The US military strategists launched a ground offensive against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria in 2016, but they knew that the US public was tired of prolonged wars in the Middle East, so the operation had to be carried out with very few troops on the ground. They resorted to a tactic that had not been widely used in decades: intense bombing with heavy artillery.
Military guidelines indicated that firing all these high-powered artillery ammunition was safe for the teams responsible for doing so. However, an investigation by The New York Times, which included interviews with over 40 veterans of the firing teams and their families, revealed that the troops returned home plagued by symptoms such as insomnia, confusion, memory loss, panic attacks, depression, and in some cases, hallucinations, among others. Additionally, because the army thought the blast waves were safe, they repeatedly failed to recognize what was happening to the soldiers.
Here are five key findings from the Times’ investigation:
1. To defeat the Islamic State, the US used artillery teams that fired with greater intensity than had been seen in generations. The large shells used during the peak of the offensive against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, from 2016 to 2017, could launch ammunition weighing just over 45 kilograms up to 24 kilometers away, and the teams fired them almost non-stop for several weeks.
2. The strategy worked as planned and quickly managed to crush the Islamic State, almost annihilating it. However, to keep the number of US soldiers involved to a minimum, each team had to fire thousands of highly explosive projectiles (many more than any other US artillery team had fired at least since the Vietnam War). Some teams launched over 10,000 rounds of projectiles in just a few months.
3. Many artillerymen developed devastating and perplexing symptoms. Each artillery shell fired triggered a blast wave that passed through the bodies of the artillerymen located near the weapon: it vibrated their bones, hit their lungs and hearts, and released whips that pierced, at the speed of a cruise missile, the most delicate organ of all: the brain.
4. Artillery team members began to experience problems with memory and balance, nausea, irritability, and debilitating fatigue. These were symptoms of concussion, but also what anyone could feel after working 20-hour days in the desert and sleeping in trenches. The teams, trained to endure, did not complain.
5. The teams were examined for symptoms of brain injuries after being deployed, but these assessments were designed to detect the effects of much larger explosions from enemy attacks (not repeated exposure to blast waves from routine firing of weapons). Few soldiers tested positive.
When artillerymen who were told they were healthy didn’t understand why they were suffering from panic and insomnia, some thought they were going crazy.
When the military acted strangely, they were often punished or received ineffective treatments. In the records of the artillery teams, there was no indication that they had been exposed to harmful explosions in combat, so when some sought medical attention from the army, on more than one occasion, doctors did not consider the possibility of a brain injury.
Instead, the military personnel were often told they suffered from attention deficit disorder, depression, or post-traumatic stress disorder. Many were given strong psychotropic drugs that hindered their normal activities and provided little relief.
When their job performance deteriorated or their behavior became erratic, many artillerymen were not considered injured; rather, they were seen as problematic. They were overlooked for promotions or penalized for misconduct. Some were forced to leave military service with punitive discharges and were left without access to veterans’ healthcare services.
Their problems have extended to civilian life, ruining their marriages and making it difficult for them to maintain jobs. Some are homeless. A surprising number have died by suicide. Many still have no idea that their problems may have been caused by exposure to explosions.
The risk of exposure to explosions is starting to be recognized, but slowly. Research indicates that repeated exposure to blast waves generated by firing heavy weapons such as cannons, mortars, shoulder-fired rockets, and even large caliber machine guns can cause irreparable microscopic brain damage. It is possible that a large number of military veterans have been affected.
However, the damage is almost impossible to document because no brain scan or blood analysis currently can detect these small injuries in a living brain. What further complicates diagnosis is that many of the symptoms can be identical to those of post-traumatic stress disorder.
As it stands now, microscopic damage caused by blast exposure can only be definitively documented by analyzing thin slices of brain tissue under a microscope after death. Tissue samples taken from hundreds of deceased veterans who were exposed to explosions during their military careers reveal a unique and consistent pattern of microscopic scars.
The Army says it now has protections against explosions but has not disclosed major changes. Congress, at the urging of veteran groups, recently ordered the Pentagon to begin assessing the risk of blast exposure from firing weapons and to develop protocols to protect troops. However, work is still in progress. Fundamental questions about what level of blast can cause injuries and how repeated exposure can amplify the risk still have no answers.
Both the Army and the Marine Corps claim to now have programs to monitor and limit troops’ daily exposure. However, deployed Marines say they have not seen the new safety programs, and military personnel from all branches still train with weapons that the Department of Defense is concerned may pose a risk.
Dave Philipps writes about war, the military, veterans, and covers the Pentagon. More by Dave Philipps.