Traumatic brain injury: Common wound of war

Traumatic brain injury: Common wound of war

By Kelly Kennedy - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Aug 29, 2007 5:42:03 EDT

Sitting in a fast-food restaurant near Fort Belvoir, Va., Army Master Sgt. Jose Santiago, his knee bouncing up and down, asked to switch to another table.

“Since I got back, I don’t like to be around dirty things,” he said, wiping a wet spot from the new table with a napkin.

He then settled in for a five-hour conversation that looped back over things he had already covered, stalled when he couldn’t remember a word he wanted to use and stopped when he tried to talk about how the first day of the Iraq war damaged his family.

“Did I already tell you that?” he asked, dozens of times, wincing when he feared he had.

Santiago, a chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear operations specialist, said he’s always been “a fast-tracker.”

He spent most of his school years in classes for gifted kids, made E-7 in nine years, and was picked for a special team assigned to look for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Now, he leaves for medical appointments three hours early — even if he knows the office is only 45 minutes away — because he gets lost easily. An alarm reminds him to take his eight medications. Worse, he forgets he already swallowed his pain or anti-depression pills, and gulps down another handful.

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