Research shows that when a combat veteran with PTSD returns home, it can have consequences on a child's personality
Mark Trepanier spends likes to spend time with the chickens he keeps in the back yard.
“It’s a barometer for my stress levels,” he said. They’re relaxing.”
Trepanier, a former military intelligence analyst, once made six figures working for a defense contractor, but he can no longer hold down a job. His life now revolves around completing simple tasks at his home in suburban Baltimore.
“He needs a task list to remember to feed the dogs, to take care of the pets, to take the trash out,” his wife Gayle said.
Trepanier was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder after serving in the first Gulf War, in Bosnia and in North Africa. When he came home in 2007, he was different as a husband and a father, his wife said.
“He was very depressed,” she said. “He was very angry at times. He had flashbacks where he thought he was somewhere else when we were in the front yard.”
Fourteen-year-old Genna, the oldest of the Trepaniers’ four children, remembers how her father used to be – and how he changed after his service.
PTSD's 'secondary' victims: the children of veterans
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