Treating and studying the injuries of wounded warriors
Dr. Daniel Perl had already made a groundbreaking discovery with profound implications for veterans when Frank Larkin turned to him after his son's 2017 suicide.
Perl had discovered a pattern of microscopic scarring in the brains of service members and veterans who died by suicide. While his early work found scarring in victims who'd lived through major bombings, there was a difference with Larkin's son, Ryan: he had not been involved with any roadside bombings during his two combat tours in Iraq or during his two tours in Afghanistan.
Research into these wounds could change the way veterans are treated and trained, something Larkin has pushed for since his son's death. The father says he's on a path to make sure "we have no more Ryans."
Operation Proper Exit
Depression and post-traumatic stress disorder are common concerns for veterans. In 2011, 60 Minutes reported on a therapy program run by the Troops First Foundation with the cooperation of the U.S. military that took combat veterans suffering from severe injuries and PTSD back to Iraq as a way of providing emotional closure.
Matt Bradford was one of the veterans 60 Minutes met. He was blinded and lost both legs to an explosion in Iraq in 2007.
"I wake up in the middle of the night and can't go back to sleep because I keep thinking about, you know, getting blown up, laying there on the ground," he told 60 Minutes at the time.
Bradford's doing well in the years since his trip back to Iraq. He's now a college graduate living in Kentucky and working as a motivational speaker. Bradford was also a State of the Union address guest during President Trump's first term.
Rick Kell started Operation Proper Exit and led the trips. He's never been in the military himself, but he worked as a volunteer at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Wounded warriors he regularly saw at Walter Reed inspired the program.
"In every conversation, it came up: 'I want to go back. I need to go back,'" Kell said the veterans told him.
Frank Larkin would succeed Kell as head of Troops First Foundation.
Mancini's Brain
Brian Mancini also returned to Iraq in 2011 as part of Operation Proper Exit after his service there. He was struck by a roadside bomb in 2007 while serving as an Army medic.
"I have a titanium mesh plate in my forehead. They rebuilt my whole orbital socket. My sinuses were replace-- are rebuilt. My palate was blasted out. My cheekbone-- was blasted out, with all my teeth. They actually rebuilt that from my hip," he told CBS News in 2011.
Despite his injuries, Mancini was doing well — until he wasn't. He took his own life in 2017.
His family wanted answers, so they turned to Dr.Dan Perl, a neuropathologist at the Uniformed Services University, the military's medical school. Perl wondered if there might be some kind of invisible brain injury.
"When an IED goes off there's a tremendous explosion. And with the explosion comes the formation of something called the blast wave. And it is sufficiently powerful to pass through the skull and through the brain," Perl told 60 Minutes at the time. "And when it does that, it does damage the brain tissue."
Current research into brain injuries among veterans
Navy doctors had scanned Ryan Larkin's brain before his suicide, but they found no sign of physical injury. After Ryan Larkin took his own life, his father — Frank Larkin — donated his brain to Dr. Perl, who did a post-mortem exam and found scarring.
Frank Larkin, a former SEAL himself with decades working for the Secret Service and Defense Department, took the evidence to old friends in the military. In 2019, Special Operations Command (SOCOM) commissioned a study to look for brain injuries from cumulative, low-level blasts. Harvard professor Dr. Brian Edlow, who led the research at Massachusetts General Hospital, put 30 active-duty volunteers into powerful scanners and found changes in brain structure to a region critically important because it modulates emotion and cognition.
Dr. Edlow showed his findings to Special Operations in 2023 and a new five-year study is being planned by SOCOM with 200 subjects.
Scott Pelley's full report, Larkin's War, is set to air on 60 Minutes on March 23, 2025.
Additional resources:
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 health: To learn more about all aspects of the U.S. military's program aimed at enhancing brain health, 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 under the guidance of Dr. Dan Perl.
