I remember shooting an M16 equivalent and even with ear buds, it hurt after a while. Does the military use ear protection?
On the one hand, you want to hear as much as possible to facilitate communications and be aware of your surroundings. On the other hand, soldiers who’ve been through a few battles must often have significant hearing loss, which can’t be good for communicaiton and awareness.
Personal preference. Issued ear protection allows for decent attenuation of the rifle firing without significantly reducing one’s ability to hear everything else. I personally carry a two sets of ear protection in my kit. A set of these, and a set of these (issued) for back up.
There hasn’t been a single fire fight where I wasn’t able to find a quick second to get them out and put them in. Yea, there is going to be some firing and explosions in the meantime. But nothing unbearable. I think adrenaline naturally attenuates the noise you are hearing as well. Something about stiffening the receptors in the ear or something.
I think 90 something percent of Soldiers don’t bother with ear protection at all on missions. And yes, most Soldiers have SHITTY hearing.
Interesting story on the radio this week
I was a medic, and part of my job was preventive medicine. As Bear_Nenno said, it is the soldier’s personal preference whether or not to wear ear protection. I was never deployed, but I can tell you it was damn hard to get soldiers to wear hearing protection even in a training environment.
Why is that?
Holy crap. Those army issued earplugs are $770 :eek: What are they made of? Is this something that is worth that price or is it expensive by virtue of being for the US military?
Do a search for that item. It is probably for 100 pairs, though the description is not very clear.
I am not surprised it is hard to get soldiers to wear ear protection, considering how resistant most trades are to wearing them. Ear protection is great but can make communication difficult and you are not as aware of your environment while wearing.
Correct - those prices are for the 100-count box (so, ~8 bucks per pair). Link
OK, I’ve never served and I suppose it’s possible I’m wrong in nineteen different ways. But, I have a very hard time believing that ear protection use is a matter of “personal preference” in a training environment. When deployed on a mission, fine, I’ll buy that. No mandatory ear plugs on a firing range? I have a hard time accepting that.
The only way this makes sense to me is that by making it voluntary, it gives the Veteran’s Administration an opening to deny claims for damaged hearing.
“Hey, we gave you the tools and training to protect your hearing and you chose not to wear the earplugs. Your choice, your loss.”
It’s probably a “manly man” thing. It’s pretty much the same in the construction industry. You use your protective equipment (hearing, eyes, gloves) and the other guys think you are a wuss. “I don’t need that shit, I can take it. What are you, a wimp?”
My reply was always (earplugs, as an example) “I can take it, too, if I have to, but I have these, so I don’t have to. In 20 years, I’ll still hear fine, but you’ll be wimping out with a hearing aid.”
After nearly being hit in the eye by a racquetball (instead, it mostly caught my cheekbone, but it did turn the entire white part of my eye red and it hurt like 3 kinds of sumbitch), I say “fuck that shit” to people who think eye and ear protection are only for wusses.
The only range I’ve ever been on that required it was in ROTC. In the fleet, we always brought along foamies, but it was never required that we wore them. Neither was it ever required that we wore them during training flights, which would typically entail hours of fun inside the obnoxiously loud aircraft. Hearing protection was required by the book during preflight outside of the aircraft, but not once inside.
Nope, not mandatory. Ear protection will (should) be available for those who did not bring it, and wearing of ear protection will be put out at the Range Safety brief. But that’s about it. Each person is on his own after that. Don’t care about your hearing, go ahead and blow your ears out. Personally, I enjoy being able to hear things, and I am going to protect my ears. I even wear ear plugs inside helicopters and loud aircraft.
Once again my experience is in line with Bear_Nenno’s. As the range medic I was the one responsible for bringing extra ear plugs for those that didn’t bring their own. When I was on a range every single soldier that went up to the firing line either showed me their ear protection, or took a disposable pair of plugs from me, but the most I could do was make them take it. I couldn’t make them use it, and no one else cared. (Actually I really didn’t have the authority to force them to take it, they were just kind enough to humor me.)
As for why some soldiers are resistant to wearing ear protection, Cheshire Human’s reason is probably as good a guess as any.
I got something similar to that for about $1.
Here it would undoubtedly be mandatory in training (although it wasn’t in my time) with punishment for those who refused to toe the line. They’ve paid out too much already in claims for hearing loss in recent years to find the prospect of paying in the future appealing.
Just in case anyone here is unconvinced of the need: I can’t hear anything above 2KHz, and have been that way at least since I was in my mid-20s. Lots of unprotected shooting in my late teens.
Spoken like a true wuss.
Geez, how many ex-medics do we have around here?
Guy testing my hearing for my exit physical: What’s your MOS?
Specialist Hell: Radiographer and Combat Medic, why?
GT: You have perfect hearing. We don’t see much of that.
