Soldiers returning home from Iraq or Afghanistan often face new daunting challenges --- strained marriages, uncertain job searches, haunting war memories, or the grief of have lost military friends in war.

While good counseling could help, many veterans remain anxious about the stigma of seeing a mental health professional or of having therapy sessions listed in their military records that might jeopardize future employment.

The Soldiers Project offers free, confidential counseling to military service members (active duty, National Guard, Reserves and veterans) who have served or expect to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan. Counseling is also available to spouses, children, parents and grandparents and boyfriends or girlfriends of service members.

Founded in Los Angeles by Dr. Judith Broder, the private, non-profit project she directs consists of a group of licensed psychologists, social workers, marriage and family therapists and psychiatrists who volunteer their services and do not report to any governmental agency.

Individualized, couples or family counseling is offered at private offices throughout Southern California free of charge.

Soldiers endure "the sadness and grief for having been in and witnessed a war," said Dr. Barbara Schochet, assistant director. "They see such poverty and the destruction, and [lose] cherished buddies in a war."

Also, people who have been deployed six to 15 months "are in harm's way for that long of a period of time," said Schochet. Their bodies have been on high alert, and "it can be hard to get resettled when they come back home."

Family life is often strained. If an Army soldier is deployed for 15 months, "that can mean being away for two Christmases or one or more birthdays of your child," she added.

"We want to try to keep marriages together," she continued, noting that many young adult soldiers get married in their early 20s before they have gained the maturity to survive the stresses of separation due to wartime deployment.

Also, the juxtaposition between cities in war and hometown cities can be jarring.

"They are coming back to a city that barely knows a war is going on. They may not have post traumatic stress disorder, but there is an incredible jolt of coming to Los Angeles," said Schochet. "The news is about trivial things. They feel like they have come from another planet."

Theater start

The project got its start after Broder, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, attended a Hollywood theatre performance in 2004 of "The Sand Storm: Stories from the Front," a series of 10 monologues describing the Iraq war from the perspective of active duty marines. The play was written by Sean Huze, who was an active duty marine at that time, and performed by Iraq veterans.

The performance illustrated the enormous burdens soldiers carry from having experienced the horrors of war, said Broder. Soldiers are trained to kill their country's enemies. They witness their own military friends being killed or seriously wounded, she said.

"Many of these men and women feel monstrous because of the horrible things they've seen and done. Their whole sense of themselves as humans is destroyed," said Broder.

She felt a professional obligation to support the troops and their families and decided to approach the Ernest S. Lawrence Trauma Center of the Los Angeles Institute and Society for Psychoanalytic Studies. The Center has a mission to provide free psychological services to "at-risk" populations in greater Los Angeles.

The Center agreed to assist Broder in starting The Soliders Project. Numerous therapists wanting to assist soldiers and their families volunteered.

"It was really easy to find people who were interested in being helpers," said Broder. Some 150 mental health professionals have signed on to the project from Los Angeles, Ventura and Orange counties. At any given time between 30 and 40 of them are actively seeing clients in greater Los Angeles.

"Talking to a person who is a professional therapist can be really helpful," added Schochet. "It's confidential. It's private. It's a way for them to start to heal from the experiences they've been through. Also, at minimum we can educate people. Combat trauma is a normal reaction to a very abnormal situation."

The project has reached out to veterans groups, military bases and community venues. With greater awareness of the free counseling services available, Broder hopes that more soldiers and their families will take advantage of the counseling community's desire to help.

Considering the increasing need for mental health services by the 1.6 million soldiers who have returned or will be returning from the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, affiliated groups have since developed in Seattle, New York and Chicago.

"Every year we are growing and expanding," said Schochet, who got involved in the project because of her experiences seeing how badly Vietnam veterans were treated several decades ago. "I don't want that to happen again," she said. "Regardless of anyone's politics, we don't want to abandon them."

Spiritual trauma

War trauma also is "a profound spiritual trauma," said Broder, who describes being raised in a secular Jewish family with strong moral and socially conscious values. Most children, she said, are raised in traditions that promote loving one's neighbor and strongly advocate against killing another human being. These values form "the moral core of who we are," said Broder.

War breaks down a person's moral sensibility when any stranger could be a potential suicide attacker or bomber.

For a soldier, said Broder, "your whole world view is shattered. You can't trust in the goodness of the universe."

Schochet noted that it can be difficult for soldiers to talk to a family member, because they want to protect their families from wartime horrors. Talking to a trained counselor can help them to heal from their experiences while protecting their families from the worst of what they've been through.

"Soldiers don't need to have a diagnosis," Broder told The Tidings. "They need someone who can listen, talk with them, and have a witness to get themselves back as much as possible to whom they were before."

Rebuilding connections

"The most important aspect of healing is making a human connection with someone who can hear what the person has gone through," said Broder. "That human connection reconnects the person to other human connections."

Clients may want and need just one or two sessions. Others have maintained a weekly commitment for up to three years. Some visit a therapist several times a week for the two weeks there are home before redeployment.

"We have this amazing flexibility, because there's no bureaucracy. We just do what needs to be done," said Broder.

The Soldiers Project also offers counselors three seminars to prepare and train them in the specifics of wartime trauma and healing. A monthly peer consultation group assists therapists to support and learn from one another in the work they are doing.

Broder said that returning soldiers often go back to their religious communities as one of their first contacts with community. Yet pastors, lay ministers and congregations may not fully understand the isolation and emotional suffering a soldier may be enduring.

To be of assistance, The Soldiers Project has volunteers who can speak at parishes and synagogues to educate the community about the psychological consequences of war and its impact on soldiers and their families.

Said Schochet: "Our goal is to help people reconnect to their loved ones and their community."

Editor's note: For more information, contact The Soldiers Project at (818) 761-7438, e-mail info@thesoldiersproject.org or visit www.thesoldiersproject.org .