Sergeant Lost Within, Author Daniel Bergner (2008)

¶ … Sergeant Lost Within," author Daniel Bergner (2008) explains the situation of an American soldier who received brain damage while on active duty serving in the Marine Corps. The man has lost the ability to speak and can only communicate to others with grunts and with the movement of his eyes following his devastating injury in Iraq. Shuvon Phillip was in a Humvee when an anti-tank mine exploded. Although Phillip did not receive any injury from shrapnel, his brain within the skull was jarred to the point where irreparable damage occurred to his brain tissue. Phillip is not a unique case. According to the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center, around 900 soldiers have returned from Iraq with these kinds of brain injuries (Bergner 2008). Each of these cases of traumatic brain injury (T.B.I.) is different and the degree to which the brain has been impaired is also unique. Some are even worse off than Shurvon and have been left unable to do anything for themselves yet remaining the basic characteristic of life. By better understanding the human brain and its components, researchers can understand what it is like for people like Shuvon Phillip and education will also allow further progression into means by which the damage to the brain of patients like Sgt. Phillip might be repaired.

The human brain is compartmentalized and each portion of the brain has a different function. In addition to the various lobes, the brain is divided into a right and left half, but Shurvon's brain did not appear to have the same shape characteristics as the regular human brain, clearly indicating the severity of his injury. The two frontal lobes are responsible for the motor control a person has over the body. It is also what controls speech production and higher functions of the brain including thinking, individual personality, emotion, and memories (Huffman 2012,-page 71). It is the front lobe which received the brunt of the damage in the case of Shurvon Phillip. According to the article, "In both hemispheres of Shurvon's brain, the frontal lobes, which are involved in motor control, facial movement, language, judgment and restraint of impulse, problems-solving and planning, were…extensively atrophied" (Bergner 2008). Part of the reason for the extensiveness of the damage has to do with the fact that the interior of the skull is not completely smooth, but has ridges instead. When the brain is jostled against these hard ridges, the person's brain can hit against these leading to bruising of the brain matter.