Bragg military brain injury center breaks ground Friday

The Fort Bragg Intrepid Spirit Center is the fourth center of its type in the nation.

Fort Bragg’s commander, Lt. Gen. Joseph Anderson, said the horrors of war speak for themselves, but many other factors can contribute to PTSD in service members.

“Many complicating factors…can contribute to how you get it,” he said. “And then the question becomes the challenges of helping them heal, recover.”

“Traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress is a different kind of wound,” said Arnold Fisher with the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund. “It’s unseen. Apparently, because it’s unseen, very many people don’t understand it.”

Anderson said he expects the center to treat more than 1,000 soldiers a year.

Doctors are finding new ways to treat PTSD and other brain-related illnesses and injuries.

“Sleep is critical to healing,” said James Kelly, director of the National Intrepid Center of Excellence. “We do sleep analysis, overnight sleep studies on every single patient. And we’re finding that targeting that particular problem for them really turns around a lot of the symptoms that they’re having.”

The Military Order of the Purple Heart Foundation Service Foundation contributed $500,000 to help with the construction.

The centers are offering the most advanced care possible to service members returning from deployment and allow for treatment closer to home.

They are built with private donations, but each is being donated to the Department of Defense to operate upon completion.

The $11 million project will take 14 months to complete.