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High-tech ear gear offers more protection

The new device consists of a foam earplug that sits deep inside the ear canal and connects with a wire to an electronic box strapped to a Marine’s vest, like an iPod. It moderates the sound entering the ear, allowing conversation and most background noises to flow in, but clipping out large sound waves from gunshots and explosions, as well as low-frequency noises such as the steady rumble of a moving vehicle.

“It’s like having a bionic ear,” said Ron Oyler, director of technical support with the North Carolina office of Nacre, the Norway-based company that makes the device, known as QuietPro.

Integrated with the radio communications systems, the device allows troops to hear their radios and maintain complete situational awareness. A digital processor locks up at any sign of a blast that could damage the inner ear, company officials said, and opens up again immediately after a blast to permit normal sound.

This sort of advanced and costly technology has been used before, mainly among high-ranking senior leaders and elite special-operations units, but the new contract shipping to Marines and soldiers marks the first time junior troops will have such protection, company officials said.

“This is particularly tailored for ground forces,” Nacre President Eivind Bergsmyr said in a telephone interview.

The Corps entered into a $27 million contract to buy up to 48,000 QuietPro devices, Bergsmyr said, a deal that drives the price down to less than $600 per unit. They will be issued along with radio equipment; so far, about 21,000 have been fielded to the operating forces and the rest will be added by fiscal 2009, said 1st Lt. Geraldine Carey, a spokeswoman for Marine Corps Systems Command.

No more 20th-century gear

Not much changed throughout the decades. Hearing protection tended to focus on occupation-specific situations, like aviation or other industrial-type environments where Marines were exposed to constant noise.

In 2003, most Marines setting out for Iraq carried a few plastic earplugs — maybe — and a long list of concerns far more serious than hearing protection. Many grunts didn’t even bother wearing their low-tech hearing protection. A muffled sound, gone unnoticed, can lead to catastrophe; missing a squad leader’s command in combat can be the last mistake you make.

Fighting wars calls for trade-offs, and suffering a blown-out eardrum is better than seeing a buddy get his leg blown off.

But the culture among combat troops is slowly changing.

“We’re looking at hearing as a critical sense to the soldier, just as important as vision,” said Col. Kathy Gates, one of the Army’s top audiologists, who works for the Army surgeon general. “Hearing is a 360-degree sense, it’s 24-7. A soldier who is able to hear has increased survivability.

“A soldier who has hearing loss can put themselves at risk and can put their fellow soldiers at risk.”

The Army is following the Corps’ lead and also plans to issue tens of thousands of QuietPro devices this year, Gates said.

But there are cultural hurdles to getting infantrymen to use them. Some grunts are reluctant to use traditional hearing protection equipment for fear it could impair their reaction time at a critical moment.

“It’s going to be a tough problem to fix,” said Todd Bowers, a sergeant in the Marine Corps Reserve who deployed twice to Iraq and now works on Capitol Hill as the director of government affairs for the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, an independent organization that advocates for troops who have served in combat recently.

“It’s important to protect your hearing so you can continue to be effective in combat, but there’s also, at the same time, the need for mission accomplishment. You still need to be able to hear your radio and your fellow Marines on the ground. If hearing protection starts to infringe on the level of communication you need to accomplish your mission, it’s difficult. It’s a tough problem to solve.”

Many troops may be skeptical of new hearing protection equipment.

“There is the human behavior side with this — either not trusting the equipment or not being willing to stick anything in their ear that could in any way cause them to not hear the whisper of a command that could save their lives,” said David Fagerlie, head of the American Tinnitus Association.

“I think these soldiers are choosing between hearing damage and their lives, in their mind. And that may not literally be true.”

As a result, adopting the new hearing devices may come slowly.

“A lot of people haven’t been trained properly and they’re letting this stuff sit on the shelf,” Oyler said.

Cheaper in the long run

The equipment is pricey, but preventing hearing loss may be cheaper than treating it after diagnosis.

About 45,000 former Marines were treated for hearing loss at VA hospitals in 2006, according to the VA.

At VA facilities nationwide, hearing loss and chronic ringing in the ears, known as tinnitus, topped the list of ailments among veterans who began receiving compensation in 2005, with more than 80,000 new cases added to the books, VA statistics show.

Tinnitus is currently the most common disability among veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, and the cost of treating tinnitus among military vets alone is expected to exceed $1 billion each year by 2011, according to the American Tinnitus Association.

The caseload of new patients claiming hearing damage rose faster than any other type of ailment between 2001 and 2005, outpacing both neurological problems and musculoskeletal problems, VA statistics show.

While musculoskeletal problems, such as back pains, still top the list of disabilities treated by the VA medical system, hearing problems now rank second, VA statistics show.

Experts believe tinnitus is similar to the “phantom pains” that amputees describe feeling in a limb that no longer exists. Similarly, a chronic ringing in the ears may be the result of certain types of hearing damage.

“It’s sending a pain signal to the conscious mind to alert the body that there is something wrong,” Fagerlie said.

New research suggests a link between tinnitus and post-traumatic stress disorder: Those who experience symptoms of a constant ringing in the ears show more frequent and severe symptoms of PTSD, Fagerlie said.

Martinez, who was sipping a beer recently at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 9133 in Jacksonville, N.C., said his hearing loss is a daily problem.

“My wife would talk to me and I couldn’t hear her,” he said. “If I’m looking the other way, I don’t hear people talking to me. A lot of times I get embarrassed because I have to ask somebody to repeat something twice.”

He relies on hearing aids most of the time, but telephone conversations are tough because he hears feedback when they are pressed to a phone’s receiver.

“A lot of times on the phone I have to have my wife do the talking,” he said.

Retired Maj. Joe Friel admits he didn’t like wearing hearing protection when he was on active duty.

But he’s not crazy about wearing hearing aids now either.

“After you take them out at night it’s just so relaxing that you don’t have something stuck in your ear,” said Friel, who worked in logistics throughout his career in the Corps, mostly with infantry battalions. But wearing them is a better alternative, he said.

“I got tired of saying ‘Pardon me?’”