Boot Campaign’s ReBOOT Program, a Comprehensive Pathway to Treating Veterans Physical and Mental Injuries.

By Lieutenant (Ret.) Morgan Luttrell, U.S. Navy
Boot Campaign Director of Development and Hero Ambassador

In an interview back in 2008, retired American neurosurgeon and former candidate for President of the United States Ben Carson said: “When I look at the human brain I’m still in awe of it.”

Like Dr. Carson, I am in awe of the brain as well, which is why I am proud to be entrusted by the national military non-profit Boot Campaign to helm their new ground-breaking veteran assistance program focusing on brain injuries and related issues.

Boot Campaign’s new program is called ReBOOT and is designed to provide a comprehensive, individualized, multi-disciplined approach to increasing mental and physical well-being for America’s military heroes.

Although I graduated from Sam Houston State University with a degree in psychology and philosophy, it wasn’t until I retired from the U.S. Navy that it became a passion of mine to find better ways to treat veterans and first responders in traumatic brain injury.

After more than 14 years of service, and multiple tours to Iraq, Afghanistan and other locations in support of Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom, I’ve battled my share of injuries and seen my twin brother Marcus and many of our injured comrades do the same. While investigating treatment for my own traumatic brain injury (TBI), I discovered the Center for BrainHealth at the University of Texas at Dallas where they worked closely with veterans.

I joined one of their clinical trials and underwent cognitive testing and received training on how to improve my ability to deal with common brain injury challenges, like thinking abstractly, synthesizing information and filtering out distractions.

While I had earlier been diagnosed with multiple TBIs myself, I had found no one civilian or military medical expert who had any answers on where to go or what to do to help until I got involved with Dr. John Hart and the Center for BrainHealth. Our veterans suffer from this invisible disease and I wanted to be a part of the movement that solves this epic problem.

Long story short, I decided to pursue the study of brain injuries as a profession. With my master’s degree in applied cognition and neuroscience already behind me, I am now serving as a research scientist with the Center in pursuit of a doctorate in applied cognition and neuroscience.

At the same time, I’m extremely motivated to help Boot Campaign establish and fine-tune its new ReBOOT program, which brings together world class mental and physical treatment partners thorough diagnostic evaluations, so each veteran gets specific care needed to live a fulfilling life. The program includes brain treatment partners such as the Brain Treatment Center, Center For BrainHealth and Brain Performance Institute at the University of Texas at Dallas, Cooper Clinic, and University of Texas Southwestern.

It also features nutrition and fitness partners Virginia High Performance and EXOS, and brain treatment coalition partners Infinite Hero Foundation, Team Never Quit, 22 Kill and Airpower Foundation.

According to Boot Campaign’s CEO Robyn Payne, the ReBOOT program is part of a shift in priorities for the national 501(c)(3) charitable organization that was founded in 2009 to promote patriotism for America and our military community; raise awareness of the unique challenges service members face during and post-service; and provide assistance to military personnel, past and present, and their families.

“We’re proud to launch the ReBOOT program, which is a new focus for Boot Campaign that was determined through careful consideration and months researching where the donations of our many generous supporters can be best utilized,” says Payne. “We believe ReBOOT is an innovative pipeline to ‘reboot’ and remove all financial barriers related to treatment and conditioning for overall mental and physical health and well-being for veterans.”

The ReBOOT protocol is a multi-discipline approach to treating veterans with TBI and other combat-related issues. Because brain injuries are so complex and different for each person, an Omni directional approach is necessary.

Unfortunately, there are no known cures for TBI, PTS and other brain disease to date, but there are a number of veteran-run institutes, centers and facilities that are moving the needle in the right direction to decrease the various issues plaguing America’s service member and give them and their families back what they lost during their service to this great nation.

Here’s how we’ve set up the program. The ReBOOT protocol brings forward the best TBI facilities in the country that offer a veteran-based treatment program and strategically aligns them with the veteran’s needs. The program begins with a pre-cognitive assessment that includes a comprehensive blood paneling and functional brain scans so the candidate has a baseline to build on.

The candidate will visit the appropriate center for valuable treatment and training protocols for their particular issues. Additionally, the candidates will have the opportunity to visit a high performance institutes to balance out their nutrition and get their bodies back into physical shape.

The last stop in the pipeline is to conduct a post-cognitive assessment in order to measure how far the candidate has come. The amazing part about this concept is the science and treatment is there, the ReBOOT program is connecting the dots.

What’s most exciting to me is that the pipeline is a living, breathing, ever-changing design that ebbs and flows with the times. If one particular treatment is not working any longer, we replace it with the latest and greatest cutting-edge science. ReBOOT is all about the veterans and bringing them back.

The program is not designed only for veterans who have suffered obvious brain injuries caused by the tragic circumstances of military service either. In fact, one of our key demographics for ReBOOT will be to find veterans we can help who have brain injuries that have never been properly diagnosed because their injuries weren’t so apparent.

I was aboard an Army Black Hawk helicopter during a training exercise in Virginia Beach when it crashed into a combat support ship, ending one life and injuring eight of us. I can remember falling out of the helicopter and hitting the top deck of the ship, and then falling down onto another deck when the helicopter exploded.

So, I’ve suffered through injuries and trauma that could easily make me an “obvious” candidate for the ReBOOT treatment program. However, there are many other warriors out there who are living with TBIs that have never been diagnosed because there were not involved in any particularly violent incident, even though repeated exposure to nearby explosive blasts could have easily taken their toll.

Ty, a U.S. Navy SEAL, is a perfect example of service member who can benefit tremendously from ReBOOT even though he wouldn’t even consider himself a candidate.

“Three months ago I was in the darkest place in my life,” reveals Ty. “I moved to Houston 18 months ago to retire, and the reason I was going to retire was because I knew something was wrong. I did my duty, and I wanted to go out peacefully. I became a recluse. It turns out I have had over 1000 explosive breaches in training and combat, but I never really thought about a breach having an effect on my brain. When you are 21 and hear that blast, you better be through that door.”

Ty was referred to me after a friend recognizing his troubling behavior could be brain-injury related. I followed up with him at length over the telephone and realized his symptoms needed to be checked out. It turned out those instincts were right on the mark.

“After talking to Morgan, I was doing cognitive testing within three days and he got me into the pipeline,” says Ty. “They drew my blood and took a saliva test, and after about a week I was validated in my feelings that my body wasn’t doing what it was supposed to.

“Not only did they identify that I had a chemical imbalance issue or that my thyroid is no longer working properly because of three viruses that I’ve had for years,” he continues, “but they discovered that I have suffered severe brain trauma over the 19 years of my Navy SEAL career, and it was so severe that it contributed to my gross chemical imbalances.

It felt like someone had taken a huge weight off my shoulders, and knowing is half the battle. Greatest feeling in the world. The Navy tested my blood many times over the past five years and never did identify any of these issues or all the other organs that were literally failing.”

Thankfully, Ty was able to find significant help through the tremendously dedicated brain specialists in the Dallas area, plus the nutrition and fitness specialists of Virginia High Performance that are now a part of Boot Campaign’s ReBOOT program. There are so many more just like Ty who could benefit, too, and they can get that specialized help they so desperately need with public and private support.

Donations in support of ReBOOT go to veteran grants for everything they need to regain positive mental health, including treatment at an innovative brain treatment center, travel costs, living expenses and lost income replacement. Approximately 22 percent of Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom combat wounds are brain injuries, and Boot Campaign believes financial concerns should NOT be the barrier between a warrior and necessary treatment. The average cost for a veteran to receive individual health and wellness care can run from up to $100,000.

“I just hope everyone realizes how much of an impact this is going to have once ReBOOT gets a full head of steam,” concludes Ty. “If you ask my kids right now, they’ll confirm this is the happiest and best mood I’ve been in for five years.”