William Milzarski was 40 years old when he ​finished his infantry training. His two sons had enlisted, and he felt a midlife crisis coming on. “It was either enlist, or buy a red convertible,” he says. Shipped off to Afghanistan, Lt. Milzarski led his platoon into 244 combat missions, until a bullet ricocheted off a rock during a firefight and hit him in the face. He stayed with his troops, wounded and bloody, until the battle was over. Then, seven months later, he rotated home.

The wound healed, the scar covered by the stubble of his beard. It was another three years, however, before he realized that the distance he felt from everyone and everything was not simply a symptom of PTSD. He was also going deaf—his hearing yet another casualty of war.

It was difficult to admit that something that seemed so trivial at first could be so serious. “I got shot in the face, and I stayed with my men,” he says. “And now, this? It never seemed bad enough—and that’s the problem.”

Today, the Department of Veterans Affairs ranks hearing loss as the number one disability among vets. At least 60 percent of those returning from Iraq and Afghanistan—some 600,000 vets—suffer permanent hearing loss or tinnitus, a chronic ringing in the ears. It’s also the fastest-growing of all postwar disabilities, more than doubling over the past decade, and among the most costly in terms of lost productivity. Lose your hearing and you’re more likely to lose your job, suffer from high stress, or experience social anxiety, depression, and early-onset dementia. And though it can be treated, there is no cure.

The F-35 fighter jet is among the most deafening flying machines ever created—four times louder than the F-16.

Soldiers are suffering from hearing loss for a simple reason: War is loud, and getting louder. The F-35 fighter jet, which was declared operational in 2015, is among the most deafening flying machines ever created—four times louder than the F-16. It’s so loud that aircraft carriers need to be specially outfitted with extra sound-dampeners to protect the ears of sailors, even below deck. In Vermont, where the F-35 is scheduled to be deployed in 2019, an initial Air Force evaluation found that the jet’s decibel level during takeoff and landing would render 1,366 homes in the area “unsuitable for residential living.”