Iraq veteran wants the court to hear him now

Combat veteran files lawsuit for loss of hearing due to defective military ear plugs

KHOU 11 News
Author: Josh Marshall
January 22, 2019

The lawsuit, filed in the Western District of Texas, Waco Division says 3M received the exclusive contract to supply earplugs to the military between 2003 and 2012. The lawsuit alleges that 3M also failed to warn users of the defects and didn’t provide proper instructions for their use.

In 2018, the company agreed to pay $9.1 million to the U.S. Government after the government accused it of manufacturing earplugs that were too short for proper insertion into users’ ears.

HOUSTON — A Texas combat veteran wants damages for what he says a government contractor took from him: his hearing.

Retired Army Sergeant Scott Rowe deployed to Iraq from 2003 to 2004 as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom. During his deployment, Rowe says he was issued dual-ended Combat Arms™ earplugs by the U.S. military.

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WWII Veteran Dies 10 Days After VA Restored Benefits

WWII veteran dies 10 days after benefits reinstated
WFTV.com
July 2, 2015

ORLANDO, Fla. —
The family of a World War II veteran is fighting the Department of Veteran Affairs over their father’s benefits.

The VA cut Joseph Desario’s, 91, benefits because they found him “fit for employment.”

Desario was receiving disability benefits for decades before the VA said his condition had improved to the point where he could go out and work.

“He was always very proud of the United States,” Desario’s daughter Barbara Bruce said.

Bruce said Desario fought severe hearing loss after 36 missions in a bomber over Europe.

Desario had applied for an increase in his disability and a letter arrived soon after from the VA saying his hearing had improved and his disability was cut by $600.
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Soldier suffers survivors guilt from hearing loss because commander didn't care what doctor said

Staff Sgt. Kevin Dunne blames himself for the death of Sgt. Richard Vaughn because he could not hear where the gun shots were coming from. A doctor at Fort Hood said Dunne's hearing was so bad he should be discharged, but yet again, Fort Hood commanders thought they knew better than a doctor did. Now in the 3rd deployment, Dunne is left to deal with survivors guilt of the death he feels he should have been able to prevent. He shouldn't have been there at all. So now his hearing has suffered for his service and he is also left with the result of being sent back because some commander thought whatever the doctor said, just didn't matter enough. This story is not new because unit after unit has been sending the wounded back to Iraq and Afghanistan, no matter how serious the wound is or what the wound would do to the soldiers and citizen solders. Will anyone at Fort Hood be held accountable for this decision?


Study: 1 in 4 soldiers at war have hearing loss

By Gregg Zoroya - USA Today
Posted : Monday Aug 4, 2008 9:44:19 EDT

The bombs along the Baghdad road exploded one after the other, leaving one soldier unconscious and another screaming from his wounds. Staff Sgt. Kevin Dunne's squad was under attack. Rifle and machine gun fire pinned them down. Then, shots from a sniper.

Dunne yelled orders, but he and his squad were at a disadvantage.

Dunne said he couldn't hear well enough to tell where the sniper fire was coming from.

"I had no idea," he wrote in an e-mail to USA Today.

In the four months before the April 7 attack, the chief physician at Fort Hood, Texas, had warned that Dunne's hearing was so bad that he should be removed from combat duties. Others in the Army overruled him and sent Dunne back to Iraq for his third combat tour.
Now, a member of Dunne's squad — Sgt. Richard Vaughn, 22, of San Diego — lay dead from a sniper's bullet.

"He was lying in the middle of the street motionless," Dunne wrote. "I blame myself a lot for not being able to identify the threat simply because of the way I heard the shots."
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http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/08/gns_hearingloss_080408/

Hearing loss is epidemic among combat troops

Hearing loss is epidemic among combat troops

By Chelsea J. Carter - The Associated Press
Posted : Friday Mar 7, 2008 22:36:54 EST

SAN DIEGO — Soldiers and Marines caught in roadside bombings and firefights in Iraq and Afghanistan are coming home in epidemic numbers with permanent hearing loss and ringing in their ears, prompting the military to redouble its efforts to protect the troops from noise.

Hearing damage is the No. 1 disability in the fight against terror, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs, and some experts say the true toll could take decades to become clear. Nearly 70,000 of the more than 1.3 million troops who have served in the two war zones are collecting disability for tinnitus, a potentially debilitating ringing in the ears, and more than 58,000 are on disability for hearing loss, VA said.

“The numbers are staggering,” said Theresa Schulz, a former audiologist with the Air Force, past president of the National Hearing Conservation Association and author of a 2004 report titled “Troops Return With Alarming Rates of Hearing Loss.”

One major explanation given is the insurgency’s use of a fearsome weapon the Pentagon did not fully anticipate: powerful roadside bombs. Their blasts cause violent changes in air pressure that can rupture the eardrum and break bones inside the ear.

Also, much of the fighting consists of ambushes, bombings and firefights, which come suddenly and unexpectedly, giving soldiers no time to use their military-issued hearing protection.

“They can’t say, ‘Wait a minute, let me put my earplugs in,”’ said Dr. Michael E. Hoffer, a Navy captain and one of the country’s leading inner-ear specialists. “They are in the fight of their lives.”

In addition, some servicemen on patrol refuse to wear earplugs for fear of dulling their senses and missing sounds that can make the difference between life and death, Hoffer and others said. Others were not given earplugs or did not take them along when they were sent into the war zone. And some Marines were not told how to use their specialized earplugs and inserted them incorrectly.
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http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/03/ap_hearingloss_030608/