Thanks for the thoughts.I appreciate the comments and answer to my inquiry. I wish you luck in your career and audio testing.I just don't like nor accept the VA response of "oh no, couldn't have happened from gunfire"! well the corps trained me indiscipline and pursuit very well so I guess they VA will have to tolerate my pursuit. The colonel Ollie North said it best ' once a marine always a marine' so Semper Fi. forever!
On Nov 1st I suddenly lost 85% of the hearing in my right ear (left is good). I was an MCRD Marine (still a Marine:) and spent 5 years as a Rifleman in the Marine Reserves, before going active duty Army (long story but it was the only way I could stay in Combat Arms, and it was still a good experience). I didn't suffer quite the intense loud noises than you describe from my military experience, but it's hard to be in the Infantry and not have your ears ringing for a few days at some point.
I know what you're saying though as you retrace and try to figure out what could have caused this problem. But that's why they often tag "idiopathic" to it because they don't know. My audiologist said that she recently had a 19 year girl suffering with the same problem SSHL in one ear, and except for maybe wearing headphones she's never been exposed to deafening sounds.
I guess a person can estimate all the times during their life when their ears were ringing the next day, and really all you can say is that it didn't help. I think it's an accumulation of all these episodes plus some sort of virus that causes the nerve to die. I'm getting an MRI and seeing an ENT tomorrow at the VA in Iron Mtn MI. Hopefully he'll have some news for me that is better having to wear CROS hearing aids.