Our servicemen and women deployed in war zones are often deeply affected emotionally and psychologically by their experiences. While these after effects are common, they are not always easily detected when military personnel return from overseas. Too often, when soldiers come home, they internalize their feelings about their combat experiences and avoid discussing them as they try to readjust to civilian and family life. Many avoid asking for help from anyone.

The State of Arkansas, and particularly the Arkansas National Guard, have worked to assure our men and women in uniform that it is okay to ask for help, and that assistance is available to ease the burden of their experiences. As part of a national effort, mental-health professionals throughout Arkansas are now chipping in to make more of that help available to our veterans.

The Give an Hour program is a nonprofit initiative that asks mental-health-care specialists to donate their services one hour a week to members of the U.S. military, veterans, and their families. In the past five years, thousands of volunteer providers across the country have given more than 24,000 hours of help and hope to military families grappling with the psychological effects of war.

Give an Hour's work - and now its presence in Arkansas - means that increasingly, there is help out there for all veterans, whenever they need it and wherever they are. It is also a reminder that family members who remain at home while loved ones are deployed to combat zones often suffer through their own emotional distress. This program provides help to them as well, both during and after a deployment.

I was pleased to be joined at the announcement by Give an Hour's founder, Dr. Barbara Van Dahlen, a Washington, D.C., psychologist. In her explanation of Give an Hour's mission, Dr. Van Dahlen emphasized that this initiative seeks to de-mystify mental-health care and to focus on normal consequences of being in combat, as very few servicemen and women return unscathed. The value of counseling has been increasingly recognized in recent years, but there is still a lot of work to do to increase awareness and acceptance.

Two years ago, we assembled The Arkansas Yellow Ribbon Taskforce to support our service men and women as they reintegrate into their communities from deployments overseas. It is their work that helped Arkansas become one of the states to build our own outreach effort with Give an Hour. The task force shares Give an Hour's widespread ambition to reach out and assist active-duty, National Guard, and Reserve service members and veterans, as well as their families.

I urge Arkansas's psychologists, social workers, and psychiatrists to share their skills and participate in Give an Hour, a program that will use those skills to transform lives. And I encourage all Arkansans to visit http://www.giveanhour.org/ to learn more and lend your support. Arkansas will always take care of those who step up to serve and protect us.