LINCOLN, Neb. -- "There was good times and there were bad times," said Justin Hitz as he reminisced about his time in Iraq.

Hitz is a private in the Nebraska Army National Guard and he said he remembers most of his deployment.

"Don't really remember the sound, but I remember the dust and the headlights," said Hitz.

Hitz is in the Guard's 755th, a chemical company, but while in Iraq from December 2006 to December 2007, he was in transportation. He remembered driving a truck in a convoy May 22, 2007.

"We had moved a little bit to the left because we had a rock on the right side and we can't hit them so we moved to the left," said Hitz.

But when they moved, there was an explosion. A blast from an I.E.D., and improvised explosive device, that came from below the truck and went up through the truck. Hitz was slammed around in the truck and was injured in a number of ways.

"I still have a headache, my neck's still sore. I messed up my shoulder. I lost hearing in the left ear. Real sensitivity to light. I did have a TBI. Traumatic Brain Injury," Hitz told I-Team investigator Rob McCartney.

Hitz said a severe concussion is what concerned medics the most and they sent him to a neurologist in Germany.

"She looked at it and she said, 'Well we got to send you home," Hitz said "There's nothing we can do."

So Hitz was sent back to the states and was out of the war.

Now he's fighting to get a Purple Heart, a medal designated for servicemen and women injured in the line of duty.

The problem appears to be whether his concussion was bad enough to warrant a Purple Heart.

"The injury isn't always going to get you a Purple Heart," said Chief Warrant Officer Mike Nagasawa with the Nebraska National Guard.

Nagasawa said the injuries have to be substantial and sometimes concussions aren't.

"Depending on the level of concussion, the worse the concussion the better chance you have of receiving that Purple Heart, but it's not a guarantee," said Nagasawa.

But KETV Newswatch 7 has learned that in the current war, some commands are rating concussions as either "Level One", which is not serious, or "Level Two" which is more serious, when a soldier loses consciousness, for example.

Hits said he has been diagnosed both ways.

"The first diagnosis was a Stage Two. Then after that it went to a one, and then they said 'Oh no, it's a two' and then it's just kind of gone back and forth," said Hitz.

But technically there doesn't appear to be anything in the Purple Heart guidelines about rating concussions in order to get the medal.

Part of the guidelines read: Examples of enemy related injuries which clearly justify award of the Purple Heart are as follows:... and on the list, Concussion injuries caused as a result of enemy generated explosions.

There is a line that reads: Commanders must.. take into consideration the circumstances surrounding an injury.

Hitz already has several medals and said he is not just trying to get another one. The soldier who wears his pride on his arm, he has a tattoo of OIF 06-07 (for Operation Iraqi Freedom), said what he wants is what is right.

"If you're injured and they're not going to find you fit for duty to stay there, and to send you home and then go, 'Oh you weren't injured enough to get a Purple Heart, but you're not well enough to go back to combat.' That doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me," said Hitz.

Hitz has refiled paperwork with the government once again asking for the Purple Heart to be presented to him.

Officials say it could take up to four months to process that request.