Reported Brain Injuries Rise from Iranian Attack on US Troops in Iraq

The Pentagon now says that at least 109 cases of traumatic brain injury have been diagnosed in US soldiers who were at bases in Iraq when they came under Iranian missile fire on January 8. The attack, retaliation for the US assassination of a top Iranian commander on January 3, killed no one, though initial reports from the Pentagon said that several troops had sufferance concussions, apparently from explosive shock waves. President Donald Trump brushed off those reports by talking about headaches. Yet the numbers have steadily risen in the month since the attack, and questions are being asked as to how the US military classifies wounds and injuries that are not bodily in nature and therefore not readily apparent, and how it responds to them. Sen. Joni Ernst, a Republican and former military officer, has called on the Pentagon to provide more answers about the issue.