The therapist is on duty

The plea for help came as soon as Lt. Col. Mary Erickson, wearing camouflage fatigues and combat boots, settled into her cubicle one recent morning at Fort Snelling.

A woman in Illinois was distraught over her husband's imminent departure to Iraq. They had five children. He was having a hard time leaving. And she was so worried their family would fall apart without him that she had stopped sleeping.

Erickson grabbed a phone and called her. They spoke about creating long-distance family rituals. About doing breathing exercises to help her relax. About having faith and fighting fear.

"We talked for a long time," Erickson said. "One thing I've learned the past few years is that even in the hardest of situations, you can get through."

It was just another day in a new life she had never expected to lead -- tending war wounds that don't bleed.

When Erickson was first called to full-time duty in the Army Reserve, she expected the stint to last six months. That was three years ago.

At the time, she was teaching occupational therapy at the University of Minnesota. She had just turned 51, her two sons were grown and she could count on spending weekends in the garden of her Andover home, baking and going to church. It was a comfortable, calm suburban life.

The war changed almost everything.

Now, Erickson works with soldiers who can no longer drive under bridges or overpasses because they are haunted by the roadside bombs and sniper fire they faced in Iraq.

She listens to soldiers who can't stop speeding or driving down the center line of highways because they either miss the adrenaline rush the war brought -- or they can't shake the memory of ambushes.

Other soldiers she counsels are struggling to cope with the daily rigors of family life since their return, or are having trouble fitting back into their workplaces.

She is on the road all the time, rushing to military bases in five Midwestern states on puddle-jumping planes or driving endless miles around Minnesota in a Ford Escort.

All on a tough assignment: to ready soldiers for the mental challenges of long deployments. And to comfort those suffering from the stress of having spent so many days in the thick of a conflict with no defined front lines.

With her round glasses and rosy cheeks, Erickson looks more like a Sunday school teacher than an Army officer. She speaks in a soft, soothing voice, and she takes to her mission with gentle zeal.

"Soldiers all think everything will be fine once they just finally get back home," she said. "But things never go back to exactly what they were before they left for the war. Everyone coming back has to deal with some kind of repercussions from what they've experienced. And some of them are too proud to ask for help."

Erickson's work reflects a new focus by the U.S. military to address the psychological impact that the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan are having on troops -- many of whom are Reservists or National Guard members unaccustomed to full-time, dangerous duty.

She is based at Fort Snelling, the headquarters of the Army's 88th Regional Readiness Command, and is part of a combat-stress control team that includes Maj. Cindy Rasmussen, a nurse, and Lt. Col. Susan Whiteaker, a social worker.

They have their hands full. This month, a military study of more than 300,000 soldiers and Marines who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan found that about one-third of them have sought help for mental-health problems. The study also found that more than half of all soldiers and Marines who have served in Iraq "felt in great danger of being killed" while they were there.

Capt. Russ Bacon, a mental-health specialist at the Minneapolis Veterans Medical Center, said soldiers can face enormous challenges once they come back. He spent a year in Iraq with an Army infantry division, tasked with helping troops deal with combat stress.

"The first days back home tend to be fine," Bacon said. "Then they start struggling."

That's one reason why the military is now summoning units that have been home for a few months to sessions on subjects such as anger management. Erickson has spoken to thousands of soldiers heading out to Iraq or trying to resume their civilian lives.

"The work she does," Bacon said, "is invaluable."

Months become years

Beside her desk at Fort Snelling, Erickson has a small laminated photo of Sgt. Keith Maupin, an Army Reservist taken captive in Iraq two years ago. The thin yellow ribbon tied to his picture is frayed.

She traveled to Ohio to help counsel Maupin's unit when it came home. It's hard to believe, she said, that so much time has passed since he disappeared. And that the war is not over.

Her faculty position at the University of Minnesota has been held vacant in the years she has been away, awaiting her return. But since she left, the curriculum and the structure of the occupational therapy program have been revamped.

"She'll be coming back to something she doesn't recognize," said Diane Anderson, an assistant professor in the program. "It'll be very difficult."

Erickson concedes that she's uneasy about the changes that have occurred during her long absence. "I'm not sure what my role will be," she said.

But she does not have time to worry about that now.

Her work with soldiers keeps her so busy, even on weekends, that she and her husband just found time a few weeks ago to clear their backyard of tree limbs and debris from a tornado that tore through their neighborhood last summer.

Phil Erickson, a systems analyst at 3M, said he and his wife try to take in stride the sacrifices that her military duty demands.

"You just kind of get used to the idea that a lot of trips she has to take are going to come up on short notice," he said. "We're not able to be together on many weekends, but we know this work is important."

There are times, Mary Erickson said, when she feels spent from all the travel and all the anxieties that she sees soldiers and their families facing.

When she's in town, she turns to prayer with a group of old friends. On trips to see soldiers around the Midwest, she listens to Psalms on tape or tries to make time for solitary moments for reflection.

Sometimes, she pulls over in rest stops or parks and walks alone beside the rocky shores of Lake Michigan.

"I try to find a place filled with God's beauty, a visual landscape," Erickson said. "It calms my soul."

The war, she said, has changed the entire culture of National Guard and Reserve forces, and many soldiers and their families are still struggling to come to grips with their new roles and burdens.

On a recent trip to Michigan, Erickson met a young soldier just back from Iraq who was reluctant to return to his hometown because of what happened to his unit in the war.

"He had lost a buddy," she said. "And he didn't even want to get on the bus to go home because he had promised his buddy's wife before they were deployed that he would take care of him. He felt responsible for his death, and he didn't want to face her."

Erickson sat with the soldier in a quiet corner at a military base and spent time sorting through his feelings.

"He realized as we talked that he didn't really have any control over the situation in Iraq," she said. "I also wanted to let him know that he's not in this alone."

Erickson persuaded the soldier to catch his bus home.

Then she had to move on to more cities and other troops. In Green Bay. Then Cincinnati. Then Montevideo, Minn.

The latest extension of her service to the combat stress team is due to end in August.

"Beyond that," Erickson said, "I don't know."

Rene Sanchez • 612-673-1731