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Tinnitus in "The Music Within," the story of Richard Pimentel


The Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) was originally passed with help from disabled Vietnam war hero, Richard Pimentel. Richard lost most of his hearing in Vietnam, in addition to being left with permanent tinnitus. 

 If anyone in your life needs to know the vagaries and frustrations of tinnitus, recommend the 2007 movie of Richard's life called The Music Within. It shows in heartbreaking detail the confusion, lack of understanding and overt bigotry faced by disabled people like Richard and like his great friend, Art, a genius in a wheelchair, crippled by cerebral palsy. 

Left too profoundly deaf to be considered having any hearing at all (yet able to hear certain registers as well as the non-stop noises in his head) Richard was denied a U.S. college education by the very government for which he had nearly lost his life. 

And thus it began with simple employment advocacy for disabled friends and fellow veterans (and the story continues to this day). 


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