Sixth widow from same unit talks about PTSD

Marine widow fighting for her independence
Journal-Courier
by Cody Bozarth
Posted on October 10, 2013

Jamie Hoots could tell something had changed after her husband returned from his second deployment to Iraq.

“He was a completely different person. Sometimes he was still there, other times it was like, I don’t know.

It would make him cry every day because of the things he had to do over there, the things he saw,” she said. His sleep was restless when it came at all. There were times he awoke and “thought I was a bad guy,” Hoots said.

After years of struggling with the effects of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Marine Sgt. Travis Hoots died of an overdose, which his family believes was accidental.

Five others in his unit died before him from the effects of PTSD.

“They were all friends of Travis,” Jamie Hoots said Wednesday. “I remember every time he got a phone call that one of the guys had done something, it put a hurt on him real bad and he had a hard time dealing with it.”

Travis and Jamie Hoots were married after his return from boot camp and before his first deployment to Iraq in the beginning years of the war. He met his son, Dalton, when the boy was already several months old after he returned home for the first time.

After his second deployment and four years in the Marines, the family moved into their home in Roodhouse.

Since then, Travis Hoots had been to at least six therapists for treatment, but Jamie said he never seemed to get better. Through it all, Jamie Hoots said he remained a loving husband and father and a faithful Marine to his brothers in arms.
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