Unprecedented media access has brought the war in Iraq home to America. Reports from embedded journalists and graphic images from the battlefields can help us try to understand what it must be like for soldiers fighting the war.

When soldiers come home at the end of each war, they are filled to the brim with emotions of what they have seen and done. What are the psychological aspects of war and what happens to soldiers when they come back from battle?

Dr. Jonathan Shay, Psychiatrist in the Department of Veteran Affairs Outpatient Clinic, says that it is crucial to the prevention of combat trauma that soldiers are not sent into and back from the battlefield alone or with strangers. He also thinks that returning soldiers need to be listened to carefully and patiently.

Click the “Listen” link to hear about the psychological trauma combat soldiers suffer after they return from war and how the community at large can help them cope with it.

Guests:

Dr. Jonathan Shay, Psychiatrist in the Department of Veteran Affairs Outpatient Clinic, and author of “Odysseus in America: Combat Trauma and the Trials of Homecoming,” and “Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character”

Michael Corgan, retired Navy Commander and Military Historian at Boston University.