The U.S. Defense Department is going to require cognitive assessments for all new recruits as part of a broader effort to protect troops from brain injuries resulting from exposure to blasts, including during training.
The new guidance also requires greater use of protective equipment, minimum “stand-off distances” during certain types of training, and a reduction in the number of people in proximity to blasts.
Sen. Angus King, an independent from Maine who sits on the Armed Services Committee, applauded the Pentagon for “fast-tracking these needed changes.” He pointed to concerns that an Army reservist responsible for killing 18 people in Maine had a brain injury that could have been linked to his time training West Point cadets on a grenade range.
But Lt. Gen. Jody Daniels, chief of the Army Reserves, has emphatically stated that a traumatic brain injury that was revealed in a postmortem examination of tissue was not …