The Vietnam boy’s with ARTY don’t have a tbi rating either. 8 inch and 175’s will do considerable hearing damage, ear plugs didn’t help.
It is confusing, here’s a snip from a health article
- In conflict zones such as Afghanistan and Iraq, military personnel are often exposed to intense explosive blasts, which can lead to symptoms of traumatic brain injury (TBI) and eventually long-term brain damage.-
Makes it sound like VN, Korea, WW2, WW1 vets were exposed to less blast damage or lower powered explosives . The article explains blast damage which can be the pressure wave from an explosion or like you said standing within a 155 or 8incher muzzle blast zone when fired. The VA doctors should be the best in diagnosing this, but I went thru multiple tests and got a shrug of the shoulders and denial that any service connection to tbi could be made. With the close (within feet) exposure to a rocket impact that contained about 6lbs of HE and subsequent blast exposure (within a couple hundred feet) of multiple 500lb mk82 bombs I had hallmark symptoms of blast damage tbi, but no go with the VA. It wasn’t going to cost them anything, i’ve been rated 100% for decades (shrapnel damage from the rocket), I just wanted the service connection to the tbi symptoms.
* link to tbi article snipped above