“I watched Jeff die twice,” she said. “He died once when he came home from Iraq and a second time when he shot himself.”
Building a case
Special report: Faces of the Fallen
Hackett’s widow had advantages that extend to few military spouses. Amos learned of her husband’s suicide through a story in The Washington Post that chronicled the mental health problems of several Marines in his unit. The Post story spurred the commandant to ask Dowd, a Vietnam-era Marine, to take the case on a pro bono basis.
Dowd’s youngest brother was killed leading his troops in Vietnam in 1967. Dowd finished his stint in the Marines and rose to prominence as a lawyer in Washington. He represented McCain and defended former Arizona governor Fife Symington against charges of bank fraud. He led Major League Baseball’s investigation of Pete Rose’s gambling on baseball games. More recently, he oversaw the defense of Raj Rajaratnam, who was convicted in one of the biggest insider trading cases of the last 20 years.
Within days of receiving the initial e-mail from the Marine Corps’ commandant, Dowd assembled a team at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld to prove that Hackett’s PTSD killed him.
The only indication that Hackett suffered from mental distress was a note from a Marine Corps doctor in late 2007 indicating that Hackett was having trouble sleeping. “Call 450-HELP,” the doctor wrote. “Schedule Sleep Study.”
Working with the commandant’s staff, Dowd and his fellow lawyers started searching for Marines who had worked closely with Hackett in Iraq and at Camp Lejeune, N.C. They read through hundreds of Hackett’s e-mails from the war and interviewed his family.
“We had to build a file of Jeff’s symptoms, and then we had to show that they were connected to what happened to him in Iraq,” said Jeffrey C. King, one of the lead attorneys on the case.
Hackett enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1982, rising to the rank of gunnery sergeant. He met Danelle at the Marine Corps Barracks in Southeast Washington and married her in 1988. Danelle pushed her husband to apply for a promotion into the officer ranks, which meant more pay and more responsibility.
“I hounded Jeff,” she recalled. “His commanding officer told me what a great leader he would be. I knew he could do it.”
In 2005 Hackett deployed to Iraq, where he led a team of about 30 Marines who searched out roadside bombs and destroyed them. Before he left, he bought his wife a two-carat diamond ring to replace her old engagement ring. Danelle said she protested that it was too expensive. He insisted she keep it.
“He was nervous that he wouldn’t make it back,” she said.
“He needed a break”
During the tour, insurgent bombs killed eight of his Marines. Hackett saw each of their bodies in the moments after they died and spoke at their memorial services in Iraq.
He suffered “sleeplessness, anxiety attacks, heart problems and high blood pressure,” wrote Capt. Steven Lucas who served with Hackett. “He would become physically troubled, get red in the face and would get disoriented. I could see that he needed a break.”
One of the anxiety attacks was so severe that Hackett thought he was having a heart attack and was flown to Kuwait and then Germany for treatment. In 2006, he was rushed to the hospital at Camp Lejeune with chest pains caused by severe anxiety.
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