We know better now than when rules for Purple Heart were given

George Washington didn't design the Purple Heart for wounds but he designed it for service. It was adopted as the wound medal during a time when inside wounds were not understood. PTSD by any name was not really understood and Traumatic Brain Injury was not understood when bombs blew up.

In the 60's when I had a brain injury, the X-ray showed a crack in my scull but no one could see the damage done to my brain. I was only 4 1/2 but I spoke clearly up until the accident when I was pushed off a slide landing head first on cement. After that I had to see a speech therapist to help me learn to talk again. No one understood the fall had changed a lot inside of my brain. I was able to spell, read and do math above my age level, but that changed too. To this day I have a hard time spelling. While for the most part I have recovered, it took years of learning how to use my brain again. I had to learn tricks to remember things. I use spell check all the time to make sure I don't make mistakes but if you are a regular reader of this blog, you'll see a lot of mistakes in what I write. Back then no one connected anything together because there were no tests or scans to prove what was going on.

Now we know better. We can see the damage done on the outside by changes in the wounded. We can see the brains damaged by scans. There are no more excuses to not know this is a wound. They were wounded during service to this country and they should be able to have that sacrifice honored.

Denial of Purple Heart frustrates some with 'invisible' wounds
By T. Christian Miller and Daniel Zwerdling

ProPublica and NPR
Published: September 8, 2010

The U.S. Army honors soldiers wounded or killed in combat with the Purple Heart, a powerful symbol designed to recognize their sacrifice and service.

Yet Army commanders have routinely denied Purple Hearts to soldiers who have sustained concussions in Iraq, despite regulations that make such wounds eligible for the medal, an investigation by NPR and ProPublica has found.

Soldiers have had to battle for months and sometimes years to prove that these injuries, also called mild traumatic brain injuries, merit the honor, our reporting showed. Commanders turned down some soldiers despite well-documented blast wounds that wrenched their minds, altered their lives and wracked their families.

The Army twice denied a Purple Heart for Sgt. Nathan Scheller, though the aftereffects from two roadside explosions in Iraq have left him with lasting cognitive problems, according to the Army's own records.

The 29-year-old former tank commander navigated an M1A1 Abrams through Baghdad's urban battlefield of bomb strewn highways and sniper filled alleys. Now he gets lost driving familiar routes around his home. An honor student in high school, he can no longer concentrate enough to read the adventure novels he once loved.

"I don't see how somebody else can tell me that I don't deserve one," Scheller said of the Purple Heart. "I may not have wounds on the outside. But I have wounds on the inside."
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Denial of Purple Heart frustrates some