The Professor Goes to War: Serving as Team Leader for a Combat Stress Unit in Iraq

This chapter describes the experiences of a military social worker deployed to Iraq with a combat stress unit, as well as her predeployment and postdeployment experiences. As a civilian, the author is a professor. She explores how deployment affected her academic career and her own overall process of readjustment to civilian life. She describes her main duties and activities as the only professional mental health provider and combat stress team prevention leader at the camp in southern Iraq where she was assigned. The author reflects on early life experiences that motivated her to choose social work as a profession. In terms of joining the military, the author considers how her personal travels as well as employment with U.S. Army Intelligence in Europe, during the Cold War era, contributed to her motivation to join the Army Reserves.