Hearing Conservation Well, in class all this week, learning all about Hearing Conservation and the US Army. To put it all in perspective, today we watched a video, which happens to be one of my favorite war movies of all time (and that is beside the fact that they got some of the hottest actors today working in it). Black Hawk Down, yes, the movie where the Brits all have Texas accents. They were trying to draw into the fact where the one soldier has the SAW going off right above his head and loses his hearing for the rest of the movie. Well, apparently, my instructor met the guy that character is based off of in real life. His hearing to this day is still shot. He has to wear hearing aids, and he's still in the military. Kind of drives it home, doesn't it? Hearing loss is one of the biggest things in the military today that people get conpensation for from the VA. Its all that weapons fire that blows out your hearing. My job that I'm learning is how to run the Hearing Test, and then reinforce to all the grunts out there that if they want to still hear by the time they are fifty, they need to keep their hearing protection in. Its important! And that means not enclosing yourself in your car with the base all the way up pounding out your ear drums. Despite popular belief, it isn't your ear drums you need to be worrying about anyway. Its your inner ear. You lose that, your hearing is shot, and you aren't going to get it back. This class really helped me understand a lot about the ear, and hearing in general. A lot of this I really didn't know before. I don't know why, but I always enjoyed being in the learning environment, such as I am right now. I love to learn, and despite the dryness of this class, I'm actually finding it to be very fascinating. As I sat and watched Black Hawk Down, I also started to remember why I loved being in the army as well. Call me crazy, but though the beurocracy of this institution drives me stark raving mad at times, I'm proud to be a member of the armed forces. And although I really don't make my living shooting other people up, I can do my own part in helping keep our soldiers healthy, so THEY can shoot other people up. And they can hear each other while they do it. -SGT E: # 1:28 PM - |