Watched Black Hawk Down again the other night and it raised a question.  The one Ranger suffers hearing loss during the fighting.  It seems that everyone should have been deaf after the first minute of shooting.  I know how loud one AR firing in semi out is, I can't imagine being around dozens of M-16s firing at once, not to mention SAWS and M-2s on the Hummers.  How prevalent is long-term and short-term hearing loss in the military and what do soldiers to to prevent going deaf?I am wondering because I don't want to blow out my eardrums in a self-defence shooting.

Sound suppressors should be mandated like trigger locks.  For safety and to comply with OSHA!

Suppressors should be standard equipment! But untill then...

Hearing loss is user specific. You can't really say that person X will lose .00004% hearing after a mag dump. Cuz for person Y it may not even bother them or it may cause some ear bleeding. The only thing that is true across the board is that hearing loss is cumulative. I know some older folks that served for years and years with M-14s and 16's and have no hearing loss because of it. I know a young fellow that got hurt during airborn and had to leave. He had lost 30% in his left ear because he did an ammo dumb with a 249 in basic and some other misc. shooting with no protection.


I promise, if you have to use your weapon in tight quarters to protect you or yours.....you won't even know you shot....other factors will kick in and you will just do the job.

The paradox of training is that if you are doing a live fire movement to contact, you must be able to hear what your squadleader (team leader/platoon sgt etc) is telling you to do... Very coordinated movement.                                             If you have your earplugs screwed in too tight, you can't.  I used to back one plug out so I could hear, and suffered the hearing loss accordingly.  That and a few too many helicopter rides without ear plugs, and I'm freakin' deaf.