thedrifter
06-15-06, 06:25 AM
Marines' families knocking heads with Corps brass for helmet pads
By VIK JOLLY
The Orange County Register
John Maxie was riding in a Humvee in Iraq's Anbar province last week when two roadside bombs went off, searing him with blasts of intense heat and explosive force that felt like a 2-by-4 hit him on the head.
Maxie, 20, a Camp Pendleton-based Marine corporal, survived.
He and his parents believe they know what saved him from serious brain injury: a pad insert that he attached to his helmet before deployment in March.
"This pretty much validates the fact that the suspension kit is doing its job," said Maxie's father, Greg. "Our son was very lucky to be that close to a 'kill zone' of a blast and walk away with nothing but scratches and a hearing loss."
The Maxies are among many Marine families who are following the lead of Bob Meaders, a former Navy doctor and the grandfather of another Camp Pendleton Marine, who has launched a drive to add non-regulation pads to standard-issue helmets.
There's little scientific evidence on whether extra padding means better blast protection. But the Iraq war is yielding a higher percentage of brain injuries than any previous U.S. conflict, according to researchers. While some families take comfort in buying the pads themselves - and manufacturers are pushing the product in publications aimed at military audiences - the Marine Corps disputes the benefits.
Today, the issue gets its first airing on Capitol Hill when Meaders, expected to be joined by singer Cher, testifies before a congressional panel.
It's about time, says Meaders, who came out of retirement to launch Operation Helmet two years ago, aiming to get helmet liner kits sent to his grandson, Justin, and other Marines. To date, the group has shipped more than 8,000 helmet inserts to Marines in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"It just needs to be done to save lives," said Meaders in a telephone interview from Glen Rose, Texas, about 70 miles southwest of Dallas. "My dream of this would be at the end of the day for the military to say that it can be handled and you, Dr. Bob, can go back to playing golf again."
Cher's interest was sparked by a newspaper story. The panel also will hear from military officials, but that portion of the hearing is closed to the public.
The U.S. Army and the Marines once used similar helmets. Now, the Army has issued the Army Combat Helmet, costing $306 each and manufactured with the pads already incorporated for Iraq-bound soldiers.
The Marines are updating their helmets but without the pads.
The Marine Corps says its new headgear - the Light Weight Helmet, at $190 each - is effective and meets the demands of its fighters. It contends that a padded helmet lowers protection against bullets, a point that is disputed by pad manufacturers and families, who say the Corps does not provide evidence to support that claim.
"At this point in the fielding process of the LWH, any donation to 'Operation Helmet' is just going to interfere with the protection system being fielded to our deployed Marines," said Capt. Jeff Landis, a public affairs officer at Marine Corps Systems Command in Quantico, Va., in an e-mail response to the Register.
"Their consistent marketing campaign is creating doubt with some of our leadership who are not part of the development and acquisition process and not abreast of our latest helmet programs," Landis wrote. "The campaign is also reducing the confidence of the operating forces in the equipment being fielded to them - the equipment that is saving their lives and reducing the severity of their wounds."
If included in the process of manufacturing the helmet, the pad system would cost about $60, said Mike Dennis, founder, president and CEO of Oregon Aero, a Scappoose, Ore., company that sells the helmet liner kits.
"For significantly less than $100, we can add this lifesaving addition, but it's being fought at the highest levels," Dennis said.
The Marine Corps has not stopped anyone from retrofitting its older helmets but says the pad kits are not authorized or needed with its new helmets.
Still, some Marines find them useful.
"In my opinion, they offer more protection and are more comfortable," said Capt. Randy Walsh, commanding officer of the headquarters and support company of the 7th Marine Regiment, in an e-mail from Iraq forwarded by a public information officer at Camp Pendleton. Walsh got the pads last year.
Researchers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., have found that about 30 percent of those admitted since the start of the fighting in Iraq were diagnosed with brain injury. Historically, the share of brain injuries in previous conflicts has been 16 percent to 18 percent.
Gale Strassberg's son Shane, 25, a Camp Pendleton-based Marine corporal, was deployed with John Maxie this year. It was his second tour in Iraq.
To date, her nonprofit group - Staten Island Project Homefront - has raised $35,000 and provided 291 pad inserts to Marines, 205 of them in her son's unit, AABN 3rd Track Charlie Company.
"I am not stopping fundraising until I get a cease and desist order," she said, adding that the Marine Corps should be ordering the pads. "Why are people like me and other people around the country doing this? You'd think we have an ATM in our back yard that we could just spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars here."
Strassberg, a Staten Island, N.Y., real estate broker, doesn't buy the Marine Corps' argument that its new helmet meets its specifications.
"I don't care what they say. Put (procurement officers) on the front lines and let them get hit by the IEDs and then ask what they say," she said, using the military acronym for improvised explosive devices, usually roadside bombs. "If the helmet insert saves one life, that's good enough. To me as a parent, my son is over there risking his life. I want to put my son in a rubber box."
Like the Maxies, Strassberg says she doesn't need more proof that the pads work.
Shannan Limon, formerly of San Clemente, sees the pads as a device that could help her Marine husband escape brain injuries in the war zone.
"The more I learned about it, I learned how important these kits are," said Shannan Limon, who went on a mission to raise $30,000 to retrofit about 300 helmets for those in her husband's company at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms.
Phillip Limon saw the pads as insurance. When Limon, a gunnery sergeant, went to Iraq for a second time last year, he took along the inserts, hoping they would blunt the impact of a bomb blast.
"The helmet stays on my head better," he said in an interview before deployment. "It fits like a football helmet, really nice and snug."
Harold Henson, a former Ohio State University fullback, knows something about helmets. He made sure his son Clayton has a helmet liner kit before he goes to Iraq next month. Clayton, 24, is a lance corporal based at Camp Lejeune, N.C.
Henson said he helped raise $20,000 for Operation Helmet.
The Marines "are saying we're interfering with what they do. How can I - a farmer - interfere with what the Marines do?" Henson asked.
MARINE CORPS VIEW
The Marines maintain that adding pads to the standard-issue helmet could in fact cause more health and safety issues, including eliminating a gap between the head and the helmet that could otherwise diffuse a blow.
The following comments are excerpted from a March 8 e-mail from Capt. Jeff Landis, a public affairs officer at Marine Corps Systems Command in Quantico, Va., to the Register:
“First off, the Marine Corps is always looking to improve the effectiveness, performance and wear of its combat equipment.
“We would prefer not to point to any specific study but rather address the series of studies the Marine Corps funds annually that are progressive, innovative and timely in the spiral development process to improve our combat equipment.
“The LWH (Light Weight Helmet) was selected as a far superior solution to meet the needs and requirements of our Warfighters. The helmets are being fielded at a rate of 5,000 per month and are manufactured by the leader in the industry, Gentex Corporation.
“To date, we have fielded over 85,000 helmets. The LWH’s effectiveness is, in part, a result of improved comfort and fit that comes from its suspension system. The improved suspension system reduces stress and fatigue of the wearer.
“The BLSS Kits were an interim commercial solution to retrofit old PASGT (Personal Armor System, Ground Troop) (aka "Kevlar") helmets.
“Our ballistics and testing experts at the Soldier Center conducted an evaluation that failed to show a compelling reason to support any claim that a padded system would outperform the suspension system. The only true benefit of pads appears to be non-ballistic impact protection (i.e., bumps, falls, vehicle crashes, etc.). With this benefit come drawbacks such as fit, heat and fluid retention, and others. There is no evidence that pad suspension minimizes injury potential in the event of ballistic impact (i.e., fragmentation) – the primary purpose for the Light Weight Helmet. In fact, it is possible that pads worsen the effects of such high rate, high-energy impacts.”
THE MARINES INFORMATION PAPER
One evaluation of the Light Weight Helmet and a padded helmet conducted by the Marines – and included in a 2005 report – showed that the new helmet sustained nearly twice the amount of head acceleration as a helmet with pads.
Different sides interpret the results differently.
That the 157 Gs (units of force) sustained by the LWH in the test meets the Marine Corps’ threshold of 200 Gs is not enough, some argue.
Per industry standard, according to a pad manufacturer, any blow under 90 Gs will likely not cause an injury; 90 to 300 Gs can cause a concussion. with a high probability of permanent brain injury over 216 Gs; and anything over 300 Gs is fatal.
“A failed test is a failed test, no matter how you try to spin it,” said Bob Meaders, who launched Operation Helmet to get pads for Marines seeking them in Iraq and Afghanistan. “Why is the 157 g impact that passes through the unmodified LW not ‘enough’ to justify the addition of the (pad) kit that reduces that figure to 79 g’s?”
Requests to interview Dan Fitzgerald, the program manager for Marines infantry combat equipment, were unsuccessful.
SIGNATURE WAR WOUND
While merits of a military helmets with and without pads may be in dispute, one thing is certain: The Iraq war is yielding a higher percentage of brain injuries than any previous U.S. conflict.
The New England Journal of Medicine reported in its May 2005 issue that “Among surviving soldiers wounded in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, TBI (traumatic brain injury) appears to account for a larger proportion of casualties than it has in other recent U.S. wars.”
Researchers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., are studying the pattern.
“We’re finding that blast injury is a significant risk factor for having brain injury while in theater,” said Dr. Deborah Warden, the Director of the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center headquartered at Walter Reed in a telephone interview.
“It’s right now one of the most common causes of battle injury,” she said. “One thing about this war, what we have been able to count, is that closed brain injury (from blasts) is more common than penetrating (ones from bullets).”
The higher numbers of brain injuries seen in Iraq stems from the insurgents’ weapon of choice, homemade bombs or IEDs – improvised explosive devices. Researchers say it may also be high due to the fact that better body armor now saves the lives of those troops who may have died in previous conflicts.
USA Today reported last week that “the Pentagon is refusing to release data on how many soldiers have suffered brain injuries in Iraq and Afghanistan. It says disclosing the results would put the lives of those fighting at risk.”
Ellie
By VIK JOLLY
The Orange County Register
John Maxie was riding in a Humvee in Iraq's Anbar province last week when two roadside bombs went off, searing him with blasts of intense heat and explosive force that felt like a 2-by-4 hit him on the head.
Maxie, 20, a Camp Pendleton-based Marine corporal, survived.
He and his parents believe they know what saved him from serious brain injury: a pad insert that he attached to his helmet before deployment in March.
"This pretty much validates the fact that the suspension kit is doing its job," said Maxie's father, Greg. "Our son was very lucky to be that close to a 'kill zone' of a blast and walk away with nothing but scratches and a hearing loss."
The Maxies are among many Marine families who are following the lead of Bob Meaders, a former Navy doctor and the grandfather of another Camp Pendleton Marine, who has launched a drive to add non-regulation pads to standard-issue helmets.
There's little scientific evidence on whether extra padding means better blast protection. But the Iraq war is yielding a higher percentage of brain injuries than any previous U.S. conflict, according to researchers. While some families take comfort in buying the pads themselves - and manufacturers are pushing the product in publications aimed at military audiences - the Marine Corps disputes the benefits.
Today, the issue gets its first airing on Capitol Hill when Meaders, expected to be joined by singer Cher, testifies before a congressional panel.
It's about time, says Meaders, who came out of retirement to launch Operation Helmet two years ago, aiming to get helmet liner kits sent to his grandson, Justin, and other Marines. To date, the group has shipped more than 8,000 helmet inserts to Marines in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"It just needs to be done to save lives," said Meaders in a telephone interview from Glen Rose, Texas, about 70 miles southwest of Dallas. "My dream of this would be at the end of the day for the military to say that it can be handled and you, Dr. Bob, can go back to playing golf again."
Cher's interest was sparked by a newspaper story. The panel also will hear from military officials, but that portion of the hearing is closed to the public.
The U.S. Army and the Marines once used similar helmets. Now, the Army has issued the Army Combat Helmet, costing $306 each and manufactured with the pads already incorporated for Iraq-bound soldiers.
The Marines are updating their helmets but without the pads.
The Marine Corps says its new headgear - the Light Weight Helmet, at $190 each - is effective and meets the demands of its fighters. It contends that a padded helmet lowers protection against bullets, a point that is disputed by pad manufacturers and families, who say the Corps does not provide evidence to support that claim.
"At this point in the fielding process of the LWH, any donation to 'Operation Helmet' is just going to interfere with the protection system being fielded to our deployed Marines," said Capt. Jeff Landis, a public affairs officer at Marine Corps Systems Command in Quantico, Va., in an e-mail response to the Register.
"Their consistent marketing campaign is creating doubt with some of our leadership who are not part of the development and acquisition process and not abreast of our latest helmet programs," Landis wrote. "The campaign is also reducing the confidence of the operating forces in the equipment being fielded to them - the equipment that is saving their lives and reducing the severity of their wounds."
If included in the process of manufacturing the helmet, the pad system would cost about $60, said Mike Dennis, founder, president and CEO of Oregon Aero, a Scappoose, Ore., company that sells the helmet liner kits.
"For significantly less than $100, we can add this lifesaving addition, but it's being fought at the highest levels," Dennis said.
The Marine Corps has not stopped anyone from retrofitting its older helmets but says the pad kits are not authorized or needed with its new helmets.
Still, some Marines find them useful.
"In my opinion, they offer more protection and are more comfortable," said Capt. Randy Walsh, commanding officer of the headquarters and support company of the 7th Marine Regiment, in an e-mail from Iraq forwarded by a public information officer at Camp Pendleton. Walsh got the pads last year.
Researchers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., have found that about 30 percent of those admitted since the start of the fighting in Iraq were diagnosed with brain injury. Historically, the share of brain injuries in previous conflicts has been 16 percent to 18 percent.
Gale Strassberg's son Shane, 25, a Camp Pendleton-based Marine corporal, was deployed with John Maxie this year. It was his second tour in Iraq.
To date, her nonprofit group - Staten Island Project Homefront - has raised $35,000 and provided 291 pad inserts to Marines, 205 of them in her son's unit, AABN 3rd Track Charlie Company.
"I am not stopping fundraising until I get a cease and desist order," she said, adding that the Marine Corps should be ordering the pads. "Why are people like me and other people around the country doing this? You'd think we have an ATM in our back yard that we could just spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars here."
Strassberg, a Staten Island, N.Y., real estate broker, doesn't buy the Marine Corps' argument that its new helmet meets its specifications.
"I don't care what they say. Put (procurement officers) on the front lines and let them get hit by the IEDs and then ask what they say," she said, using the military acronym for improvised explosive devices, usually roadside bombs. "If the helmet insert saves one life, that's good enough. To me as a parent, my son is over there risking his life. I want to put my son in a rubber box."
Like the Maxies, Strassberg says she doesn't need more proof that the pads work.
Shannan Limon, formerly of San Clemente, sees the pads as a device that could help her Marine husband escape brain injuries in the war zone.
"The more I learned about it, I learned how important these kits are," said Shannan Limon, who went on a mission to raise $30,000 to retrofit about 300 helmets for those in her husband's company at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms.
Phillip Limon saw the pads as insurance. When Limon, a gunnery sergeant, went to Iraq for a second time last year, he took along the inserts, hoping they would blunt the impact of a bomb blast.
"The helmet stays on my head better," he said in an interview before deployment. "It fits like a football helmet, really nice and snug."
Harold Henson, a former Ohio State University fullback, knows something about helmets. He made sure his son Clayton has a helmet liner kit before he goes to Iraq next month. Clayton, 24, is a lance corporal based at Camp Lejeune, N.C.
Henson said he helped raise $20,000 for Operation Helmet.
The Marines "are saying we're interfering with what they do. How can I - a farmer - interfere with what the Marines do?" Henson asked.
MARINE CORPS VIEW
The Marines maintain that adding pads to the standard-issue helmet could in fact cause more health and safety issues, including eliminating a gap between the head and the helmet that could otherwise diffuse a blow.
The following comments are excerpted from a March 8 e-mail from Capt. Jeff Landis, a public affairs officer at Marine Corps Systems Command in Quantico, Va., to the Register:
“First off, the Marine Corps is always looking to improve the effectiveness, performance and wear of its combat equipment.
“We would prefer not to point to any specific study but rather address the series of studies the Marine Corps funds annually that are progressive, innovative and timely in the spiral development process to improve our combat equipment.
“The LWH (Light Weight Helmet) was selected as a far superior solution to meet the needs and requirements of our Warfighters. The helmets are being fielded at a rate of 5,000 per month and are manufactured by the leader in the industry, Gentex Corporation.
“To date, we have fielded over 85,000 helmets. The LWH’s effectiveness is, in part, a result of improved comfort and fit that comes from its suspension system. The improved suspension system reduces stress and fatigue of the wearer.
“The BLSS Kits were an interim commercial solution to retrofit old PASGT (Personal Armor System, Ground Troop) (aka "Kevlar") helmets.
“Our ballistics and testing experts at the Soldier Center conducted an evaluation that failed to show a compelling reason to support any claim that a padded system would outperform the suspension system. The only true benefit of pads appears to be non-ballistic impact protection (i.e., bumps, falls, vehicle crashes, etc.). With this benefit come drawbacks such as fit, heat and fluid retention, and others. There is no evidence that pad suspension minimizes injury potential in the event of ballistic impact (i.e., fragmentation) – the primary purpose for the Light Weight Helmet. In fact, it is possible that pads worsen the effects of such high rate, high-energy impacts.”
THE MARINES INFORMATION PAPER
One evaluation of the Light Weight Helmet and a padded helmet conducted by the Marines – and included in a 2005 report – showed that the new helmet sustained nearly twice the amount of head acceleration as a helmet with pads.
Different sides interpret the results differently.
That the 157 Gs (units of force) sustained by the LWH in the test meets the Marine Corps’ threshold of 200 Gs is not enough, some argue.
Per industry standard, according to a pad manufacturer, any blow under 90 Gs will likely not cause an injury; 90 to 300 Gs can cause a concussion. with a high probability of permanent brain injury over 216 Gs; and anything over 300 Gs is fatal.
“A failed test is a failed test, no matter how you try to spin it,” said Bob Meaders, who launched Operation Helmet to get pads for Marines seeking them in Iraq and Afghanistan. “Why is the 157 g impact that passes through the unmodified LW not ‘enough’ to justify the addition of the (pad) kit that reduces that figure to 79 g’s?”
Requests to interview Dan Fitzgerald, the program manager for Marines infantry combat equipment, were unsuccessful.
SIGNATURE WAR WOUND
While merits of a military helmets with and without pads may be in dispute, one thing is certain: The Iraq war is yielding a higher percentage of brain injuries than any previous U.S. conflict.
The New England Journal of Medicine reported in its May 2005 issue that “Among surviving soldiers wounded in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, TBI (traumatic brain injury) appears to account for a larger proportion of casualties than it has in other recent U.S. wars.”
Researchers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., are studying the pattern.
“We’re finding that blast injury is a significant risk factor for having brain injury while in theater,” said Dr. Deborah Warden, the Director of the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center headquartered at Walter Reed in a telephone interview.
“It’s right now one of the most common causes of battle injury,” she said. “One thing about this war, what we have been able to count, is that closed brain injury (from blasts) is more common than penetrating (ones from bullets).”
The higher numbers of brain injuries seen in Iraq stems from the insurgents’ weapon of choice, homemade bombs or IEDs – improvised explosive devices. Researchers say it may also be high due to the fact that better body armor now saves the lives of those troops who may have died in previous conflicts.
USA Today reported last week that “the Pentagon is refusing to release data on how many soldiers have suffered brain injuries in Iraq and Afghanistan. It says disclosing the results would put the lives of those fighting at risk.”
Ellie