Greater Injuries Than Realized on Battlefield

Navy Chief With Brain Injury Fights Back After Losing Promotion
The Virginian-Pilot
by Dianna Cahn
Jun 15, 2015

Fleming received the diagnosis like a revelation. His struggles came from war wounds, not malaise. Like many combat veterans, he had apparently suffered greater injuries than he'd realized on the battlefield.

NORFOLK -- Chief Petty Officer John Fleming had the kind of career you can bank on: Fast-track promotion, stellar evaluations through repeated combat deployments, a stack of medals and commendations including a Bronze Star with valor. "The cornerstone of the department," one commander wrote.

As an explosives ordnance disposal tech, he unearthed and destroyed countless improvised bombs aimed at killing U.S. forces or their allies. In 2004, he was grazed by a bullet, thrown from a heavy-duty truck during a firefight and returned to combat even after being shipped home for his injuries.

Then, years later, Fleming started forgetting things. He had trouble organizing ideas. Tasks he'd been doing routinely were suddenly confounding, and pressure from his commanders at his new unit at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek exacerbated his confusion.

In the span of four months at Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile Unit 2 in 2013, Fleming's 13-year career unraveled. He received bad evaluations for failing to complete tasks -- the final one stated his performance "demonstrated a lack of loyalty to the mission" -- and had a pending promotion stopped. He was removed from two jobs.

In the coming months, Fleming was diagnosed with mild traumatic brain injury and later, with post-traumatic stress disorder. The TBI apparently stemmed from the truck rollover in Iraq nine years earlier. His medical records, which he shared with The Virginian-Pilot, state that the 2004 injury was compounded by repeated blasts over the years. The findings would be confirmed by other TBI and mental health experts.
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