When Army Spc. Mark Melcher was shot by a sniper in Anbar province in April 2006, Chaplain Douglas Etter was there to hold his hand and comfort the dying Pittsburgher.

"Mark was a Mellon Bank employee who was felled ... just 28 days after he joined us as a replacement. I kissed him and more than one of those boys on the forehead after making the sign of the cross there," Chaplain Etter told a conference of returning veterans at Soldiers & Sailors Military Museum and Memorial last month.

Chaplains not only fulfill the services' First Amendment religion obligation; they are "visible reminders of the holy" to troops in situations that can often seem to epitomize the unholy.

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The Army Chaplaincy is stretched to the brink trying to ensure that servicemen and women have access to chaplains, typically troops' most proximal and trusted humanitarian resource. Each service has its own chaplain staff, but the Army supplies the majority of chaplains who go to Iraq.

The Army is currently trying to fill 452 chaplain vacancies, said Lt. Col. Randall Dolinger, spokesman for the Army Office of the Chief of Chaplains. The most pronounced shortages were in the reserves and National Guard, with a particularly acute shortfall of Roman Catholic priests, he said.

To compensate, the service has resorted to activating individual chaplains without regard to their assigned unit's deployment schedule, he said. So far, they've managed to meet the quota of one chaplain per battalion on combat deployment while some units on stand-down have had to suffice without their usual channels of religious support.

Chaplain Dolinger urged religious communities across the country to "step forward" and help fill the gap. The Army recognizes more than 265 different sects or religions that can theoretically supply chaplains.

Chaplains are feeling the stress. They're deploying longer and more frequently than the average troop and about a quarter told the latest Army Mental Health Advisory Team to survey troops in Iraq that their "burnout level," or degree of demoralization, was "high or very high."

When Chaplain Etter arrived in Iraq with elements of the Pennsylvania Army National Guard in January 2005, he found himself the only chaplain serving more than 200 soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen stationed at Forward Operating Base Habbaniyah, about halfway between Fallujah and Ramadi in Anbar province.

"For 18 months, as a leader of soldiers, I had to keep my emotions in check," said Chaplain Etter. "I could not let them see me down, sad or afraid. When I came home, people told me I was distant and withdrawn."

In addition to holding services and memorializing the dead, chaplains are also commanders' religious advisers, impromptu battlefield psychiatrists and units' moral compasses. They are also the primary referral agency to behavioral health personnel. Because they are protected by confidentiality agreements, they are valued outlets for troops under duress.

"We run with the troops; we're there with the troops; we know everyone in the unit," said Chaplain Dolinger. Sometimes chaplains even go on combat missions with their units. Whenever Chaplain Dolinger did, he said he could sense a sea change in the troops' mood, as if they felt safer.

Chaplains are forbidden from carrying firearms because they are defined as noncombatants by the Geneva Convention. They are therefore assigned bodyguards who also assist in religious ceremonies.

Because they share the same daily regimen as those in their charge, a unit's chaplain is typically highly respected and uniquely well-suited to provide personalized care.

"Many times clergy participate in quiet conversations," said Chaplain Etter. "Sometimes the tones are soft because someone is inviting us into a private space in their being, a place generally reserved for no one but themselves. At other times, their voices are hushed because the person is revealing some past hurt or sin."

Chaplain Etter, a Presbyterian, is currently executive officer at the state Bureau of Veterans Affairs, stationed at Fort Indiantown Gap in Annville, Lebanon County. Each day he wears the watch of his good friend, Lt. Col. Michael McLaughlin of Mercer, in memoriam. It was given to him by the lieutenant colonel's wife after he was killed by a suicide bomber in January 2006.

Retired Air Force Reserve Col. Paul Milliken, now pastor at Trinity Tower United Methodist Church in Penn Hills, said he counseled scores of servicemen and women while he was in the Middle East.

"A couple came because of their having had to kill and just the terrible thought that they were responsible for taking another life," he said. "I told them that was their mission, that they were working for the government, which has license to do this sort of thing for the protection of others."

Marital issues were the biggest concern for many, he said. Chaplain Milliken recalled one soldier who received a letter from his spouse simply stating, "I won't be here when you get back."

"It takes a special breed to suffer through that kind of punishment," he said.

He also recalled a group of hecklers who would taunt him whenever he would pray for a successful mission. Finally, said Chaplain Milliken, he just started praying for their safe return.