ABSTRACT
The ongoing war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan has created an array of profound physical and psychological challenges for our returning U.S. and allied troops. Mental health counselors providing care to this population are confronted by particularly complicated clinical and ethical dilemmas. Soldiers have always been asked to put aside their own emotional needs for the welfare of their combat unit and their country (Menninger, 1948); and they have been expected to perpetrate acts of violence, bear witness to acts of violence, and live under the specter of their own death at any moment of any day—this is within the nature of military service and combat.
