Political Quotes

“Mr. President, during Memorial Day and last week, I spent much of the time traveling Ohio with Michael Fairman, a retired Navy corpsman and a Columbus resident, who served with the Marines in Afghanistan from 2007 to 2011. His son Zack is a third-generation Navy corpsman serving with the Marine Corps First Tank Battalion deployed in the Middle East. Based on his own combat experiences and his concern for other veterans and the suicide of a friend, a fellow veteran, Mr. Fairman came to my office with an idea of how we can help both servicemembers and veterans--veterans like Alexander Powell, a student at the University of Toledo who joined us in Northwest Ohio. Mr. Powell was deployed in Iraq in 2006 when his gun truck was struck by an IED. He had no physical or visible injuries. He went back to duty the next day, but he began experiencing blackouts and dizzy spells. It wasn't until 2009 that he was diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury and hospitalized to begin treatment. Mr. Powell is not alone. The VA reports that some 300,000 veterans struggle with post-traumatic stress. The Defense Department reports that out of 300,000 TBI injuries, there are 25,000 cases of what they call mild traumatic brain injuries because mild TBI is an invisible injury. Think of an NFL player getting a concussion or a series of concussions over a period of a career.…”