claim, to win that
claim.
But as I was doing so andlearning the science, tracking
down every study, then findingout who they referenced in that
(08:40):
study, then go read theirstudies and that kind of thing
study, then go read theirstudies and that kind of thing,
as I was doing that I wouldshare with these 11 Charlie or
mortar centric Facebook groupsthat I belong to.
You know what I was finding out.
I would pull out the X you knowexcerpts from the study, from
the conclusions or whatever, andsay, hey, guys, you need to,
(09:00):
you need to know this.
And then that turned intomaking videos.
You need to know this.
And then that turned intomaking videos which use like
mortars going off.
You know you can see the bigconcussive wave and everything
and the dust flying.
And, you know, using that with,with, with the same excerpts
from the study to kind of getmore of the storytelling across
to what's happening in theawareness, because I'm with you,
(09:21):
I think.
I think that the biggest thingis is that people need to be
aware once.
Once people are aware, thatwill change the, the landscape
of everything.
Just realizing that there'ssomething going on and, you know
, like before we didn't knowthat there was anything we
needed to be worried about.
And I I think that's wherewe're making a lot of, we're
(09:42):
gaining a lot of ground,especially with the troops on
the ground is getting them torealize that there is a
connection to these blasts andbrain hazard, brain health
hazards that they need to beaware of.
And knowing that that exists,they'll take that extra step,
you know, like we did, to makesure your ears are plugged or
whatever.
I'm hoping We'd be able to makesure your ears are plugged or
(10:02):
whatever.
I'm hoping.
So, made those videos and then Idecided that I needed to go on
and create my own Facebook group, so I did, which was Centric
for Mortarmen, which you said, acohort of chronically concussed
mortarmen, and that wasactually what we turned into the
(10:25):
501c3.
We did it in name only, just toget it a seat at a, a table.
We don't have any other, wedon't have a board or anything.
It's just me and my buddy, timgrossman, uh, but in any case,
we, we founded that facebookgroup and it grew uh really well
over years as word spread.
Among other, you know, militarypeople that are exposed to
these.
And uh, and early last year, um, I was contacted by Dave
(10:45):
Phillips of the of the New Yorktimes, who did a story about the
mortar, uh, us mortar men andhe's.
He sourced our Facebook groupand uh, me and several other
members of the group in hisstory and from really that point
on, uh, things have kind oftaken off for the Facebook group
.
Now we have nearly 3,000members and they're all active
(11:09):
duty veterans, families,researchers, journalists, you
name it, they're all there.
But it's all a sharingcommunity.
People share the latest science, tell stories of how they're
feeling, what works for them.
Guys ask for insight on how tohandle their interviews with
their doctors, things like that.
Tell, uh, you know stories ofhow they're feeling, what works
for them.
You know, guys ask for insighton how to handle their their
interviews with their doctors,things like that.
(11:29):
So it's, it's become somethingI'm really proud of and in the
last year it's been sourced, Ithink, about half a dozen times
by everybody, from ABC news toNPR and and it's it's become a
real, a real thing which I neverthought would happen, but I'm
pretty proud of that.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Well, good on you, man.
I mean, as we become more awareof this.
I remember the first time I metyou was at that MITRE
conference, I think about a yearand a half ago, and I watched
you go up and I was reallyimpressed with your knowledge
and your ability to outline alot of these issues.
Now you were a mortimer in amechanized unit.
(12:08):
You mentioned track.
Right that's right, good, good.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
So those are, yes, most of my time was in a
mechanized armored vehicle, andthen my last three years was
just a mix of everything doinglight.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
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 knowthat you know, you know I speak
on this a lot and if you'reexposed to a blast right and
you're outside, say you're on adoor or you're, you know you're
blowing something up, that blastwave is, you know, a certain
(12:43):
amount of PSI when it hits you.
If you're inside a building oryou're inside a track which is
like a cube, the amount ofpressure that you experience it
can be, I know, I know, forinside a building is 5X.
It's five times more pressurebecause it's contained, it's
bouncing all over the place.
(13:04):
And Todd's point about havingprotective earring the easiest
way to get into the brain isthrough the ear canal.
There's nothing there.
Now we're going to put a littlepiece of plastic and hope that
this blast wave stays out.
No, the blast wave goes throughthe whole body and the brain.
But yeah, I just wanted folksto know that when you said track
, I'm like, oh my God, he wasdropped.
I was folks to know that.
(13:25):
When you said track, I'm like,oh my god, he was dropped.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
I was a mech guy my first tour in the in the, my
first tour on the infantry ingermany.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
So you know, exactly what we're talking about, and I
was living in a hotel, so I wasa tow gunner.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Oh, were you so yeah, we have a lot of members of
those in our cohort too, becausethey they get a significant
amount of uh you know backpressure going back on them from
the, from the lock rocketlaunching yeah, shoulder fires.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
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 (13:52):
you don't know, that's true, mortars are pretty
much, uh, pretty close to thehead of the table when it comes
to eating this blast yeah, thoseare big bullets, man.
Yeah, you made a great point,great point being in and among
hardened reflective surfacesmagnifies the exposure.
I like to tell when I'm on theline talking to people, imagine
(14:16):
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 overpressure.
Whatever it hits, it's going tobounce off of and reflect up,
just as almost you can imaginewater doing so.
Just as you said, as inside aroom, it's going to hit each
corner, it's going to bouncearound, it's going to bounce
(14:39):
around in your bucket andeverything.
So those real worldcircumstances really add to uh,
the problem, the exposures thatare going on.
And I think and I think, if Icould, just because you brought
up such a great point, because Ithink a lot of the research
(14:59):
doesn't take into account thereal world circumstances that a
lot of these weapons findthemselves operating in, uh, you
know, for example, you, youmight have heard that the latest
suggestions are, you know, andthey make total sense from a
scientific perspective is justwell, distance yourself from the
blast, uh, get further away.
(15:20):
Or the latest one for morerelating to mortars, is that
they found that if you, if youstoop 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.
But what they what?
But again, sometimes thesehappen in an enclosed space,
(15:44):
where these bounce, these blastwaves are bouncing around, where
it totally moots the point ofof stooping down or stepping
back.
And a lot of these weaponscan't be fired from distances
that they're suggesting.
Like you know, a shoulder firedrocket can't be fired from 1.7
meters away.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
No, you can't drop a mortar and then run away away
from the Blacksteel.
That thing's popping off assoon as you drop it, man.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
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 understandingwhat makes these weapons unique
and effective and what they do,these recommendations kind of
detract from that.
Sometimes.
I think and I think that mightbe one of the areas that the dod
(16:32):
has pushed back on is, uh, youknow, we can't really do that
practically, and there are, youknow.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
I remember back in my day we used to have those
subcaliber mortar rounds whereyou would, you know, at least go
through the drills.
Because we know now that theonly way to really not but to
reduce the severity of theproblem is to reduce the amount
of exposure.
Right, fire less mortar rounds.
And and to you know, to acertain point, you know, you,
(17:01):
once you get shooting a good,you're good with a rifle.
You don't need to shoot everyday, right, right, and we treat
in the military P is for plenty,right, everywhere you go.
And you know that when you takethose mortar rounds out to the
range, nobody wants to turn theminto the ASP.
So what happens?
Right, you know, you shoot themall, but you bring up a good
point too is that you know,regardless of your Article 15,
(17:24):
you know much like a rangesafety officer.
You were on the line, you knowwhether you were I guess you
were probably teaching and doingeverything that you know
whether you were just runningmortar rounds.
But talk to us about the amountof exposure that you or the
typical range safety officermight get when they're actually
working a mortar range, and andthat's their job, you know.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Uh a mortarman, we, we, so we established our
Facebook group to bring aboutawareness and then we uh a buddy
.
Uh team teamed up with me hisname's Tim Grossman and we
decided that we needed to domore than that.
So we decided to propose somelegislative action.
We called it the Resolution toChange Law, and we were asking
(18:10):
for a presumptive serviceconnection for veterans who had
illnesses that we thought wererelated to these occupational
blast exposures.
So in writing that resolution,we had to determine how many
rounds we thought an averagesoldier was exposed to in their
first four years of enlistment.
(18:30):
Because when it comes to mortars, the soldiers who are going to
have the most exposures aregoing to be the lower enlisted,
because they're the ones whoactually are the closest to the
gun.
The squad leader is usuallystanding back about three meters
or so, still within a blastradius, but the ones who are
going to be the most affectedare the squad leader I mean, I'm
(18:51):
sorry the gunner, the assistantgunner and the ammo bearer, and
they're usually going to be E1sthrough E3s, you know, young,
whatever.
So in four years we calculatedthat about 1,000 rounds per year
, and that's in peacetime.
That doesn't include combatdeployments, which would
obviously increase that a greatdeal, and in environments too,
(19:14):
where they'd be behind ESCOs ordug deep into mortar pits where
the reflective waves would beeven higher.
So we calculated that basicallyabout, in a four-year
enlistment, around 4,000 rounds.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
Do you remember what the PSI overpressure was of a
mortar, depending on the size ofit?
Speaker 2 (19:33):
Well, it's all obviously the bigger the mortar.
Back when I started we had the4.2-inch mortar, the four-deuce,
and it was, I think, 107millimeters I think, and then
today we have the 120 millimetermortar.
So, and the difference in the100, even though the four deuce
(19:58):
was a little bit smaller indiameter, it had a shorter
barrel and a lower muzzle, so itexposed to the crew to just as
much exposure as the bigger 120with a much higher muzzle.
I spoke with Dr Carr fromWalter Reed last year and he was
showing me these study resultsthat he had that in the
(20:22):
cumulative long-term aspect the81 millimeter is almost
indistinguishable from the 120as far as the exposure it puts
on the crew.
So it there's really no, Iwould say.
I guess, to answer yourquestion, what is the general
(20:43):
psi exposure that a soldier isgetting right?
Is that kind of what you wantto know for those thousand
exposures?
Speaker 1 (20:50):
well, that's what I was, you know, uh, working on
because, um, I don't know if youremember that they came up with
a GBEV, a generalized blastexposure variable.
I just got done creating aspreadsheet so people can
calculate their own.
Okay, and they have fivecategories of weapons and I
(21:12):
think mortars are two or three.
Right, but it's because, likethe OSHA standard for PSI being
safe, we know that one mortarround exceeds that.
But I didn't know what I forgot, what the number might be.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
But then you're talking.
I would say conservatively thatthe average number would be
well, would be over the 4 PSI.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
Yeah, I'm saying the 4 PSI per day.
And one mortar round is, likeyou know, a 50-cal rifle is 15
PSI, I think.
Exactly.
And so in one round you'veexceeded a day, and then you're
shooting multiple rounds andthat just starts hammering the
brain, exactly.
And of course we're soldiers, welike it.
Oh, you get that tingling, yougot that shockwave going through
(21:54):
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 thatarticle.
I mean up until I just startedstudying this a couple of years
ago.
I had and that was probably youknow from that article came out
before my son died, but I hadno idea that.
You know of the impact of that,those concussive waves on the
(22:19):
body.
And I don't know if you knowthis, but I think last year they
do.
You know that there was never adiagnostic code for the brain.
From last until last year theyhad a diagnostic code for every
organ, every limb, everythingbut the brain.
And they just came out with anICD billing code and I just put
(22:42):
it in my brief last year andhardly anybody knows about it.
So you know it's it's crazy.
You know that they had that Didyou create the ICD code or you
found it?
Nope, I found it in an article.
I was doing some researchbecause we're doing these
seminars and I'll go dig it upfor you, but there is now.
They just figured out that theyhad an ICD code for the colon
(23:05):
and for the gut and for the lungand for the heart, because you
know the blast right Comingthrough you Never not anything
for the brain.
So let me ask you a question ofthe you know, you own a
Facebook group, 3000 kids in it.
How many of those kids arehaving you know?
You know headaches are onething, right, I mean, that's
that's that's those headachesusually are.
(23:27):
Also, if they're associatedwith a damaged brain, there's
usually some poor mental healthoutcomes that come with those.
What is the prognosis of thegroup that you're that you're
managing right now in terms ofmental health?
Are you seeing kids strugglewith mental health that have
been exposed to a lot of mortar,in this case heavy weapons?
Speaker 2 (23:51):
When it's online, in the social media presence.
I think a lot of the guys whoare truly struggling don't often
, uh, really display it much.
I think the veterans are moreopen 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
(24:14):
line, like when I went to themortar competition and I can, I
can just see the guys who werejust 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 seeit on the guys when it's like a
shadow or an aura over them.
It's like, and I I see it toooften and it motivates me to
(24:35):
just dig in even further becausethis is an issue that just
needs to be talked about more.
It's not talked about becausethere's this stigma or this
dogma that I think that somehowis associated with weakness or
some kind of an inner flaw, andone of the tenets that I've been
(24:56):
preaching for years is thatwhen you know when, when you get
to feeling weird, uh and andthings start feeling weird it's,
you need to step back and andtake a moment to realize that
maybe what you're feeling andhow you're perceiving the world
around you right now is might bethe response of an injury to
(25:17):
your brain, more than it is whatyou're really experiencing.
You know what I mean.
Maybe you can just take thathalf second to just go wait a
minute when things get weird.
You know, maybe, maybe, maybeit's just my head.
I remember, you know I've beenexposed to these booms.
I've heard about all thisawareness, you know, and uh, and
(25:40):
that's that's really what Ithink 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 toan injury, uh, than than
anything, and I think that takesthis kind of shame that people
have away and and just kind ofunburdens them and it just kind
(26:04):
of.
I've had a lot of anecdotalmessages.
People tell me how, howrelieved they are that you know
it all makes sense.
Now, when, when you, when youpoint out the science and the
mechanisms and you know's,here's why this might be.
You know, this is, this iswhat's happening to your brain,
and you know, no part of yourbrain is not affected by these
(26:24):
blasts and there's no part ofyou that's not affected by your
brain, and so just that's reallybeen a key, key thing that I,
I'd I like to see.
So as my.
As far as the pregnantprognosis, I think it's
improving.
Uh, this 22 a day thing, justit irks me and in fact I asked a
(26:46):
researcher once if that wasjust hyperbole or is that really
like the peak number you know?
Or they said no, it's, it's.
It's a real, it's real yeah, itjust kind of dumbfounded me, and
ever since then it's been oneof my primary drivers.
Is this, uh, the suicide aspectof things?
Speaker 1 (27:05):
And uh well, it's all about to you know part of what
you're doing with the oh good.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
If I may, there was a study not too long ago.
I wish I could remember thename of it, but they showed that
suicide risk diminished greatlyfor veterans and soldiers
who've been diagnosed with a TBI, being acknowledged that they
have an injury.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
Well, and the issue is is that, as we create the
awareness you know, yourorganization and ours, other out
there, others like that we dogive these guys some closure?
What we have to do is move tothe next step, because, even
though they have a TBI or theyhave a damaged brain, if they go
to the VA, most of the VAproviders out there and most of
the and TRICARE especially outhere, man, I go to my VA guy out
(27:53):
there.
They're not educated on it andif they are, that's great, but
all they can offer you is abunch of drugs and therapy.
My guy offered me Tai Chi Great, all right.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
How would you act?
Speaker 1 (28:04):
today.
Yeah Right, all that stuff thatcan help fix the brain is
completely off the books rightnow.
And there is progress.
Tricare is doing some superbilling for HBOD and some of the
you know ketamine maybe, butyou know there has to be a
definitive move in the approvalof these modalities to help
(28:26):
these veterans that arestruggling with psychological
disorders, mental illness,because we're not we're just not
doing the right thing.
Right, we're giving them drugsand therapy.
Well, it's not impacting thisand that's where you know the.
What you're doing right now isis making that aware.
Make it be aware.
So talk about the OverpressuredWarfighters Act of 2025.
(28:50):
I mean, you were critical ingetting that introduced to
Congress.
Tell us what that bill is allabout.
Where's it at?
Speaker 2 (29:01):
Tell us what that bill is all about?
Where is it at and what is ittrying to do for our veterans?
So really, that's a bill that Iwrote, that I came up with,
(29:25):
really kind of standing on theshoulders of last year's
legislation with the Blast OverPressure Safety Act and what was
included in the NDAA and alsoon a couple of DOD memorandums
about blast overpressure.
To their credit, dod isactually doing pretty good.
As frustrated as we getsometimes, we have to keep in
mind that DOD is still leadingthe world as far as tackling
this overpressure Still got tofight wars man.
Yeah, so I'm wars man yeah, soI'm sorry what was the question.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
No talk to us about the Overpressured Warfighters
Act of 2025.
What's that all about?
Speaker 2 (29:50):
We got to discuss in different conversations with
colleagues of mine journalists,other researchers, other people
in industry, other affected wegot to thinking you know this
latest legislation of last year,it's awesome, it's a great step
in the right direction, but ina lot of ways it falls short.
And you know, for one thing,there's no real accountability
(30:13):
for any of it.
In the end of the day, itleaves it up to the unit
commanders to do what they wantand the army to spend the money
how they want.
If you know, that means ifother priorities come up, they
can spend it on other priorities, and there's there's no real
kind of congressional oversightto to make sure these things are
being enforced on it, as far asI know anyway.
(30:33):
So I felt that maybe to fillthese gaps we could offer a
different solution.
So I wrote this bill in a waythat I thought okay, so what
would put an end to this?
Not just continue studying theproblem, but really end it and I
thought the way we need toapproach this is.
(30:56):
So the gold standard for me isyou probably heard of dr pearl
and his, his brain bank so thefor me, the girl the gold
standard of understanding what'shappening to the brain.
Uh is what he's found out, uh,through his uh, you know,
looking at them.
So I think everything needs tobe kind of re-engineered back
from that.
(31:16):
So science should be looking athow does it, how do we get here
, instead of trying to figureout, you know, does this path
lead to that?
Let's start with this is what'shappening Now.
Figure out all the ways you canprevent it from happening, if
that makes any kind of sense.
So I felt that in the Blast OverPressure Safety Act we could
(31:38):
apply some things.
I feel that the DOD could usesomething like a BOP czar, like
we have now for the border, justkind of a nonpartisan guy who
just is somewhere betweensomeone who understands all the
perspectives of the DOD, theresearchers, industry and the
(31:58):
public, but is primarilyconcerned with the welfare of
the soldier and can make surethat these DOD blast over
pressure protocols are beingimplemented and they're having
an effect and you know we'reseeing a result from it.
And then on the veteran sidewell, on the DOD side, let me
just add on I feel that the onlyway to tackle this blast
(32:21):
overpressure thing is that everysoldier who is in occupation
that is exposed to these blastsas part of their job.
It's a job requirement.
It's not a blast that happenedby circumstance during their
employment.
This is a job requirement aspart of being proficient in this
job.
Being proficient in this job,they should be issued a blast
(32:42):
wearable blast gauge or somekind of blast dosometer device
that instantly lets uh, youremember 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 youknow a beat, goes off saying hey
, you've had too much exposure.
Exposure, you need to be lookedat by the docs.
Go sit down, what, what haveyou, and then, uh, I think that
(33:04):
would do a good job of endingthe problem.
On the dod, I think on the uh onthe veteran side, we were
trying to fight for umpresumptive service connection
for veterans who were exposed tothese blast over pressures.
That didn't seem to be gettingvery far, but then, but then I
had the notion that maybe we canuse the PACT Act to help us,
(33:26):
because I think a fair argumentcould be made that the blast
overpressure alone could qualifyas a toxic exposure to the crew
.
I think there would be a lot ofpushback on that.
But then I got to watching thevideos of mortars firing and
artillery firing and breachersthey're surrounded by smoke and
(33:46):
dust and particles and that thatall 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 knowcarbon filled smoke and
particulate dust it creates allin the same environment, now
that could probably definitelybe argued as a toxic.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
Just the.
You know, I can remember thesmell.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
You know of C4 when it cracks up.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
That is not good to breathe, right and you know
we're doing CQB in rooms thatare filled with dust from
flashbangs and bullet fragmentsand the cordite right, all that
stuff that you smell.
You're inhaling that left andright.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
We knew from the burn pits, those, those, those,
those smoke.
That smoke has toxic, you knowparticulates in it.
So I felt that you know,jackpot, that's how we, that's
how we get presumptive serviceconnection for veterans who are
exposed to these blasts is wetie it into the PACT Act.
And then that seemed to be thelowest hanging fruit to me.
(34:46):
So that was the real big coreof what I wanted to do with the
Overpressure Warfighters Act.
Just to be clear, it hasn'tbeen introduced by anyone.
I'm trying to find a home forit to be introduced.
Anyone who would really havethe backbone to introduce it or
(35:08):
at least provide a goodexplanation as to what they
think is wrong with it.
I think it's worthy at least ofbeing talked about.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
Well, maybe we've got legislation no, we've got
legislation with Van Orden,congressman, van Orden, navy
SEAL right now to provide, youknow, the awareness, diagnosis,
treatment and then insurance andbilling coverage for repetitive
blast exposure.
You know veterans, you knowveterans that have had a lot of
(35:43):
repetitive blast exposure, andthat would be an interesting
thing to talk about, because Inever thought about that.
That's a unique take on it.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
So maybe we could get the funding to come out of the
PACT Act or get supplementalfunding to the PACT Act for
those veterans that do displayyou know, I think I think, with
with with the money environmentthat it is around capitol hill,
I think I think I think there'sno excuse for not coming up with
(36:14):
some sort of creative way tofund this, for you can't doge
this dude we own this man.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
We created it.
These kids are hurting.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
You know we're asking for amounts to a rounding error
and in the budget.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
They do.
You know, budget dust mandoesn't even, yeah, doesn't even
make a sense to not discuss it,right?
Speaker 2 (36:33):
I, I firmly believe that my bill, uh, in 20 years,
uh, you know, I did an AI modelover the cost savings and
whatever over the long run, in20 years we can cut the suicides
in half for the populationthat's exposed to these blasts.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
I wouldn't doubt it If you took some of these
modalities on a cost-benefitbasis, if you did the analysis
whether it's HBOT, tms, some ofthe psychedelics, we can get
veterans back on their feet wayfaster, with better brain health
, than we can charging $500,whatever we charge for these
pills in a lifetime ofinactivity, of suffering in
(37:15):
silence, of poor mental healthoutcomes, physical health
outcomes and suicidality.
Right, there's no doubt in mymind that there's a significant
it's not behind everything butthere's a significant segment of
the population that have takentheir lives, that were impacted
by combat and training as aresult of repetitive blast
exposure that was neverdiagnosed, never assessed and we
(37:37):
need to fix this.
I mean, that's just, you knowI'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 diagnosedwith it and I'm not looking for
myself.
God's been good to me.
What I am looking out for is allthese 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 acttogether because they can't get
their brain together.
It's not, and then everybodygives up on him.
(37:59):
I was talking to somebody thatday, their, their brother-in-law
, you know, took their life andthey were like he was hopeless.
He was.
He came back from Fallujah.
He was a disaster.
Well, and I'm thinking tomyself like well, you know, he
might've been a disaster becauseof Fallujah because of his
service.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
Nobody ever stopped to consider.
Maybe he's behaving.
Maybe what you're seeing in himare are the presentations of an
injury to his brain.
You know right?
Speaker 1 (38:26):
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 tohis mental illness.
He's self-medicating.
He is acting crazy because hisbrain hurts.
So can we do something for hisbrain?
And I think it's going to beefforts like yours that are
(38:47):
going to be able to get us overthe hump.
And to your point, I mean, Ithink, even since we met at
MITRE a year and a half ago orso, man, things are improving.
I mean, there is a lot ofawareness on this.
Us SOCOM is taking this up bigtime.
But let me ask you a question,because everybody's worried
about what's this going to do tothe force?
You know, and I am you know ofthe of the moment to get your
(39:13):
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 orrobotic dogs dropping mortars
down tubes and all that.
It still needs to be done, andI think that there's a way to
minimize the exposure.
(39:33):
What are your thoughts on allof this?
Because we still got to train,we still got to fight.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
Absolutely, and I'm actually pretty optimistic.
Uh, I and I, and I think Isympathize with the dod's
perspective or the army'sperspective a little bit too,
and I don't.
I don't think this blast overpressure thing is some seven
heaven, some seven headed hydrawe have to run from and stick
our head in the sand from, orobfuscate, say.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
Like we've been doing for the last 25, since 9-11.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
If we just turned and faced it and locked shields and
drew it out into the light, wecould slay this thing pretty
easy With just smart training,like I said, I think the key to
that is Like I said, I think thekey to that is I give pushback
when we're starting to see wherethe academics and the
(40:26):
politicians are starting to setoperational procedures because
of what they think is what thelab results tell them.
You know, without reallyconsulting with the guys who
live it every day on the groundand whatnot.
So I think it, and I think agreat way to do that is to we
(40:48):
have to let dod keep operationalcontrol of how they, how they
do these things, because it'swhat's made, it's what makes us
so great at what they, what theydo, or them so great at what
they do.
I think the key to that isgiving command control of when,
uh, the soldiers had enough byallowing them to wear, mandating
that they have to have thesesensors on.
(41:08):
You know, when a sensor goesoff just like with the miles
gear back in the day you can'tturn it off yourself.
You have to have an evaluatorcome by and you know he can do
hold up three fingers and youknow, 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 theline.
I think just that right therewould take a huge bite out of
(41:29):
the excessive exposures.
You know another thing you saidwith the too many rounds
instead of firing them all off,why not give the unit commander
some kind of funding credit forturning the rounds back in or
something like that.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
And they're talking.
And, to your point, who is likeyou know?
The Army.
Just, I mean, I'm from the ColdWar, like you, right.
I mean, when I first got theSpecial 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 hadrifles and we went downrange
(42:05):
and we taught guys how to and wehad mortars right, loved
mortars, man.
As a matter of fact, when Iserved in the war in El Salvador
, I made sure I did two things Iwent to the SF medical course
and the SF mortar course beforeI went down range because we had
not we didn't even havehelicopters or howitzers in that
war.
We had nothing Right.
So we had mortars but the youknow.
The issue becomes that you know,in training we don't have to.
(42:29):
You know.
You know, once you're good atmortars, you're good at mortars,
not that you still need to.
You know you can dosubconcussive round trade, you
can set up them tubes all thetime and honestly, you look,
you're 11 series.
I think everybody should be amortar.
So why don't you rotate out tothe squad right, be a grunt,
carry rifles and let the gruntsbecome.
(42:51):
I mean 11, age 11, charlie 11,bravo, we're all left, right and
so I think, even rotatingthrough these different MOSs,
because it's all about reducingthe total amount of exposure,
that's the only way to clearthis up.
But good, good, no, but if weknow it's going to hurt you,
(43:11):
then to your point, when you getout of the Army, the Army owns
the damage that is caused to youin order to defend this
wonderful and amazing countryand maintain the most lethal
force in the world.
You get disability and you gettreatment, because if we do
treat the brain I mean, I'm 63years old, I just had my
nightmare, like two and a halfyears ago we're talking to kids
that are dealing with this inthe Army then they get out.
(43:35):
We can't cure this, but we canmake 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 andtheir service was worth it
because there is, it is.
There's so much fun servingyour country, it's so honorable
serving your country and, yeah,I'll take what I, what I went
(43:56):
through.
I do it all over again.
Yeah, but I don't want toeducate the VA like I had to on
repetitive blast exposure to getmy disability.
I'm like, come on, and I wasn'teven looking for disability.
I just said I want to stopstuttering, I want to remember
where my car keys are and Idon't want to be angry, no more.
So can you fix this?
And they said, yeah, you've gota messed up brain, drugs and
(44:19):
therapies.
So I went and treated myself,but to your point, I think
you're absolutely right.
It's about total exposure andwe can train better.
I like your idea of a blastpage.
This course is going to get allthese scientists and you made a
point earlier we don't need toresearch TBIs anymore.
We don't even need to researchrepetitive blast exposure.
We know it's an issue.
(44:40):
We know it harms our guys itharms our girls.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
We need to stop action.
We have enough science nowaction, action.
Speaker 1 (44:48):
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 calledthe petra six pelta pelta six.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
it means yeah, what is it?
So it the Petra 6.
Pelta 6.
It means yeah, what is it?
Go over there?
Speaker 1 (45:02):
and get it.
That's behind you, right, hangon.
Yeah, go get that.
You had that at that show thatday.
This is pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
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 theround, they turn their head
away and that exposes the backof their head and their
cerebellum to the glass waves.
In fact, almost every heavyweapon crew does that.
Okay so, and I have my ownproblems in the back of my head
(45:39):
there.
So I thought maybe there's aconnection.
And then one day I justhappened to be looking at
footage of all the the differentweapons firing and everybody
turns their head away from theblast, uh, leaving the
cerebellum and the top of thespine yeah, because you tilt
your head back up all this.
Yeah, wow with mortars that canbe an arm's length away from the
blast.
So I thought you know maybesome protective gear there could
(46:02):
help do that and you know it'sbeen a success.
We think it can cut the blastexposure by 50% when we get it
on soldiers.
Speaker 1 (46:10):
You've been able to do any studies on that.
Speaker 2 (46:13):
What's that?
Speaker 1 (46:13):
Have you done any studies on that?
Has anybody tested it like on arange?
Speaker 2 (46:17):
Yes, we have that.
So we've done some fieldtesting with first special
forces group on a test mannequinand then we did some testing
with virginia tech in theirblast simulator.
Wow, just uh.
So we've pretty much proved theconcept and we presented those
results at the latest.
Uh, nato researchers, uh,meeting up in toronto.
Uh, but to dovetail on whatyou're saying, what the, what
(46:37):
the dod can do about, about it,that's just another thing.
Smarter training, protectivegear.
There's a lot of ways thatprotective gear can be used.
That would probably take a goodchunk of the exposure out of
these guys.
Speaker 1 (46:52):
Yeah, going back to the helmets that actually cover
the ears, I know they're heavierbut 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'tstop that from coming through,
you know, and and sometimes forthese kind of you know
situations maybe, working theproblem solving instead of the
(47:16):
you know no, we have to researchit's a whole new terra
incognita of research thatthey'd love to go explore.
Speaker 2 (47:24):
But we have enough, and there's soldiers and
veterans that are in need rightnow of solutions and that we
have enough to provide it tothem.
And I think, just beingacknowledged, when a soldier or
veteran goes to the doctor andis complaining of these
concussive-type symptoms, theycan't no longer be made to feel
(47:46):
that they're the problem.
You know.
Look, you don't have adocumented TBI incident, so
therefore you're the problem.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, so I would like to see inthe DOD and VA, just like when
(48:08):
you go into triage for anythingelse, 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 youexposed to blast occupationally
in the service?
Speaker 1 (48:16):
Yeah, that should be part of every VA.
Speaker 2 (48:18):
That should be part.
Yeah, part of every va, itshould be part.
Yep, if you were, the newtriage goes this way, and then
everything, because then we needto start looking at the brain
being the central cause ofeverything that's going on, with
absolutely common denominator.
Speaker 1 (48:29):
Uh, you know so I think that's what we're.
Speaker 2 (48:31):
Yep, that's the goal, just smart steps like that, no
longer running from this monsterand instead just turn and
facing it.
We can we're americans, we cansolve anything, especially
soldiers.
You know what I mean and yougot to make it right.
Speaker 1 (48:44):
Man, these kids didn't do anything wrong.
I mean, god, that the stories Irun into out there and you know
the, it's just horrible and andand and and it's.
It's not curable but it is.
You know, it is treatable, it'sand we can make it a lot better
with what's out there.
Speaker 2 (49:02):
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 allover again.
A soldier doesn't care.
You know, I didn't really wantto be a mortar man, but when I
became one, I thought, afterbecoming one, I had seen what
they could do.
I thought they were the coolestthing ever.
Heck yeah.
Speaker 1 (49:19):
You know, I, I, I didn't never want to be a mortar
when I saw you guys helpingthose tubes and the plates.
And then I said then one daythey, you know, our guys said
hey, we're going to dismount andcarry a tow.
I'm like what we had to carrythe tripod, that big box.
I was like man, I wish I was amortar man.
(49:43):
It was horrible, man wouldn'twish it long.
Oh, man, I love, I love.
We used to carry those little60 millimeter, those little baby
mortars.
Man, those are a lot of fun.
Dude, we shot you know that's.
Speaker 2 (49:48):
That's a good point.
Even the 60 millimeter puts offa pretty good punch, because
the the key thing with the 60millimeters you're so close to
it, you're almost yeah, thatthing's like less than an arm's
length away from you know boomand it don't stick over your
head, man, that thing's belowyou.
Speaker 1 (50:02):
You blow your head, you know exactly, wow, dude.
Speaker 2 (50:05):
So uh, sure, yeah, soldiers shouldn't have to
veterans, or they shouldn't haveto go.
Especially veterans shouldn'thave to go through some kind of
evidentiary process to try toprove that they're hurting from
something that was a jobrequirement.
Speaker 1 (50:18):
I like your term presumptive man.
That's pretty cool.
I like it, man.
You've done a lot.
Speaker 2 (50:22):
Todd man, I'm really, really proud of you.
I appreciate the kind words.
I think it's great.
Speaker 1 (50:26):
What do you got?
So how do people find you, man?
What's your next steps?
Talk about Todd here a littlebit before we close out.
Speaker 2 (50:32):
Okay, our website Website is wwwoverpressurecom,
and what we are we're still justabout our core is spreading
awareness and offering solutionsof how we, how we pull this
thing out of the dark and beatthe shit out of it.
You know.
So we offer, you know,awareness through our community
(50:56):
collaboration there, where, youknow, 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 mydoctor?
What science can I show themthat kind of thing?
And then you know, on thelegislative front, great, you
know, great strides have beenmade, but we're still a long way
(51:16):
to go.
So, you know, we felt that wecould offer a solution there.
You know, that's why we came upwith the overpressure
warfighters act.
Speaker 1 (51:24):
Uh, it's a big upfront cost but, like you said,
we could find that money nowand it'll pay for itself 10
times over 10 times over man andevery life we save is worth
that entire bucket of moneybecause they, these kids, don't
need to go and they're justleaving us too soon and it's
horrible to even think about man, but no well, thank you for all
you're doing.
Speaker 2 (51:45):
Todd, you're an amazing American, great to be
here, great talking to you.
Speaker 1 (51:49):
Thank you for your service.
I hope to get our friend PaulScanlon on.
Of course I'll have to get upat like three in the morning to
interview him or something.
I would love to see thatinterview or something.
Speaker 2 (51:56):
I would love to see that.
Well, that would be a livelyconversation for sure, that
would be a lively conversation.
Speaker 1 (52:00):
Hey, denny, put Paul Scanlon on the list.
We'll have to make that onehappen.
Yeah and uh, but uh, no, he's agreat guy, man, but uh.
Thank you so much, todd, forcoming on.
Reach out to the Mack ParkmanFoundation for a collaboration
perspective.
Please feel free to come out tothe summit on the 2nd and 3rd
(52:23):
If you want to put a table up.
You know, talk to everybody.
It's all about repetitive blastexposure.
You're one of the industryexperts on it and we really
appreciate everything you'redoing for our servicemen and
women out there.
Man, thank you so much and Godbless you.
Speaker 2 (52:33):
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 enteredinto this over the last year or
so is seeing how many otherpassionate, invested people
there are and trying to solvethis problem and put an end to
it and bring understanding to it.
(52:54):
So I salute you guys as well.
Speaker 1 (52:57):
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 (53:02):
Great minds, great people, great things.
I think of my cohort a lot aslike a Roman cohort I noticed
that, man, you got all thatGladiator stuff going on.
Man, that's pretty cool theshields are locked right.
Speaker 1 (53:13):
Yeah, I like that I'll.
That was very good, cool, allright, folks, another great
episode of Broken Brains withmyself, bruce Parkman, sponsored
by the Mac Parkman Foundation.
Really appreciate your presencetoday.
Don't forget I say it everytime If you've got children,
you've got grandchildren, you'regoing to have children Get this
book.
(53:33):
It's on our website.
It's free.
Everything you know aboutcontact sports and what we can
do to make sports safer.
It's free Everything you knowabout contact sports and what we
can do to make sports safer.
Just like we talked aboutmaking the military safer which
we can we're going to makesports safer for yourselves and
your children.
Don't forget the secondinternational summit on
repetitive brain trauma is goingto be held in Tampa September
(53:53):
3rd and 4th.
We'll go ahead and get all thaton 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 anotherepisode of Broken Brains and
take care you.
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