{"id":51214,"date":"2022-06-22T22:13:56","date_gmt":"2022-06-22T22:13:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/armytimes\/uncategorized\/2022\/06\/22\/denied-a-purple-heart-after-a-perforated-eardrum-in-combat-army-says-to-try-again\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T04:15:48","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T04:15:48","slug":"denied-a-purple-heart-after-a-perforated-eardrum-in-combat-army-says-to-try-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/armytimes\/news\/your-army\/2022\/06\/22\/denied-a-purple-heart-after-a-perforated-eardrum-in-combat-army-says-to-try-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Denied a Purple Heart after a perforated eardrum in combat? Army says to try again"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Army now recognizes a perforated eardrum as a qualifying combat-related injury for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.armytimes.com\/news\/your-army\/2020\/04\/16\/how-us-troops-survived-a-little-known-al-qaeda-raid-in-mali-two-years-ago\/\" target=\"_blank\">award of the Purple Heart<\/a>, according to a new MILPER message released this month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The change went into effect June 8, said Lt. Col. Matt Fontaine, a top spokesman for Army Human Resources Command.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe made this change in order to be consistent with the other services across the DoD which award Purple Hearts for this type of combat-related injury,\u201d Fontaine wrote in an email to Army Times. \u201cWe encourage Soldiers who were never considered for or who were previously denied a Purple Heart for this combat injury to submit the required documentation through their chain of command to HRC for consideration. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cVeterans can submit their request directly to HRC,\u201d Fontaine added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Veterans must submit their documents through Army Human Resources Command\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hrc.army.mil\/content\/Awards%20and%20Decorations%20Branch\" target=\"_blank\">Awards and Decorations Branch<\/a>, while currently serving active duty troops, reservists and Guardsmen can go through their leadership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A perforated eardrum, or ruptured tympanic membrane, is a common <a href=\"https:\/\/www.armytimes.com\/news\/your-army\/2022\/04\/13\/soldier-receives-purple-heart-for-wounds-in-mali-mortar-attack\/\" target=\"_blank\">injury caused by explosive blasts<\/a>. According to a <a href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/18376162\/\" target=\"_blank\">study conducted on Iraq War veterans<\/a> who deployed between 2003 and 2006, tympanic membrane perforation was found in 16% of explosion-injured patients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Common symptoms of a perforated eardrum include tinnitus \u2014 a ringing noise in the ears \u2014 and hearing loss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cMost patients are symptomatic and many have large perforations requiring operative intervention,\u201d the study concluded. \u201cLong-term hearing loss is uncommon but does impact ability to continue military service.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">All applications for the Purple Heart must include a variety of supporting documentation, including a letter of endorsement from the soldier\u2019s chain of command, deployment orders, a page-long narrative describing the incident during which the soldier was injured, and two statements from individuals other than the recipient who were present during the incident.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to the MILPER message, commanders will take two major factors into consideration when determining the eligibility of a soldier for the purple heart: the degree to which the enemy or hostile force caused the wound, and whether the wound was so severe that it required treatment by a medical officer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cTo qualify, the combat-related injury must have been severe enough to require treatment by a medical officer and it must be documented in the individual\u2019s medical record near the time of the incident,\u201d Fontaine said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;The two critical factors are the degree to which the enemy or hostile force caused the wound, and whether the wound was so severe that it required treatment by a medical officer,&#8221; according to the Army&#8217;s MILPER message.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":67491,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":70,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":{"2":{"categories":["your-military","news","middle-column","home"],"primary_category":"your-military"}}},"categories":[100,23,92,12,25,70],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3318],"class_list":["post-51214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news-roundup","category-home","category-left-column","category-news","category-newsletters","category-your-army"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"R445KVLTZVGIFKXX4BO5KZ66RE","arc_canonical_url":"\/news\/your-army\/2022\/06\/22\/denied-a-purple-heart-after-a-perforated-eardrum-in-combat-army-says-to-try-again\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.0 (Yoast SEO v28.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Denied a Purple Heart after a perforated eardrum in combat? 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