The War and the Wounded:

Fort Knox; Lieutenant Colonel Blake Settle

By Clara Lewis
Journalism & Communication Arts Magnet duPont Manual High School

I don't really talk to people I got deployed with. I don't really want to... when you start talking to them, you just start to talk about the bad things. Lieutenant Colonel Blake Settle has been married for 16 years, with three sons: Nathan, John Silas, and Quinton. Out of those 16 years, 10 have been spent in six deployments to Jordan, Afghanistan, and Iraq. This is in 2008 when he returned from his first, but not his last deployment to Afghanistan. His longest deployment to date, he missed John Silas's birth.

Blake travels from his house in Elizabethtown to the Fort Knox base to receive treatment almost everyday.

When he returned from his final deployment in Iraq, he had knee problems, back problems, and soon he soon discovered, brain problems. He began suffering from a traumatic brain injury. See when I got back I didn't know I had a TBI. But it was like day to day things were suddenly difficult.. nothing would sink in. I couldn't even remember the day beforeever.

Blake easily knows his way around & has anywhere from 6 to 10 appointments a week. This appointments range from psychologist, social workers, and occupational therapists.

So familiar with the rehabilitation center and its workers, Blake stops to chat before his appointment, joking about casually.

The program set up in Fort Knox in 2009 is responsible for the treatment of nearly 200 wounded warriors. Treatment is constant.

Blake has been seeing his occupational therapist since his return from his last deployment in the spring of 2012. Responsible for setting up the program and commanding it, his OT has been treating Blake for his TBI. [In this job] It's seeing intangible things you get back from the soldiers, wisdom, knowledge, and the facilitation of their recovery. You get out of it what you put in. It is a joint recovery process with the soldier and therapist... to see what the soldier has overcome.. Blake has come very far.

Every appointment starts out the same:

Remember to rank on a scale of 1-10, how's the pain? I can still feel it in my knees... back.. but a 3. Stress? Down to a 2, Fatigue? 2. Good? Now what's the good thing did you do for yourself this weekend and the good thing you did for someone else? I spent all Saturday with my wife and son, watching movies. I was happy and it made me feel good to be with them.

Your brain is different when you've been deployed. Your chemistry is different, you're in a different climate. The soldier has been in that state of fight-or-flight for so long, he/she is looking at death everyday, and that changes the chemistry in their head. I look at how that injury sustains and how it affects them afterward. Ready to delve back into his everyday life, the turmoil from his head injury was evident not only mentally and physically, but socially as well.

In the spring of 2012, shortly after his return home, Blake returned to Louisville to renovate some of his properties. He was dressed in sweats and covered in concrete dust. Before he made his way home, he went to mid-city mall to pick up a gift card (wife's orders.) Upon entering the mall, he was stopped by a police officer who told him he was going to have to leave the property and there was no loitering allowed. Blake told the police officer he had just been working on some properties, and was picking up something for his wife. The officer continued to ask him to leave despite Blake's explanation of what he was doing. But, due to his TBI, he had great difficulty articulating his intentions and that he was a wounded warrior who had just gotten back from Iraq. When he reached down to get his ID the officer pulled his taser and asked him to put his hands up and get against the wall. After another minute of inarticulate explanation, the cop tackled Blake to the ground, had called backup, and didn't allow for any explanation on his actions except for profiling Blake.

Shortly after, Blake went to the media. His case and police report is still ongoing.

The night the police assault happened. Even right after it happened, Blake was sure to take the first steps to setting up a case against the police officer. The case is still ongoing today. As a result, improvements have been made in the police program including a mandatory 45 minute session dealing with wounded warriors and consistency in police protocol.

But despite the initial rocky start, a new program development called Technological Assisted Touch has helped Blake move along. The system is made for rehabilitating soldiers and their time management, organization, and memory. Here, Blake's OT reminds him... again of how to use the iPod purchased for him.

The OT then gives Blake his appointment schedule for the week, and has him add it into his calendar, each with an alert.

Blake often has to take breaks. It took him 37 minutes total to add in 12 appointments

We use this in order to get consistency. I just want him to get an iPhone so he'll only have to keep up with one thing rather than 2 or 3.

After the therapy session, the OT leads Blake to the next set of rooms designed to help other aspects of Wounded Warrior rehabilitation.

Cognitive recovery is often aided with physical work outs as well. "We often keeps the lights off and play some music, it keeps the mood light hearted and makes it not feel so much like treatment."

"The result of returning from war often induces great stress into these wounded warriors. Things as simple
as a plane flying overhead can bring back memories of picking up survivors or dropping off supplies." The machine is used, typically in the dark, by hooking up a pulse monitor to their ear. They sit in a chair called the "Egg," which is designed to surround the WW and block out distractions.

"Basic social skills have to be re-taught. We have games so that the soldiers can get used to winning but also losing and disappointment. It's a small step but a necessary one."

Blake stands outside the TBI brain gym where he has recently completed treatment for cognitive, visionary, and neurologic aspects of his case.

After returning day after day, Blake has become well acquainted with everyone that works there.

After a two-hour long session Blake's leaves the hospital only to know he's returning tomorrow. "People always ask me if you could go back 10 years in time and change anything I would always answer no. I know I've missed out on raising my sons and have done a great deal of damage to my body but its impossible to experience the good unless you've experienced the bad. You have to see the big picture, all the shit going on out there to see that some of these little day to day things aren't as big of a deal as people make them."