Family violence in the military: Batterers or soldiers with PTSD?
When men end up in Anne Potts Jackson’s office, the signs often paint them as domestic abusers: controlling behavior, angry outbursts that turn violent.
As an assistant district attorney in Bell County, home of Fort Hood, Jackson tries to determine what’s behind all that. Are these men true batterers, or are they soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder?
“Anger is the predominant emotion of the combat experience. It is the emotion that kept him alive, kept her alive, when he was in Afghanistan or Iraq,” Jackson said. “But it is the thing — the emotion — that will get him arrested at home.” As an Air Force wife herself, Jackson understands the tensions that exist inside military households.
MILITARY JUSTICE FOR ALL 