Why aren't soldiers deaf?

[pnosko]

[Flanders]

I can't believe there are people out there who think your ears are tough.

[zenguitar]

I rarely shoot but went out one day with a friend to shoot his glock. One discharge and it felt like I had a pillow over my ears accompanied by the loudest ringing in my ears I had ever experienced. Freaked me out a little bit actually. I of course put in ear plugs after that. I don't understand how anyone could shoot anything over a .22 without earplugs. Protect your ears, hearing loss is permanent.

I used to have ringing in my ears after playing shows because the band was so loud, I've since worked on getting a quieter but well mixed stage volume and my ears don't ring anymore after playing a show. So much better. My drummer does wear earplugs when performing by the way and even in rehearsal.

[Flanders]

zenguitar, are you saying you don't wear earplugs while performing because of the comparatively lower stage volume? If so, at least consider the possibility that your ears don't ring anymore because of scar tissue in your eardrums from the damage you've already done. You can't mix cymbals to a lower volume if you're standing near them, and IMO, that's what's going to beat the hell out of your eardrums besides the guitar.

[Paul B]

A lot of Vets are partially deaf. I served in Nam and Cambodia and I was a Commo Chief attached to an 105 mm artillery battery.
We had no ear protection (hell, we didn't even have underwear) and we would fire six guns at a time through most of the night for an entire year. I usually slept right under the gun barrel. The noise from our guns was louder than when the Vietnamese would fire morters back and the rounds would land near you. That sound is deeper. The sound of our outgoing artillery was higher and your ears rang all the time.
We also used to have what we called "Mad Minutes" where everyone on the LZ (landing zone) would fire everything we had into the jungle for about a minute (or until your M 16 exploded)
we had tanks, M 16s, 50 cal machine guns, 60mm machine guns, artillery, 105, 155 and 175mm cannons. Also firing around us from other firebases and cobra gunship hellocopters. You want to hear noise, I can show you noise. (I even have a few mad minutes taped) One major fight I was in which caused us to go into Cambodia our 8" artillery exploded killing many people and bursting the eardrums of almost all of us on the Firebase.
Here is a link to the firebase where that happened the day I was there.
By the way I can still hear, just not high pitched.
Take care.
Paul
http://www.fwb2.homestead.com/

[Vincerama2]

I heard (ha ha) that it's easier to understand what someone is saying if you can see their mouth as they speak. Even if they spoke at the exact same volume. I guess the human brain is pretty good at filling in the pieces, so given the extra clues, you are actually subconciously lip reading!

Aslo, I've seen an eplxmae taht sohws taht as lnog as the frist and lsat lterets of a wrod are in the rgiht palce, yuor bairn can dcyeephr it whtuiot too mcuh tlbruoe!

(Also I've seen an example that shows that as long as the first and last letters of a word are in the right place, your brain can decypher it without too much trouble!)

V

[tyoberg]

I have some hearing loss in the upper freq's from working in a submarine engineroom. It isn't ear-ringing loud back there, just uniformly noisy. Heck, I probably wore earplugs more than anyone else on board!

Anytime you end up with ringing ears, your hearing is getting damaged (and just because they don't end up ringing doesn't mean your hearing is safe either). I shoot competitive highpower rifle. I wear both plugs and muffs.

Guys in combat just take the loss.

[Jamesurq]

muffs.... he he...