Soldiers who have learned to shut off their emotions in a heartbeat in combat could have trouble suppressing their hostility when they come home — and their families have to be prepared to deal with it.

That's the message from psychologist Bridget Cantrell, president and CEO of Hearts Toward Home International from Bellingham, Wash., and Sandy Crocker, mobilization and deployment program manager from Schofield Barracks, who spoke at the City of Refuge Church in Waipahu yesterday morning.

Cantrell has been working with some of the 7,100 soldiers who returned from a 15-month deployment in October.

Cantrell and Crocker addressed some of the issues soldiers and their families might be grappling with after a long deployment, particularly the anger and aggression some soldiers bring home with them.

Part of that comes from witnessing things they don't want to talk to their families about, Cantrell said, citing a study that found 84 percent of surveyed Marines reported seeing a wounded woman, child or senior they couldn't help.

"These are the things that haunt warriors, and these are the things they don't talk about," she said.

"They have to do things, they have to witness things, they have to participate in these things because they made a commitment to their country, to their military, to be a warrior and warriors do things that are ugly," she said.

"We're seeing that they're home physically but they're not home emotionally, and that's what hurts so much with family members," she said. "What appears to be whole and intact on the outside, on the inside is full of anger, full of torment and inside so fragmented."

Speaking primarily to women involved in church activities, Cantrell advised examining their lives to determine whether they're giving their newly returned husbands the attention they need.

Crocker said some soldiers return questioning their faith. "In war times, people sometimes have to act in ways that are against their own moral upbringing, so we also have to as a community, look at that," she said.

That could contribute to why soldiers dealing with post-traumatic stress have difficulty relating to their families.

Cantrell said they might have to be gradually reintroduced to family life — maybe with one family night a week — while children need to be taught that their parents' troubled reactions to deployment are normal.

At the same time, the veterans' family members need to know when to seek help.

Veterans may not be inclined to look for help on their own, since it could mean getting discharged from service or being held back from another deployment.

"These soldiers are committed," Cantrell said. "They don't want to be seen as a weak link."

Reach Treena Shapiro at tshapiro@honoluluadvertiser.com.

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