ST. PAUL, Minn.

The flight carrying the young lieutenant home from war in 1971 traveled directly from Saigon to California. No welcome ceremony awaited him at Travis Air force Base. No counselor advised him of the emotions he might experience exchanging within a matter of hours a jungle war zone for the comforts and security of America.

Any soldier with problems or any complaints, he says, was told to pass through the red door. Any soldier with nothing to discuss could leave through the green door.

He didn't let the green door hit him on the way out.

Hours after his arrival, he was alone on the streets of Oakland and San Francisco. A sister, 400 miles away in Long Beach, invited him down for a week.

"I just lay on the beach," the young officer remembers many years later.

After a few days of being wined and dined by his sister, he went home to North Dakota.

Six people, all family members, met him. Friends wondered where he'd been. They hadn't seen him for a while.

"The people back home didn't even know I'd been gone," he says.

More than three decades later, the country again was at war and the officer, no longer young, watched another officer recendy returned from combat talk about his experience.

"I just saw that look. I can't describe it. He was too indifferent," says Maj. Gen. Larry W Shellito. "I've seen that look for 40 years."

So Shellito, the Minnesota adjutant general, took action.

His determination to give soldiers coming out of war more than what he received has attracted the attention of Congress, the Pentagon and the National Guard from several states. His resolve to ease the transition from warrior back to citizen has involved his state's governor and a bundle of agencies, both public and private.

The Beyond the Yellow Ribbon program, which may soon spread in some form throughout the military, was born when Shellito gathered his commanders and told them he wanted to address the difficulties soldiers have returning from combat to their homes and families.

"I said, 'This is going to happen. If you can't support it, let me know. I'll get somebody who will,'" Shellito recalls.

His goal was simple: Treat this generation of combat soldiers better than his generation was treated.

That memory still rankles.

"They just let them loose," he says. "Let them go. There was no road map on how to get back into that civilian world."

Under the Beyond the Yellow Ribbon program, families and soldiers receive the opposite treatment. They are coddled almost in their reintegration, wrapped up in the appreciative arms of a state that can't do enough for its citizen-soldiers.

"We need to give back to them all that we can," says Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who convened a task force of state agencies to identify the services available to returning troops and their families.

Families are advised ahead of time of potential problems when their loved ones return from war and what resources are available. Returning GIs are taught to recognize warning signs in their personal lives.

Everyone from marriage counselors to alcohol abuse experts are made available. Health care experts advise on what services are out there and how to get them. College campuses go out of their way to welcome veterans into the fold.

Feeling angry? Speak to this person. Feeling depressed? Step over here for some help.

To get the program off the ground, Shellito enlisted the state deputy chaplain, Lt. Col. John Morris. When Morris was tabbed in January 2005, he was just back from the battle of Falluja, Iraq, very much aware of the stresses and strains of combat.

If Shellito was the creative force behind Beyond the Yellow Ribbon, Morris has become its face.

He has visited dozens of soldiers' hometowns, spreading the gospel of Beyond the Yellow Ribbon, telling families, employers, fellow clergy and businessmen how best to embrace their returning soldiers.

"I'm not going to kid you," Morris said during a break at a reintegration event in December. "I don't remember the last three years in detail, I've worked so hard. It's been exhausting. It's been exhilarating.

"I've met the best people in the world. I get to work on behalf of the best people in the world."

Morris is a fixture at the mandatory one-day reintegration events that take place at 30-day intervals after a unit's return. Soldiers gather 30 days after their return from war and again after 60 and 90 days to hear the experts talk about the process of becoming civilians again. Families are welcome.

On hand are subject matter experts who can meet one-on-one if a soldier or family member requests it.

The initial meeting required a waiver from the defense secretary since National Guard units can not be forced to gather within 60 days of their return. The waiver was granted, but, "we were going to do it anyway," says Pawlenty.

Morris began informing units of the required musters before they even returned from Iraq. His e-mails were not welcomed by the folks in the desen.

Col. Kevin Gerdes began getting the messages from Morris in October 2005,, several months before he returned from Iraq, where he was mayor of Camp Taji and commander of 1st Battalion, 151st Field Artillery, and wondered, "When did the Army start taking orders from a chaplain?"

Shellito knows the meetings, at first, are as popular with soldiers as five-mile hikes with full packs.

"If you ask the troops what they want, they want just what I had," he says. "Just get me out of here. Don't bother me.'"

But Shellito learned a few years after his return that sharing time with "battle buddies" is valuable. At the urging of another Vietnam veteran, he joined the Guard in 1973. He and other Vietnam veterans would gather and swap stories, which, he was surprised to leam, proved therapeutic.

"The National Guard saved my life," Shellito has said at public meetings.

The three monthly meetings Minnesota soldiers attend after their return perform a similar function. Soldiers who shared so much on the battlefield can share their experiences on the home front. They may leam that they are not alone in feeling lost or angry or confused.

"These little 30-day events are like mini-reunions," Shellito says.

First Sgt. Hector Matascastillo grew some knowing chuckles and nods when he opened a session last month by telling the 150 soldiers and family members, "I wake up sometimes in the morning and think, 'People just suck.'"

"Most of us probably don't like our jobs anymore. We're looking for a new job," he adds. "There are some of us having a bad time."

Use the day, he says, to talk with your buddies and "help each other out."

Each monthly workshop has a different focus. The first one addresses parenting and marital relationships, and includes an explanation of benefits and a job fair. The second deals with health issues, substance and gambling abuse and anger management.

The third is a thorough health assessment.

The program got a workout last year when 2,600 soldiers of the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 34th Infancy Division returned home. And it appears to be working.

There's no hard data to support that yet, officials admit. That is coming later this year when an outside agency completes its survey of soldiers and families.

"What we have so far is largely anecdotal feedback," says the governor. "It's been almost entirely positive."

Officials have seen the lights go on in the eyes of soldiers and family members when they hear someone talk about the challenges of reintegration.

Morris, who is known for talking with passion and humor about his post-Iraq adjustment, said, "Between every class, somebody stays behind and says, 'What you talked about here, I need some help with that."'

That's how it was for Staff Sgt. David Conner and his wife, Becky, when they attended their first workshop in November, 30 days after he returned from Iraq with B Company, 1st Battalion, 194th Armor

"Both my wife and I listened and we were like, 'Wow, that's us,'" he said last month before a workshop at Inver Hills Community College near St. Paul.

Spc. Chase McKinley, 20, skipped the first session, but attended the second with his mother, Peggy McKinley. Halfway through the day, both said it was time well spent.

Chase McKinley admits he has had trouble adjusting to the civilian world. In Iraq, his life had a purpose. He did important things.

Back home, he said, "I haven't done too well. I've had a few hiccups."

His mother said, "If he doesn't have something to do, he'll stay in bed for three days."

But he heard the chaplain talk and recognized himself. Maybe, he thinks, it is time to get on with life.

Within Beyond the Yellow Ribbon is another program called Monthly Individual Reintegration Training (MIRT) designed to reach soldiers who may come home alone due to injury or personal crisis.

Spc. Andrew Qualy, 23, came home by himself after recovering for six months at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, D.C., from wounds suffered in the explosion of a roadside bomb.

"1 ran into a lot of problems," he says.

He drank nearly all day. He had feelings of isolation and alienation. He ended up in jail after crashing his car while intoxicated.

But at an MIRT event, Qualy was put in touch with resources he needed. He has stopped drinking and travels to the workshops to share his story.

"I'm a little bit the poster child for what happens when you don't get this stuff," he says.

Gerdes, the reluctant commander in Iraq, is now a full-fledged supporter of the program. His troops were the first to undergo the process.

"My soldiers now have been back for two years," he says. "They are singing the praises of the program."

As the state's personnel director for the National Guard, Gerdes is the senior officer in charge of Beyond the Yellow Ribbon. He is intimate with its results.

"We know this," he says. "Soldiers have come to us in a suicidal state at our events."

Gerdes wonders if those soldiers would have come forward to receive help if they were not attending the monthly meetings.

Couples have come forward seeking an understanding ear. So have family members.

"We bring the services to them at these events and make it so easy for them that they really have to try hard not to [take advantage]," he says.

At the workshops, the attending soldiers have to run a gaundet of agency representatives.

Amber Heren, a representative of TriWest, which administers the Tricare health program for soldiers, is at nearly every workshop.

"I want to make sure they get the correct information," she says. "Sometimes they don't know what they're eligible for."

Her parents are both in the Reserves and both recently returned from the war. Neither, she says, were told what benefits they were due.

"I would not be here if I did not believe in it," she says.

Gene Benson, senior director for counseling and youth services for Lutheran Social Services, offers information about the agency's Camp Noah, which was created for victims of Hurricane Katrina, but was adapted for children of returning veterans.

Counselors at the camp help children cope with the absence of a parent and other issues that can foster, he explains. Also, the agency is trying to develop a weekend camp for families.

"Hopefully, that will be rolled out this spring," he says.

Lutheran Social Services now has theraBenson say:;, available for anyone with a need to talk.

But now comes the hard part-maintaining the enthusiasm and commitment as the cycle of deployment and return, deployment and return continues perhaps for several more years.

"When something's new, it's always exciting," says Shellito, who knows that sustaining the program will take additional effort.

Gerdes says, "The key to this program has been, this is bigger than the military."

If it had to rely only on the resources of the Minnesota National Guard, it would have trouble. The nonmilitary agencies have made the difference, he says.

But they have been operating on a "hand-shake agreement" between the Guard and the various agencies, both public and private. Gerdes says the next step is to formalize that agreement to guarantee "that we're in it for the long haul."

"This is bigger than the National Guard. This is bigger than the DoD," he says.

Plus, he asks, what about the people who haven't recognized their problems after the final workshop on the 90th day? Where do those people go if dieir problems surface later?

Pawlenty has the same concern.

"We don't want this to stop after 90 days," he says. The goal is to "bring them all the way home."

Shellito says he understood one thing quickly when he returned from his war.

"It took me less than two weeks to learn to shut up about it," he says.

It was an unpopular war and discussion of it brought only debate and argument.

"I did not make a formal public speech about my experiences for 25 years," he says.

Shellito has heard from Vietnam veterans since Beyond the Yellow Ribbon began. At first, he says, they were angered that today's soldiers were getting something denied them.

But they have come around. Shellito calls them "some of our strongest allies."

In fact, he says, he's been told the program has had a beneficial effect on veterans from the war that ended before many of today's soldiers were bom.

By reaching out to the veterans of one war, Shellito has benefited the soldiers from another one, including, he says, a former lieutenant once left on his own on the streets and beaches of California.

"This has been as merapeutic for me," Shellito says "as it has for a lot of Vietnam vets."

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