Thank You for Your Sacrifice

What do the pictures have in common? The faces of brain injured Warriors and athletes who sacrificed, not just served. And too many dead with undiagnosed brain wounds.

We’re twenty-four years out since 9/11. On the order of fifteen thousand Americans — roughly seven thousand U.S. service members and about eight thousand U.S. military contractors — have been killed in the post-9/11 wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and related theaters, according to the best available research. Ten times that number are dead from suicide over the same period, and 877,000+ Veterans and millions of citizens suffer with untreated brain wounds.

A third of NFL players surveyed think they have CTE. While the total number of NFL players with Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) isn’t known, a landmark Boston University study found CTE in 91.7% (345 out of 376) of the brains from former NFL players studied, highlighting the disease’s prevalence linked to repeated head impacts in football. With over 25,000 Veterans of the NFL, we’re looking at many thousands of potentially undiagnosed CTE sufferers.

Not just football. Soccer, lacrosse, hockey, rugby, MMA, Volleyball, cheerleading, skiing. Any sport or activity where head injuries occur is a Petrie dish for concussion and potential progressive brain disease.

The Suicide Epidemic among service members and Veterans continues. Over 158,000 Veteran suicides since 9/11. Billions of dollars spent on Suicide Prevention programs, call centers, polls, data centers, conferences, research studies, White Papers, reorganizations, hotlines, cross-sector coordination and collaboration, “means restrictions” [lock up your guns in advance], outside consultants, videos, public service announcements, mental health support, “post-attempt care” and followup, more funding, and appeals for more “responsible reporting.”

Five Bills in the Congress are awaiting votes in the House and Senate to get help to Veterans suffering brain wounds from TBI/PTSD. Over 66,000 organizations claim to be helping Veterans lead better lives offering hundreds of millions of pills, and billions of dollars on unproven, off-label interventions and drugs. Not even half of Veterans are enrolled in the VA. [Interviews with thousands who have dropped out of the VA cite the top five reasons they have abandoned that route: Access and logistical barriers; Bureaucratic complexity and confusion; Negative personal experiences and strained patient-provider interactions; Eligibility and benefits issues; and Perceived stigma and social barriers.

There’s plenty of hand-wringing that we have to do something. Something different.

The NFL is virtually alone among professional sports to at least recognize a link between head banging and potential brain disease. Still, the NFL doesn’t buy into the idea that the brain wounds suffered from repetitive hits to the head can be healed, or even that the problem is as dire as their veterans make it seem. Even the DoD and the VA are in denial about advances in science over the last decade relative to our understanding of both the damage and the “costs” of undiagnosed and untreated brain wounds.

New research drives home the need to talk about “brain wounds.” The discovery of the glymphatic system in the brain in 2012 has led to discoveries about the role it plays in clearing waste from the brain, and the damage done to it by concussions or even repetitive, low-level impacts. Inflammation, common with brain wounds, impairs the system and is shown to lead to brain deterioration and the progression of neurological disorders. The speed of high acceleration events help determine the damage; BLAST injuries are particularly damaging. “Axonal shearing” can be understood thus: TBI → chronic glymphatic impairment → higher risk of protein accumulation [think of it as gunk clogging the pipes] and long-term neurodegeneration → symptoms of and eventual discovery of CTE.

A line from Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues” is apropos: “You don’t need a weatherman to see which way the wind blows.”

We already know that wounding the brain causes damage that can lead to premature suffering and death. Twenty years of research into CTE and TBI and PTSD and BLAST injuries concur that banging your head hard enough to cause damage is tantamount to inflicting brain wounds. Nevertheless, current standards of care for these injuries does not include brain wound healing. But you can find billions of dollars for programs that don’t work and research that focuses on amost anything except actually using proven means to heal those brain wounds and end the symptoms and continuing brain deterioration.

The five Bills in Congress mentioned above aim to upgrade and modernize how the DoD and VA conceive of and treat TBI/PTSD. All are directly or indirectly tied to the use of alternative therapies, especially Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT):

S.3130 – Veterans TBI Adaptive Care Opportunities Nationwide Act of 2025.
S.2737 – Veterans National Traumatic Brain Injury Treatment Act.
S.862 – HBOT Access Act of 2025.
H. R. 1336 – Veterans National Traumatic Brain Injury Treatment Act.
H. R. 72 – TBI and PTSD Treatment Act.

Congressional members are frustrated with a VA and DoD which continue to spend hundreds of millions on Suicide Prevention without bringing the suicide rate down. Further, they recognize the results of thirteen states that have already enacted and funded HBOT state legislation totaling more than $33 million: IN, KY, AZ, FL, NC, MD, VA, OK, TX, WY, TN, ND, and MO, with seven more states drafting Bills for the same purposes.

Those states recognize that:

• Veteran suicides increased from 2000-2024 (now over 157,000) and that they can interrupt that cycle. Annual reports on their programs prove the worth of treatment.
• Veterans have been misdiagnosed or had their brain wounds ignored, and that Veterans and athletes with TBI are twice as likely to commit suicide.
• Inadequate VA and the medical community standards of care palliate mental health symptoms with off-label non-FDA approved drugs and or counseling, with little to no appreciable effect on brain wound healing.
• TBI is a physical brain wound, resulting in debilitating mental, physical, behavioral, moral, and psychological health symptoms.
• Current VA treatment protocols to palliate TBI symptoms cost the US Government $118.1 billion annually, $4.7T over 40-year life span. Treatment with HBOT can be done for less than ½ of 1% of lifetime cost , while restoring a Quality of Life denied to Veterans on disability, drugs, and diminished ability to function without help.
• 28 clinical trials and studies encapsulating 900+ Veterans demonstrating safety and efficacy since 2007.
• Israeli Defense Forces and Ukraine, along with thousands of athletes worldwide use HBOT for TBI/PTSD, to retain military force levels, heal wounds of all kinds, and to ensure peak performance and resilience.
• DoD could help meet requirements, military operational needs, and force readiness through immediate intervention with HBOT. They recognize that the 1990 Textbook of Military Medicine has approved HBOT for Blast Wave TBIs for 35-years. Over 12,500+ Veterans have been successfully treated, along with over 750 Special Operators. Successes are found in 100+ TBI Veteran video testimonials: lives restored and suicidal ideation eliminated.

Heal Brains. Stop Suicides. Restore Lives. TreatNOW with HBOT

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The TreatNOW Mission is ending service member suicides. Along the way, we have learned that we can end suicidal ideation, help end symptoms of PTSD, get patients off most of their drugs, and heal brain wounds to end the effects of Concussion, BLAST injury, mild TBI, Persistent Post Concussive Syndrome, and polytrauma from AHI, Burn Pits, and COVID. No Veteran or civilian has ever been killed while undergoing HBOT treatment for TBI/PTSD.

Information provided by TreatNOW.org does not constitute a medical recommendation. It is intended for informational purposes only, and no claims, either real or implied, are being made.