Love After War: A Narrative (Conclusion)

Part V.

In August 2005, my roommate decided to move back home to Frederick, MD – a place often jokingly referred to as Fred-Neck because of its rural and conservative philosophy. So I threw him a “redneck party” for his going away: dress like a hillbilly and drink from the keg for free. Lisa wasn’t invited, but she showed up anyway.

At about 11pm the party was pulsing and everyone was enjoying their last night with my popular roommate. It gave me great pleasure to be able to send him off this way; he had been a good friend.
Then, without so much as a knock, Lisa barged in (the first time at my place in months), all tricked out with a shiny nylon halter top and a pound of makeup. I guess she had just come from the club. I guess she couldn’t find anyone there to love her for a night.

I told her that she had to leave, but she wanted to plead with me instead. I didn’t really think it was appropriate to speak with her in the crowd so I took her to my master bedroom at the end of the hallway and closed the door.

I had to hold her upright; drunkenness destroyed her balance. She began tracing her lips on my neck and ear and telling me how sorry she was – how much she missed me – how much she loved me.

And for a moment I believed her when she began to disrobe. I wanted it to be true. I was so alone.

But I stopped us. If she was indeed genuine in this desire to be with me (we had never actually done anything sexual) then she would stay all night and we could be close later. It was my friend’s going away party. I was the host. I didn’t want to forsake him or anyone else by getting with her.

Lisa put her top back on and raged. “Why don’t you care about me, Dario? Why do you treat me like s***?”

And I clenched my fists in anger, too. I’m sure no one else in her entire life had bought her flowers at her work. I’m sure no one else had ever tucked her in or walked away after she threw herself at them. 
I’m sure that chaos was all that she knew.

She exited my room, stomping her feet, and tried to make out with the first man she saw. And finally, that was the one unpardonable action that made me ready to let her go forever. The popular opinion of everyone at the party forced her exit shortly thereafter.

I’ve seen her in the years after our fleeting, tumultuous love – sometimes as a guest at the restaurant that I continued working at periodically; sometimes as a fellow patron out on the town. We stared at each other like we still hated one another, but I know that kind of passion can only exist when the feelings still remain.

She has kids and a husband now and I hope that’s what she needs to keep her tame and happy.
My world is more fragile and tenuous. I make a living off of prostituting my struggle in some abstract idea of the power of story – how words can help others and shape the world. I’ve been happy for a time too, but sometimes I don’t know if the alcohol and self-destruction I’ve poisoned into me just works slowly. Sometimes I don’t know if I’ll go into depression remission.

Sometimes I don’t know why I can’t entirely let her go.  

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Love After War: A Narrative (Part 4)

Part IV.

I tried and tried to find out what was going with Lisa, even stopping by her place to chat with her roomie (who also worked at our restaurant), but my searches were dead ends.

I hadn’t really opened up in that way, made myself vulnerable and weak, in almost half a year and it infuriated me how she took advantage of that. Not too long removed from the war, I could only perceive her actions in a military sense. She probed my defenses, broke inside, and then stole my secrets and snuck away.

I never did learn what happened those four days but Lisa, inconceivably, looked me up again and tried to hang. She found out where I'd be and accosted me there.

Who did this girl think she was? I shunned her at our local dive bar, and she kept calling or texting all night after it closed.

Why was she so frantic to see me again? I didn’t want to play this game. I wanted to rebuild and fortify my walls.

Finally, Lisa showed up at my door at 6 am, crying, and of course I let her in. I’ve never been good at being mean to anyone, and I know I get taken advantage often because of that congeniality.

She apologized and slobbered, stumbling drunk, and begged me to acknowledge her again. I found all this perplexing but I did forgive her, and we made plans to hang out that night. It was more of the same: unrestrained talking; beautiful empathy; and a tender night, ending with her asleep in my arms.

But the cycle kept repeating: inexplicably, she disappeared again.

Love. Drama. Repeat.

With everything going on in my life I was so overwhelmed and beaten. I had no idea what to do. I didn’t know what could be a solution. Momma never told me that there were women who would use you for your heart. No one ever warned that there were girls who would consume you like a cheap thrill when it’s convenient for them.

I’d like to say this cyclical situation ended at another local bar about a month later. But it didn’t.

I traveled there one night with Lisa and suddenly it all hit me. After pounding three Bulls and Vodka, and three So-Co and Limes in an hour, I thought about this quagmire with Lisa. Then I thought about my friends who didn’t come home. I thought about their families, and whether they would want their son’s – if they had come home – self-destructing with women and whiskey at a s***tty bar.

It was the absolute lowest moment of my life. I started crying and couldn’t stop. An entire bar watched me for 45 minutes as I drowned in my tears. The bartender stood around nervously and the patrons watched the T.V.s or fumbled around for the jukebox as I unleashed almost three years of overflowing despair. Lisa just sat to my left. Staring ahead. Blinking.

No one touched me or reached out. I guess this was just the kind of place where people came sometimes to break down.

When I finally could stop, I begged her to drive me home. I didn’t sleep in my bed at my apartment. I lied curled in a blanket, clutching a pillow, unable to cope or dream.  

In the morning, I resolved to remove Lisa from my life. I decided to be healthy for once. But she would come to me with her wild stubbornness and malicious intent one more time before we'd be done forever.

Next scene: The Conclusion

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Love After War: A Narrative (Part 3)

Part III.

As the lunch shift at our restaurant winded down the following day and I started cleaning up to leave, Lisa approached me on the back line, her aqua blue-lined eyes expanding, "Hey, I'm going to get something to eat after this. You should come."

 "Okay," I replied, lowering my head, momentarily stunned. I've got to admit: Lisa was hot – and intimidating. She seemed way too out of my league with her magnificently enticing figure and her supermodel height, but I finished cleaning, turned in my money, and drove her over to another restaurant anyway.

 It seemed odd how amiable and pleasant things were all the sudden. We laughed and smiled and began opening up our lives to each other. In natural pauses in our talks, she'd bend over slightly and peer into me with that giant gaze. I felt she was looking into my soul.

 Lisa followed me back to my apartment nearby, and even though it was about 4 in the afternoon, we were already drunk. We sat near each other on my hand-me-down leather couch, popped in a movie, and uncorked some pinot grigio. Our kisses were sweet when we moved into each other; her taste, tantalizing and fermented.

That day didn't end how you would likely imagine. We made out for a bit and after about fifteen minutes the sudden reality shocked us both. Just 24 hours ago, she was my enemy and I was hers. We held hands and watched each other.

 But Lisa was a wild spirit, her personal chaos beyond anything I had ever encountered I would later learn. "Let's go back to the bar," she insisted.

 The night ended with us being escorted out because of her reckless conduct. The bouncer, who was actually another Marine in my reserve unit and an acquaintance of hers, warned me, “Yo, I really wouldn’t go after her, man. That chick is crazy.” I didn’t care to listen. 

After returning to my place, Lisa passed out on my beat-up couch, locked in my arms. Our breathing warmed each other on that cool spring night.

We spent our entire next four days with one another at her apartment; nothing sexual happened. We became counselors for each other as we shared the tales of our horrible ex's. Lisa was dumped by her man who came home with inner turmoil from his time at war. I had dumped my girl for the same reason -- but when I wanted her back, too much time and too many transgressions had passed.

On her couch, we stayed awake and talked to the point of exhaustion. When the dull light of a newly awakened sun would creep below the patio blinds, I would jostle her awake and walk her to her bed. I’d kiss her on the cheek and say goodbye, shutting her door.

“Goodnight, pumpkin,” she would reply, heavy eyes closed and face already pressing against her pillow. She’d smile in these moments like I wasn’t watching her.

For the first time in months, I was smiling uncontrollably, too.

And then, inexplicably, Lisa had others cover her shifts for the next several days, and she wouldn’t return my calls.


To be continued.

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Love After War: A Narrative (Part 2)

PART II.
I never worked a sloppy shift in the eight years that I waited tables. No matter what personal angst I had raging inside me, I always somehow smiled and worked my ass of for every table that ever sat in my section. It was the one thing in my life I could actually control.

Despite this, when I began at the new location, too many of the senior employees simply decided that I was a newbie, and got on my ass about my actions. I’ve worked all over the world in more different roles and jobs than I possibly could list. I’ve learned that the ones who make the most noise in a workplace are often the worst employees.

My new Chili’s was no exception. I didn’t appreciate young girls, college drop-outs and likely cokeheads, who could never fathom or understand where I had just returned from, calling me out in front of everyone about meaningless stuff like how I carried my trays.

“Dario, don’t carry that tray (with the sizzling fajita skillet) over your head with one hand! You’re going to drop it on a customer.”

Wrong, dumbass, that’s not going to happen.  I used to command a vehicle on the Syrian Border of Iraq. I got this.

“Dario, don’t put the pilsner glasses on the drink tray. They’re going to fall!”

F*** you. Idiot. I used to plan combat missions for up to thirty men. Don’t get on me about this stupid s***.

“Why don’t you grab ice, Dario? The bin is getting low.”

Because I already grabbed ice for the fifteenth time this shift you lazy whore. I don’t even want to be here and I’m working harder than everyone else.

Sometimes I couldn’t keep my filter. I’m embarrassed that I had these thoughts but I did. Sometimes they emerged from my mouth as vitriolic arguments I couldn’t control or temper. I would wing up in the office, being counseled with managers acting as arbitrators, often.

One particular young woman, Lisa*, incurred a special rage in me. When she showed up at my store in Timonium, Maryland, a transfer from Virginia Beach, we’d have screaming sessions on the backline within earshot of a filled restaurant of customers. She was as stubborn and wild as me.

Lisa loved to abuse the small authority she earned as a “shift closer” to order me into re-buffing my already shiny tabletops. She’d force me to sweep again over some mark on the cement floor that wouldn’t ever come up with a broom – I’d scrape the gunk up with a knife. She’d make me empty the dishroom – returning hundreds of pounds of large plates, iron fajita skillets, silverware, green baskets, ramekins, side plates, and tortilla servers – over and over again, delaying my exit from the restaurant after a ten hour day.

Technically, even though I left for two deployments since I began at Chili’s in 2002, I had worked longer than her in the corporation, and her pettiness elicited an uncontrollable anger within me. How dare she treat me in the manner she did! I saw her as my enemy; and she saw me the same.

Things continued like this for a month. On most nights after work, our tight community of crazy young college-aged kids who made a lot of discretionary income would go out after the second shift ended, to a local dive bar called The Treehouse.

Usually, I’d just stay separated from the group, talking to the girls who reminded me of or looked like my ex-lover. On most nights, I loved lowering my back against the bar stool, clutching my cocktail, and leaning towards the bartender at Chili’s and chatting with her because she was Polish and beautiful, too. Lisa overheard one of our conversations as she came up to order a shot.

We had been talking about the military I guess. I had been lamenting about Iraq and coming home. Lisa stared at me, her wide brown eyes becoming soft.

“What the hell are you looking at?” I asked.

“I didn’t know you were in the military,” Lisa replied. “My ex was in the military. He went through a lot of s*** when he came home, too.”

“Well that sucks,” I said returning my attention to the bartender.

Like most bars in America, at 2 am we were all kicked out. Lisa came up to me as I stumbled out the door.

“I’m sorry I’ve been treating you so poorly, Dario. I had no idea where you were coming from.”

And just like that we were an item – just like that I couldn’t be mad at her anymore. We hugged for a while, a teary eye leaking into her shoulder, before I left for home alone.

She observed in me, the same characteristics of a man she once loved; and she saw a second chance to create that passion. I saw in her an understanding and care I hadn’t felt from a mostly disinterested society. Finally, I had found someone who could relate and care.

To be continued.

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Love After War: A Narrative (Part 1)

This is a story I never thought I would tell. I’ve never wanted to share the events of the first half of 2005, because I’ve never desired to give credit to the woman who warped my mental health and fractured my recovery (not withstanding my own obvious part in my self-destruction) from the trauma of war. I will change* the names as I relate this tale. I’ve moved on, but I can’t deny that the pain still lingers.


When I returned from combat a few months before that year, I was still seeking battles as the daily order of my life. After serving in Fallujah and on the Syrian Border of Iraq (and another tour a year before), there wasn’t much else that I knew – there wasn’t much else that felt normal.


I did my time, finished my second year long orders to active duty honorably, and then went back to the odd world of the modern day Reservist: the impossible shift from combat to the real world. Or, in my case, the incomprehensible change of going from Fallujah to Chili’s. I can’t honestly say what my issues were back then because I was too stubborn to ever get checked out or seek mental care from the government or anyone else.


But I knew I wasn’t happy. I knew that for some reason I just couldn’t cope with the life I had dreamed of so many months ago in the desert. I knew nothing of the way I felt made any sense. I felt numb, depressed, and prone to explosive anger; I welcomed anything that would make my adrenaline race again, like the way my pulse had raced when I operated a gunner’s turret in enemy territory. I know now, these were all classic symptoms of PTSD and survivor’s guilt.


Capping my anxiety – or whatever else psychologists would say about my wild mind back then – was the cold reality of an unmanageable debt, incurred upon me by the overwhelmed Defense and Finance Accounting Service. They only staffed four people to deal with the tens of thousands of final travel claims of the activated Reservists who served all throughout Iraq, Afghanistan, and other places, and always kept returning to be deactivated. They owed me thousands. I never saw that money. (In fact, at some point they decided I was overpaid, which, when working for the government, is an undisputable claim. I received no compensation for my last year and a half in the Marine Corps Reserve. Uncle Sam kept that money.)


I was aware enough to know that I needed some time off after surviving war. But I wasn’t granted that peace.


So, I went back to my restaurant; same corporation, different location. I had already ruined a relationship with the love of my life at the other store (a hostess at that location, after she wrote me every day in Iraq and supported me fervently, my self destruction and anger upon returning home scared her away). I just couldn’t face her anymore.


After serendipitously encountering a former manger who coaxed me into actually starting up at work again (I would have rather been drinking and destroying everything I owned – no possessions, no bills) I began to show up for six or seven days a week. One time, I worked 20 days in a row just to be able to manage my finances. 1,000 dollars of rent is especially hard to pay off when you spend all you made all day at the bar. Red Bull and vodkas were my favorite. Just five or six would induce anxiety attacks in between periods of rest after blacking out. I thought if I consumed enough one night, those drinks might eventually kill me. I’d wake up in my bed with a combusting chest and hopeless despair. I’d clutch my hands over my heart and cry. But, when they brought me to the edge, I at least felt alive...

To be continued. 

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From Fallujah to Philanthropy

You can see him behind his laptop at the Washington, D.C. Dupont Circle Starbucks at end of an eight hour day, crafting the framework for his entrepreneurship. Six years ago, in Fallujah, as a corporal in the D.C.-based Marine Reserve unit, Mortuary Affairs, you could see him in rubber-gloved hands, collecting the corpses of his dead comrades. “You just hoped the body you found wasn’t the one of someone you knew,” Xi Xiang tells me.


“What’s the worst thing you’ve ever seen?” I ask.


“I don’t even know how to answer that question,” he replies, his deadpan gaze hinting at a deep trauma that belies his smile and congenial manner.


It really must have been bad. Xiang and his Marines developed a dark humor to cope with their job. In a photo of his group at the time, an image titled “We’re Dead,” you can see all the mortuary Marines laying on top of each other in a row with large, beaming smiles, in one of the mass graves they prepared for the dead insurgents.


As a protocol for their job, they had to have weekly sit-ins with Navy chaplains acting as counselors. After one week of his counseling responsibilities, a new ensign had to leave the room to cry at the stories Xiang was relating to him.


The muscular, dark-crème-skinned 28-year-old’s life has never been the same since Fallujah. Days after the battle ended, his team was sent into the abandoned city to collect the remaining enemy corpses. 

Amongst the rubble – blasted out homes with rebar-spiked chunks, downed power lines, and mortar crushed streets – Xiang observed a toddler standing alone in the carnage. He reasoned the child’s parents were dead. He believed the boy had no future, and would probably perish, too.


“If I ever get out of this f***er,” Xiang told one of his buddies under the scarlet sunset of Mesopotamian evening, mortars cracking in the distance, “I want to do something big.”


He thought for a long time about what exactly he was going to do. He knew that he wanted to make difference, he just couldn’t decide on how. But a seven month tour gives a man a lot of time to think.

“I really believe in education,” Xiang says, “it’s all you can give to someone to help them improve their own circumstances, which in turn creates better civic responsibilities, lower crime rates, more wealth – the benefits are exponential.” His idea to help give better education to new generations is broken down in three main ways. Xiang pumps his fist and raises a new finger as he lists them, “Scholarships, incentive programs, funding scholastic programs.”


Xiang wants to use his business dream – a patent-pending software platform that selects and distributes advertisements for out-of-home digital display networks – to finance his desired philanthropy. He spends every free second on this project, when he’s not doing IT consulting for major military contractors. With a large portion of the projected profits for his venture (he hopes to have a demo ready by the end of this year), he plans to start a nonprofit organization, a “dot org” as he refers to it. “I have an insane compulsion,” Xiang says almost bouncing out of his seat. “I just want to impact the world.”

He’ll be there, clacking away at his keyboard, until he can make his dream a reality. If you’re on the Circle for a late-night latte, maybe you should shake his hand. He’s working the hardest he can to create real change for this insane world.

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Coming Home: A Field Guide (Part 10: Community Support for the Veteran)

As an individual, the desire to help a veteran is truly a commendable and magnanimous goal. Friends, family, well-wishers, and millions of patriotic or supportive Americans want to help. But the question is how? It’s this fundamental question that causes anyone who is goodhearted to scratch their head. Should I give to the USO? Donate to veteran support organizations like Not Alone? Send off care packages or visit the troops at Walter Reed?


All of those actions can have an impact on helping our veterans, and of course, Not Alone is a non-profit organization that can only exist with your support – please donate! But I think, sometimes, one of the best things you can do, is prepare yourself to take advantage of every opportunity you have to impact a veteran’s life. You might think that you can’t relate or understand their circumstances; so how can you really assist them as a civilian individual?


I’d like to share with you three examples of simply concerned Americans who – despite their personal beliefs on the wars and the politics of it all – helped me get where I needed to be.


I’d really like to thank my friend Chris Ryan first and foremost. He never served like me, and only knew about the military and war through an intense interest in history, but he took what general understanding he did have and patiently asked me about my experiences. In retrospect, that was by far the healthiest of all the activities I was doing at that time. He never forced me to talk about anything that made me uncomfortable, but with his gentle pushes for my personal knowledge, intuitively, he was helping me process my experiences. He was also the one who gave me the book All Quiet on the Western Front, which still remains my favorite book to this day. The reading of that book, I think, has galvanized my interest and pursuit towards becoming a successful writer. I cannot thank him enough for all the late nights and over the top conversations – and the patience and love he offered in return to my insanity.


Cathy Alter, a successful book author and one of my professors at Hopkins, is another person who I would really like to thank. By my read she’s a very liberal woman, who opposes the wars (and as a D.C. socialite she probably doesn’t know many who’ve served or know much about the military) but she only saw in me a young man trying his hardest, who she wanted to help.


I’m not complaining or whining, but when I first started blogging here, being forced to confront the worst experiences of my life three times a week kind of messed me up a little bit. (And there were other things going wrong, like my frustration with my lack of success, bills getting out of hand, and other personal issues.) I’m embarrassed to admit that for her class, it was the first time since returning to school in 2007 I just couldn’t bring myself to do one of the assignments. I was just too frustrated and temporarily depressed.


I think most other teachers would have punished me accordingly – and I actually asked her to – but instead, she was sympathetic to everything I’ve done and intend to do, and gave me all the time, love, and consideration I needed to get where I wanted to be. She counseled me then, and to my amazement, even though I’m not one of her students anymore, she still continues to.


Another man I’d like to thank is Dr. Seth Brown. Frustrated by the care from the VA bureaucracy, I sought him out when I attended school in Connecticut. Dr. Brown and I, would have long discussions about Iraq and politics and war, and I came to see him as a friend.


He wrote off every cent of my medical expenses, which have caused me to be in debt to age 40. All he observed, again, was a nice young man struggling to get well, who probably didn’t have the kind of care he could give. He knew I couldn’t afford it. But he wanted to help anyway. As northeast liberal, I know he hated President Bush and the war. And to his great credit, in his interactions with me, he didn’t care about all that. He leaped at the chance to assist me in any way he could.   


It is likely that every one of these people never planned to be in the circumstance they found themselves in: directly confronted with helping a veteran. It would have been very easy for them to just say “sucks for you,” and then continued on their way. No one asked them to reach out to me. But they did.


You may meet a veteran sometime. You might see them in school or encounter them in the workplace. You might see them at the bar. They might be the quiet one, drinking alone in the corner. A simple hello and “hey, dude, I’m here for you if you need it,” is all you need to offer up if you really want to help a veteran. It might mean more to them than you can ever know.

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Rest In Peace, My Friend

Almost a year ago I lost a dear friend in Afghanistan. After his passing, his wife asked that those who knew him write a letter to their unborn twins, so they could learn as they grew older about what kind of man their daddy was. This is one of the most personal things I’ve ever written. I’m sharing it here to bring awareness to Sergeant Bill Cahir and his Memorial Fund; and to also spread awareness about the very real and human cost of life after war.


*   *   *

Dear Cahir children,

My experiences with your father were brief and fleeting. Despite this, he became a man I admired more than I might be able to say. I know many people will have similar reflections of your dad. This is who he was. You will learn as you age: most people are content to just go through the motions of life; to only focus on themselves and their things. Your father loved your mother, he cherished his Marines, and he treasured this country and the people of the world. This is what brought about his death. I will not refer to his passing as a tragedy – it is only a tragedy that more people do not have the same kind of heart as him.

I first met your father shortly after he returned from his first deployment in helping consolidate the freedom of the people of Iraq. His duties there included making the the Iraqi government, education, healthcare, and security systems strong, so that the Iraqi children might be able to enjoy the same hopes, dreams, and freedoms that you will. Perhaps you will learn that the Iraq War was controversial, or even a waste of time, or a misdirection of our Global War on Terror. However the conflict will be remembered, your dad helped give thousands of strangers – some hostile to him – better lives and futures. I can think of no greater love, no greater sacrifice.

Your dad was a corporal and I was a lance corporal, one rank below him. Bill did not abuse his authority or take advantage of his status. We were assigned to serve in the same detachment of our Marine Reserve unit, Detachment 1 of the 4th Civil Affairs Group, and your father took his responsibility for my wellbeing most seriously. We connected quickly as we both shared an interest in writing and politics. In fact, in no small way, I have evolved into a writer myself due to your father's inspiration and practical guidance.

Your father maintained a professionalism and fervor in our unit. He enjoyed managing the welfare and training of his Marines. He was a legend in our unit and respected by all. To put that in context for you, the Marine Corps is a place for large egos and dominating personalities. To be well respected by all in such a hardcore and selective organization is certainly an impressive achievement.


I was assigned to serve with your father for his second deployment – which was supposed to be my third – and during our pre-deployment training, I learned more from him about Iraq and our mission than I had ever known, even despite already serving two tours. He took to intelligence gathering and cultural reporting about the situation on the ground and our role as Civil Affairs Marines with such dedication, I have no doubt that his wisdom and guidance helped preserve the lives of many of the Marines in our unit when they did deploy.

For a short time, your dad's life and my life were bound to similar fates. We were going to go to war together. We were responsible for each other's lives, and that is a sacred bond most people will never understand or experience. Thank God most people will not understand this terror, anxiety, and fear. They will not have to understand because of the voluntary service of people like your dad. Hero is a word that is tossed around and blurred through overuse. It shames me as a writer that I have no better word or expression to use for the greatness that was your father.

I did not wind up traveling to Iraq with your dad. After a diagnosis of mono (an ailment that causes significant long-term fatigue), it was decided by my unit and myself that I was not fit for combat and deployment. Your father was sad that I could not serve with him, and it upset me that I couldn’t go, too.
I am a sliver of darkness in the shadow that was your dad – a legendary man whose example I am sure will ring in annals of history, courage, and Marine Corps lore.

I am ashamed that I have nothing more to say.

Even though it is likely I will never see you or meet you, I want you to know if you ever need anything from me, look me up and you will have it. If it was I to die in the same circumstances as your father, I have no doubt that he would do the same for me. And I will always cherish his memory for it.

Much love and respect,

Dario Steven DiBattista Jr. (USMCR Corporal, 4th Civil Affairs Group 2001 - 2007)

~ Semper Fidelis ~

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Coming Home: A Field Guide (Part 9: Assistance for Traumatic Brain Injury)

Now that we’ve discussed in the previous post what exactly Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) is, let’s talk about getting a diagnosis and receiving care. First comes screening – which you should have gotten already, but everyone who’s ever served knows that everything the military is supposed to do, well, they don’t do.

A positive response to any of these questions should prompt you to consider seeking treatment. This information is taken from the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center, which “has been designated as the primary TBI subject matter experts (SMEs) for the DoD and VA.”

1. Did you have any injury(ies) during your deployment from any of the following?

(Check all that apply):

A. Fragment

B. Bullet

C. Vehicular (any type of vehicle, including airplane)

D. Fall

E. Blast (Improvised Explosive Device, RPG, Land mine, Grenade, etc.)

F: Other (specify): _________________

2. Did any injury you received while you were deployed result in any of the following?

(Check all that apply):

(Answering yes to any of these first five confirms that you need a TBI screening)

A. Being dazed, confused, or “seeing stars”

B. Not remembering the injury

C. Losing consciousness (knocked out) for less than a minute

D. Losing consciousness for 1 – 20 minutes

E. Losing consciousness for more than 20 minutes

(The following two questions would need to result in a clinical review)

F. Having any symptoms of concussion afterward (such as headache, dizziness, irritability, etc.)

G. Head injury

H. None of the above

3. Are you currently experiencing any of the following problems that you think might be related to a possible head injury or concussion?

(Check all that apply):

A. Headaches

B. Dizziness

C. Memory problems

D. Balance problems

E. Ringing in the ears

F. Irritability

G. Sleep problems

H. Other (specify): _____________

If you’ve read the above questionnaire and think that you might need to be screened for TBI, unfortunately, your only course is to check in with Veterans Healthcare Administration, which can oftentimes be a bureaucratic nightmare to deal with. Unless of course, you're uber rich and can afford a private clinician. 

Either way, go get looked at! If you don’t attempt to get help for your head, your brain’s health could get even more exacerbated, complicating or hindering a recovery.

For more information you should definitely check out www.traumaticbraininjury.com. You would hope that such a website with such a directly worded URL would be the go to source for everything you’re looking for, and this site definitely is. The website has all the information you would need about how the diagnosis would be determined, and what treatment would take place.

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