u/RoninSolutions

I am a American of Ukrainian heritage who has unfortunately lost relatives & friends in the war. I spent just over a decade fighting in various countries with the U.S. military,(actually decided to leave the Regiment l loved & went through hell to be in, because l could see Trump was going to be elected first time & knew he would throw us into senseless money grabbing wars) & then spent just over 4 yrs as a contractor for Gov't agencies & NGO's around the worlds conflict & disaster zones.

So l put my family & especially my girlfriend ,now wife,through hell for over a decade, especially with the 2 WIA's, so l promised when l got out no more combat or extended foreign trips.

We now own a Cattle Ranch & horse training/breeding business in the Big Sky Country, Montana region,with employees & their family depending on us ,so l can not be away for months at a time . So when this clusterfuck kicked off l was chewing at the bit to be involved, l am lucky l was asked to join a combat veteran & former NGO leadership based private aid group,that specializes in supplying front line units with training & requested material & evacuating WIA & civilians.

I was in Ukraine within weeks of the war starting & so far l have personally spent just over 14 months i front line areas of Ukraine & was lucky last year to take my wife on part one of our aid missions to supply vehicles & medical equipment,so she could see for herself what the Ukrainians are facing .

Unfortunately developing tinnitus is incredibly common for those in combat or under attack & l personally do not know anyone who l fought alongside who does not have it too some degree.The good news is latest treatments have helped immensely & l no longer am effected by it so much.

The other under reported complication from being near these large explosions is the debilitating effect we now recognize concussion has on our bodies,if it was understood like now there is no way l would have been allowed back into combat when l was WIA the second time.

I am now part of a study on concussions long term effects & with my blast injuries & prolonged use of one of our favored weapons in combat.The Regiment was the trailblazer for the Carl Gustaf's 84mm recoilless rifles adoption in the U.S. military, field-testing and deploying it in Afghanistan well before anyone else & it has now been found to put long term users at danger of developing bad concussion,from a 84mm being fired next to your brain,(lucky most of us only have little brains), so that is something l can look forward to as a old bastard.,can l also congratulate you in thinking outside the box into what those Ukrainians under attack are facing,it is a pity more did not .

So there are a lot of 'underlying' injuries the civilians in Ukraine are no under threat from these war criminal scumbags .

u/Colbert2020 - I was WIA twice while serving in Iraq & Afghanistan with the U.S. military. I was extremely lucky to only score minor shrapnel wounds & among other 'minor' internal injuries l suffered 'Blast Lung' or its official term Primary Blast Lung Injury (PBL). I would have suffered bad hearing damage,(we saw may blown eardrums from combat & most suffered some level of tinnitus from constant gunfire/explosions ), as well but was fortunate to be wearing high end active hearing/communication protection in both cases,that a well known manufacturer supplied to our Regiment for field testing .

This where a large explosion causes rapid over-pressurization and the extreme explosive forces tear the delicate tissue where air meets blood vessels in the lungs, this leads to pneumothorax (collapsed lung) and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS).

These PBL injuries caused me far more trouble in getting back on my feet,than the shrapnel injuries in both fights & may yet cause further problems as l get to be a grumpy old man.I made a concerted effort to recover from the PBL as l have a life time love & make a living form Scuba diving & as a hunting guide specializing in Alpine hunting & surprised the doctors with my recovery,especially the second time l was WIA.

I was extremely lucky that both pursuits meant l had high lung capacity & was extremely fit at the times of being WIA,but l had to fight for to get medically passed to rejoin my Regiment as the doctors were firmly against it.I was extremely lucky that a surgeon who treated me in Germany was a diving instructor & she supported my fight to get back to my deployment & accelerated recovery effort.

I am part of a private aid group for Ukraine & have made it a personal mission to get as many respirators etc used for treating lung injuries as we can, (so far 14 units), for both the UAF members & civilians injured from being near large explosions.

So yeh there are many serious injuries caused from being near these large explosions & with things like PBL the seriousness may not show until later as blood/fluid slowly fills the lung & victims blame damaged ribs/bruising by mistake & that causes it to go largely under reported.

Link to the full interview - What really happened behind the closed doors of the secret talks in Oslo? Should we expect fateful changes in November and what American representative Steve Witkoff took Putin to St. Petersburg?

Exclusive interview with TSN.Week. Alla Mazur and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reveal all the details of the undercover games in the midst of the crisis with the US.

During the conversation, details were revealed about the resumption of Starlink operations, the return of full-fledged intelligence from the US, and Ukraine's clear red lines: no neutrality, restrictions on the Armed Forces of Ukraine, or trade in territories. Special attention was paid to the humanitarian special operation in the Oleshky area - large-scale demining of roads and evacuation of civilians under the control of international missions.

Volodymyr Zelensky responded to Donald Trump's accusations, explained why the strikes on Russian refineries are a mirror response to the shelling of our energy sector, and spoke about the situation with the delay of Patriot missiles. Also in the interview: under what conditions is an energy truce possible, what fate awaits frozen Russian assets in Brussels, and why Ukraine's defense sector needs an additional $70 billion next year.

Full relevant section of interview- https://youtu.be/EloCCOhyX1g?si=jgHsSkfHLv8jmk0E&t=2196

https://youtu.be/EloCCOhyX1g?si=i25mLWW5trOrF_3W

u/Raagun I will give you a bit of a detailed explanation, as this question comes up a lot & many times it is claimed as staged,showing off etc .

I can give a perspective from my own personal experience fighting in GWOT,(mostly in high mountain terrain COP's,where we would call in, when available, close air support (CAS) during our regular TIC's), & from witnessing it often with my time in Ukraine driving to front line areas with our aid group & from my interest as a light aircraft pilot that uses our old Piper Super Cub on our Ranch in Montana like many from city's use their cars to commute .

What the pilots are doing here is called in the military Nap-of-the-earth (NOE),all air-forces around the world use it.The aircraft flies at an extremely low altitude, hugging the contours of the landscape to hide from enemy radar and air defenses & also to mask the sound of the approaching aircraft.

It is not only hard terrain like mountains,valleys,river systems etc & the very curvature of the earth itself , but also, as is common in Ukraine, to use the extensive tall tree plantings used as wind breaks & paddock borders on agricultural lands & roadside verges.

In Ukraine on front line approaches you are often warned that the air-force will be using those roadside tree cover & road traffic itself to mask their approaches & exits from their "lofting" rocket attacks,(where you see aircraft flying low then rapid climb before releasing rockets/bombs), & you will see helicopters literally drop down to car roof level ,using the roadside wind break tree's & traffic to mask their noise & radar signatures.

In Afghanistan from our mountain top COP's air support would often NOE fly that low ,using the mountains themselves as cover,that we would look down on them & the jets in particular wold throw up huge plumes of dust from the jet wash,this in itself was used as means of providing us cover when they were running low on munitions,but the NOE would not only cover the sound of their approach but make the use of Manpads/ground fire etc against them near impossible due to the speed & terrain blocking,same benefit of NOE use i Ukraine .

You can see in this vision the pilot is flying over flat,open agricultural land for their NOE & my guess they use this area for their regular approach & exit from their current preferred 'lofting' area.So the enemy AA radar is blinded to their approach by a combination of hard terrain & tree windbreaks etc & the pilots can the determine the best spot to suddenly expose their air frame.

So the pilots would regularly use the NOE protection that area offers to regularly over fly the locals homes,which is how the locals are anticipating their flights to show their flag waving support for the short time they are operating in that region.

Even after a more than a decade spent on the front lines & getting my pilots license & being fortunate to regularly use it,while witnessing NOE up close in our trips to Ukraine ,l still revert to a 10 yr kid every time l see it with tongue hanging out & face pressed to window.

Hope that helps

Slava Ukraini, Heroyam Slava!

Cartoonist Michael de Adder,did the scumbag a favor showing him drinking instead of being bored after coming down from one of his half a dozen ketamine hits each day