News From the Cause
Military Minds (NAT’L JOURNAL)
June 24, 2011
Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the Army’s No. 2 officer, hardly goes anywhere without his brain chart. It has three images: a normal brain, the brain of a comatose person, and the brain of a conscious person who has just suffered a traumatic brain injury. It doesn’t take a neurologist to see that there is very little difference between the brain of the person in a coma and that of the person with the traumatic brain injury. And that is precisely Chiarelli’s point.
The four-star general has become an advocate for soldiers suffering from the invisible wounds of war. He’s candid about the toll that a decade of fighting has taken on the mental health of many of his troops. But Chiarelli is hopeful that the Army is making the necessary cultural changes—and that the military is taking the lead on innovative solutions—to deal with traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress. Edited excerpts of his interview with National Journal follow. Click here to view more
