A Navy SEAL's invisible wounds

This week on 60 Minutes, correspondent Scott Pelley reports on veterans' invisible wounds, the previously unknown brain injuries suffered by those who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. What is remarkable about these injuries is that they were not caused by large blasts from roadside bombs. New research suggests the troops were wounded by repeated, low-level, blast pressure from their own weapons.

One of those injured fighters was Ryan Larkin, an elite Navy SEAL who joined right out of high school and served in four combat deployments before severe depression led him to take his own life.

But when he joined the military, Larkin seemed to relish being a "frogman" – Navy slang for a SEAL.

"I never saw him in a bad mood," said Rep. Derrick Van Orden, a senior chief in the SEALs who trained Larkin and is now a member of Congress. "And I never saw him dragging his feet. He was always a guy that would stand up, volunteer to do something, do it at a very high level, and be cheery about it. And that cannot be understated as the difference between good and great."

Larkin was always on a mission, Van Orden continued, and understood that the mission was America.

Larkin's missions included two tours in Iraq, and two in Afghanistan. When he returned, he became an instructor, training special operations forces in urban combat. The work put him next to explosives and automatic gunfire all day, every day.

According to Van Orden, the number of explosives that SEALs are exposed to when conducting training for urban combat is significant.

"I order to gain access to these buildings, sometimes you blow holes in walls or you breach the door's explosively," Van Orden explained. "It's not like you can breach a door from a mile away."

Larkin had returned from war sullen and short-fused, his father said. But once he began as an instructor, his depression grew steadily worse.

["He] became hypervigilant and almost a state of paranoia at times," said Frank Larkin, Ryan's father. "And then, all of a sudden, he'd be into a state of depression where he just struggled just to get through the day, just to be able to organize his thoughts."

Frank Larkin is a former SEAL himself. He spent 20 years in the Secret Service, led a Pentagon project to defeat roadside bombs, and became sergeant-at-arms for the U.S. Senate in charge of security. But his toughest mission came in retirement — figuring out what was happening to his son.

"This was so disturbing, because here he was a highly revered and decorated SEAL operator that suddenly is coming apart at the seams," Frank Larkin said. "And we can't figure this out, and he's just struggling. And he's not getting any answers."

After being honorably discharged in 2016, Ryan wrote to the Navy, writing, "I need help. I just want to feel normal again and live a purposeful life."

By the time he ended his life in 2017, Ryan was convinced something was wrong with his brain. He had told his family to donate his body to science. An autopsy revealed microscopic scarring in his brain.

According to his father, the primary injury Ryan had suffered was in his frontal lobe, which is crucial for executive functioning. It also impacted the base of his brain, which controls sleep and other hormonal activity. While in combat, Ryan had managed to avoid the roadside bombs that maimed and killed his fellow servicemen; doctors pinpointed his injuries to the weapons systems he routinely used during training exercises.

Suddenly, all of those symptoms that were so confusing made perfect sense. For Frank Larkin and his wife, the mental free-fall of asking "why" was finally at ease.

"It lifted a tremendous burden off our shoulders," he said.

For Derrick Van Orden, Ryan Larkin's death felt tragic — but not out of the ordinary. He told Pelley he has known 21 SEALs who have died by suicide.

"This is an epidemic," Van Orden said.

He went on to say the way Ryan's chain of command treated him was "shameful." Rather than looking at Ryan's issues from a medical perspective, they treated them as a discipline problem.

"If someone goes from an exceptionally high performer to somebody who is really having very basic issues, it's incumbent upon leadership to acknowledge that and try to figure out what the problem is in a way that is good for the sailor, good for the unit, and good for the country, because those three entities are intertwined," Van Orden said.

After Van Orden retired from the SEALs, he was elected to a seat in Congress as a Republican from Wisconsin and now serves on the House Armed Services Committee. He supported legislation last year requiring the Pentagon to research blast exposure and modify weapons to take brain safety into account.

Now, as the Trump administration seeks to shrink the federal government, the Defense Department this month ended funding for 91 ongoing studies. Van Orden also sits on the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) Caucus in the House, so 60 Minutes asked him if spending cuts were likely to come for the work on blast exposure. He said he doesn't expect any funding issues for what he calls "this vital research."

As that legislation worked its way through Congress last year, it was named, in part, for Ryan Larkin.

"You always try to find something good out of bad things," Van Orden said. "If Ryan killing himself is going to lead to us being able to make better decisions about risk mitigation, that's a ray of hope."

SUICIDE PREVENTION:
If you are a service member or a veteran and need someone to talk to, dial 988 and press 1. For other options, click here.

RECOGNIZING THE SYMPTOMS OF BLAST EXPOSURE:
If you are a service member, veteran or health care provider and you want to learn more about detecting the symptoms of blast exposure and traumatic brain injury, click here.

BRAIN DONATION:
For service members, veterans and their relatives, if you are interested in donating your brain for research into advanced traumatic brain injury, the Defense Department has established a brain tissue repository. For more information, click here. 

Photos courtesy of Getty Images and Redux.

The video above was produced by Brit McCandless Farmer and edited by April Wilson.