Thank A Veteran Today
No, Mr. President, traumatic brain injuries are not just headaches.
After an Iranian attack on Ain al-Asad air base in Iraq, President Trump reported that no Americans were injured. When the news broke that some troops were being treated for concussion-like symptoms, Trump shrugged it off, saying they “had headaches and a couple of other things,” which were “not very serious, not very serious.” Compared with “people with no legs and no arms,” the president said, these were “not very serious injuries.”
Trump, who received numerous draft deferments.
This isn’t the first time that Trump has spoken dismissively or inaccurately about invisible war wounds. Late in the 2016 presidential campaign, then-candidate Trump discussed war-related post-traumatic stress disorder by saying that “a lot of people can’t handle it.” In 2018, he speculated that a former Marine perpetrated a mass shooting in Thousand Oaks, Calif., because he was a “very sick puppy” who “a lot of people say … had PTSD.”
Of course, traumatic brain injuries are more than simple headaches, post-traumatic stress disorder has nothing to do with a person’s inner fortitude, and trauma doesn’t turn former soldiers into killers. Yet because others share Trump’s beliefs, those with invisible and mental disabilities face regular scrutiny and skepticism, whether they’re parking in a handicapped spot or asking for accommodations.
The president’s comments add fuel to the perception that invisible and mental disabilities are illegitimate and the result of mental and physical weakness. This misconception is particularly dangerous in a military context, where showing weakness clashes with expectations of martial masculinity, an ideal that encourages service members of all genders to adhere to codes of military behavior and embody virtues such as bravery, duty and honor. This harmful ideology makes it difficult for troops to seek help without insinuations of cowardice.
Today, we recognize the harsh physical and mental toll that war takes on service members. The Department of Veterans Affairs estimates that post-traumatic stress is diagnosed in 11 to 20 percent of veterans of operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom, and a 2019 VA study found that the suicide rate among veterans, which has risen since 2005, is 1½ times higher than the civilian rate. Although it’s closely associated with football today, traumatic brain injury is also “the signature injury” of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and can cause depression, anxiety and memory loss.
While a traumatic brain injury may not be as readily apparent or loaded with symbolic meaning as the loss of an arm or leg, invisible disabilities pose very real consequences for veterans and countless other Americans. Dismissing traumatic brain injuries as mere headaches feeds a harmful culture of masculinity that encourages troops to prove their bravery by shaking it off. In the 19th century, the attitude that such wounds were “not very serious” resulted in veterans being stripped of federal support. Today, it will result in soldiers choosing not to seek much-needed medical and psychological support — which will undoubtedly make the military mental health crisis worse.
