Warrior Angels Foundation: Two Combat Veterans Bringing World-Class Care to Veterans & Service Members Suffering from Traumatic Brain Injury

While a Soldier’s body armor can withstand bomb shrapnel, that armor cannot protect them from an invisible but devastating threat of a blast wave.

Researchers now have a clearer understanding of how the blast force from battlefield explosions injures the human brain, solving a mystery that has haunted soldiers and veterans for more than a century.

According to LifeExtention:

“In February, the United States Office of Naval Research announced its support of university research that appears to explain how shock waves cause traumatic brain injury. Energy waves cause tiny bubbles, or “microcavitations,” to form, pop, and disappear so quickly that they can’t be detected by brain-imaging—but can seriously unbalance an array of cellular pathways.2 The result is a spectrum of neurological conditions that are currently difficult to treat through standard therapies.

This unbalance of cellular pathways has been successfully treated by interventional endocrinologist Dr. Mark Gordon. His approach recognizes that disrupted neurosteroidal function—not simply physical brain damage—creates traumatic brain injury’s neurological deficits.

By restoring neurosteroids levels, Gordon successfully treats the depression, outbursts, anxiety, and mood swings commonly suffered by traumatic brain injury patients.”

Andrew Marr, a former Special Forces Green Beret and CEO of Warrior Angels Foundation, is no stranger to the insidious damage caused by traumatic brain injury (TBI) after repeated exposure to blast force on the battlefield. Andrew performed duties of “breacher” while serving in the military. As a “breacher,” his role was to basically blow open doors of terrorists, which meant that he was exposed to blasts in various forms on a variety of missions. What Andrew didn’t know at the time, was that the constant bombardment of explosives was silently injuring his brain.

Andrew suffered numerous traumatic brain injuries eventually resulting in his medical retirement from the military. Once an elite performer in ‘life or death’ moments in war, Marr could no longer even drive himself home at times. He was struggling with cognition, memory, behavior, alcohol, and many other symptoms common with TBI.

As Andrew described to PolitiChicks:

“I was asymptomatic until four months after I returned from what was my last deployment. And so when I started having symptoms, I couldn’t understand why I was having them. Because I couldn’t really tie them to a specific event in time, which led me to believe that I was just going insane. But what happened was, the first issue that I really had was a complete loss of libido. Just going from being a typical Type-A personality male to somebody who has zero libido had struck me as odd, and I was only thirty-two at the time. My wife and I already had four children. So, after coming home after a physically and emotionally taxing deployment and not having libido, which always been there through our entire marriage, was difficult for the spouse. She thinks, “Either he doesn’t love me anymore or he has somebody else,” which couldn’t have been further from the truth. That was really the first thing, and it really struck me as odd.

From there, it was extreme chronic fatigue to the point where I just couldn’t function on some days, I just couldn’t get out of bed… I started having migraine headaches and that led to blurry vision, which led to double vision on routine basis. I had all kinds of balance issues and then I started having psychological and behavior issues. I was having anxiety attacks, panic attacks, and I had no control over them. They were coming on in public places and in front of my family. I would have these emotional crying spells and couldn’t control it…then I started to have extreme depression. It was so completely foreign to me because I had nothing to be depressed about. I was doing the work I felt I was led to do and I love my wife and I love my children. I couldn’t understand. There was no reason for me to be depressed.

In a span of six months, my life was turned upside-down. This is the story of traumatic brain injury.”

Andrew went to every specialist available to him in the military medical health system, including: a psychologist, psychiatrist, neurologist, and an endocrinologist. He also went to the traumatic brain injury clinic where he was stationed, and he was just not responding to the conventional treatment the Veteran’s Administration was providing to him. After being placed on 13 different medications, Andrew realized he had no quality of life. As he described: “I was a man crying for help. I was on fire begging for someone to put me out. What the V.A. did masked the symptoms.”

You can watch a video of Andrew’s story here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wO7iop_b-bw

Andrew’s brother, Adam Marr, a former Apache Helicopter Pilot & Co-founder of Warrior Angels Foundation, also described to PolitiChicks, what is was like watching his brother suffer with TBI:

“Andrew is my older brother of two years. We are two of four brothers, and all four brothers were in the military. We grew up very close. And you can imagine what that does for a mother too, raising your children up in a close family and then they all respectively make the decision to join the military at a time of war. While a family member worries about their loved one and prays for them all the time, for our mom, it was never-ending because one of us was always deployed. Andrew went over first and then our younger brothers and then I had mine. And we all made it home okay… or so we thought.

In all the things that Andrew has described to you, he goes from the pinnacle of success, always over- achieving prior to being a Green Beret even and then to drop off from that, meaning having one foot in the grave, it just left our entire family devastated and bewildered. Here is a guy that came back and was supposed to be okay and we weren’t getting answers, and that led to frustration, uncertainty, unknowing and then when we realized a lot of these medications weren’t really getting him better, that they were just helping him not to feel what the real issues were and then manifested itself to where he developed a blood clot that broke apart to his lungs and almost killed him. It developed into anger…It’s incredibly hard. Additionally, the family members are vastly affected, not just the individual who goes through it. We all went through it. And so Andrew’s story has resonated with the hundreds of thousands of other veterans.”

Suffering from the common symptoms of TBI while transitioning through the medical retirement process, Andrew refused to accept his life sentence, which was basically at the time what he considered to be a horrible existence.

That’s when Andrew and Adam Marr started seeking alternative options.

Andrew told PolitiChicks:

“All I wanted to do was come off of all the medications and then just be healthy and be the husband, father, and man that I needed to be for my family. So that’s what pushed us to different avenues.”

After a year of the worst struggle of his life, Andrew was contacted by one of America’s leading Neuro-Endocrinologists, Dr. Mark Gordon. Dr. Gordon, a traumatic brain injury survivor himself, had been working on TBI’s for over a decade. What Dr. Gordon has discovered is that traumatic brain injury symptoms are often caused by neurosteroid hormone deficiencies. By restoring neurosteroids levels, Gordon successfully treats the symptoms common to traumatic brain injury patients.

Upon Andrew’s first visit, Dr. Gordon offered him an objective blood test to check his brain’s biochemistry, to see if there was any inflammation, and to find what neurosteroids were not being sufficiently produced in his brain because of the trauma.

Dr. Gordon used a two-part protocol on Andrew after his diagnostic assessment. Phase One was to use natural supplementation to remove the oxidative stressors and reduce the inflammation. Phase Two was to replace or replenish any or all of the hormones that were deficient in his brain.

When inflammation is reduced and deficient hormones are replenished, a person’s quality of life can dramatically improve.

Andrew described what happened immediately after his first treatment:
“I’ll never forget the moment after being treated by Dr. Gordon, I was driving on the 405 and it was like all the lights came back on! Within hours of receiving Dr. Gordon’s treatment I started feeling like myself. Within weeks I was off the meds and stopped drinking. My quality of life had returned, and I knew then I had to share this information with my fellow veterans who were suffering.” 

Dr. Mark Gordon, one of America’s leading neuro-endocrinologists

Adam also told PolitiChicks:

“When we found Dr. Gordon and his treatment, it was something we were searching for when we realized the current system wasn’t working. And, we would have honestly done anything if it would have given us the result. The only thing that got straight to the problem was Dr. Gordon and how he was revolutionizing the brain, the understanding and treatment of it.”

Andrew & Adam Marr, Warrior Angels Foundation

And that was the birth of the Warrior Angels Foundation. Andrew and Adam Marr created the foundation as a passion to ‘right’ a ‘wrong,’ and to be able to bring answers and solutions to the problems that traumatic brain injury and post traumatic stress cause. When they were effectively able to get the right treatment and have the lights turned back on, the Marr brothers’ new focus became to replicate this treatment at scale to bring it to more veterans also suffering from TBI and PTS.

Unfortunately, the government is slow to accept the link between traumatic brain injury and neurosteroid deficiencies, and many veterans are instead treated for post-traumatic stress disorder (especially since symptoms are very similar to TBI). But thanks to Dr. Gordon’s innovative therapy and the Warrior Angels Foundation, growing numbers of veterans are getting their lives back on track.

Andrew explained the mission of Warrior Angels Foundation:

“We wanted to offer that service to veterans and services members and we wanted to do it where we didn’t have to uproot anybody from their job, didn’t have to make them wait in a waiting line and also bring them world-class care from someone who really wants to understand what is going on and who really cares about setting up this individual to live a life of wellness instead of sickness. And we found a way to do that.”

Adam added:

“We knew we were going to help people overcome what we went through because we didn’t want people to have to navigate through unchartered waters. We wanted to provide navigational tools, recommendations, and better yet, a final destination, which is a new launching point, getting back that entrepreneurial veteran “I can do anything” spirit.

We don’t want charity. We really don’t want to be pity cases because we are great and we did it for the right reason and that’s how we want to be viewed. So, the Warrior Angels Foundation is giving people their health back and giving people a chance to do that. That’s the inspiring part for me and helped me come out with a greater sense of purpose. I feel just as much purpose now doing this mission as I did leading America’s sons and daughters into battle.”

Andrew Marr has gone from a ‘man on fire’ to a man competing in the Warrior Games this week in New York in shot put. This is his moment to show the world that through the treatment offered by Dr. Mark Gordon and Warrior Angels Foundation, veterans who suffer with TBI and PTS don’t have to settle for a life sentence of misery. They can have their quality of life back just like Andrew.

Andrew Marr, Warrior Games on June 16, 2016

To donate or to seek treatment, please go to the website at: >www.WAFTBI.org

The website is a great resource which includes more information about Andrew, Adam, Dr. Gordon, the treatment, media, additional learning tools and articles on TBI, personal testimonials from veterans who are currently going through the treatment, a video page, and a blog post.

Warrior Angels Foundation is 100% organic donation. They do need money but they also need partnerships or relationships with people who want to get involved for the right reasons and support their mission.
Through public donations, Warrior Angels Foundation pays for each veteran’s treatment, which is 1/3 of the cost of the current military medical model offered by the Veteran’s Administration and Department of Defense.

Warrior Angels Foundation is based in Dallas TX.  Founded by Combat Veterans. Run by Combat Veterans.