Trahan was a 2004 graduate of Old Colony Regional Vocational Technical School in Rochester, where he excelled academically and in sports. He was in the top of his graduating class, a member of the National Honor Society, and a star quarterback on the football team. He studied at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy before joining the Navy, where he achieved his goal of working in an elite ordnance disposal unit. "It's something he always wanted to do and strongly believed in," his sister, Molly Trahan, said. Trahan was killed April 30, along with two Marines, by a roadside bomb in Fallujah, Iraq, according to his family.