The story so far: Chaplain Darren Turner memorialized 13 fallen soldiers before 2007 came to an end. But comforting the bereaved is only one of his roles. He counsels soldiers suffering from the stress of 15 months away from their loved ones. He can relate: With six months left in Iraq, he, too, is homesick.

CURTIS COMPTON/AJC (ENLARGE)

Chaplain Darren Turner, an avid musician, plays his guitar during a late night reprieve in his office at Forward Operating Base Falcon, Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday, March 12, 2008. A giant photograph of his wife and children on the wall along with 'morale phone calls' help keep him connected to home. The 15-month separation weighs heavily on Turner.

CHAPLAIN TURNER'S WAR Chapter 1: Comfort in toughest of places Chapter 2: The invisible war Chapter 3: Summer of death Chapter 4: Formidable enemy Chapter 5: Nightmare revisited Chapter 6: Easter baptisms Chapter 7: Tragedies test the armor of God Chapter 8: A dangerous mission, a devastating night Series home page About the series: In January, reporter Moni Basu and photographer Curtis Compton began documenting life at war with Darren Turner, chaplain for the 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment, part of the 3rd Infantry Division at Fort Stewart. They traveled with him to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington while he was home on leave, then caught up with him in Iraq, where they spent five weeks reporting this story. They shadowed the chaplain as he counseled soldiers, baptized them and dealt with war's hardships. They also went on foot patrol with a platoon that lost six men last summer. Every soldier in this story gave the journalists permission to document their interactions with the chaplain. All except one of the scenes were witnessed firsthand. The one reconstructed scene — the events of last summer — appears in Chapter 3 and was pieced together through interviews with soldiers who were there.

Baghdad — Chaplain Darren Turner checks his watch. It's 8 p.m. — noon in Georgia. He slips into a designated break room in his battalion's command center and dials home on the "morale phone."

It is the Army's attempt to soothe the stress of deployment: 15 minutes of daily talk time for 15 months at war.

In South Georgia, his wife, Heather, 35, picks up her cellphone. She and the kids are finishing lunch at the kitchen table.

"Hi, babe. How's it going?"

So begins a conversation Turner knows will go by too quickly. There is so much to discuss. More important, so much to convey.

Sometimes, Turner tells his wife about a soldier threatening suicide here, at Forward Operating Base Falcon. Sometimes, he just tries to glimpse life back home in Richmond Hill, near Fort Stewart. Always, he wants Heather and the kids to know how much they are missed.

What if this phone call is his last?

"Did you see the news today about the five guys?" Turner asks Heather, mentioning a suicide bombing that killed 3rd Infantry Division soldiers elsewhere in Baghdad.

Heather already knows. As the chaplain's wife, she felt she should stand at the helm for Army spouses and volunteered to lead a battalion family readiness group. Wives have been calling all day to make sure the casualties are not their own.

Heather is living the war almost 7,000 miles away.

"You know what, ladies, we have combat patches, too," she likes to say. "Ours are worn on our hearts."

The chaplain purposefully doesn't call home every night. That way if there is a communication blackout because of a casualty or if he is stuck somewhere, Heather won't worry.

"How are you all doing?" Turner asks.

Sam is about to earn his orange belt in karate, Heather says. She knows that talking about routine things takes her husband away from war, if only for a moment.

Their son wrests the phone away from Mom.

"Hey, Sam. What's up, buddy? You're getting your orange belt? No way! I'm so proud of you. How many 4-year-olds have an orange belt?"

Elie gets on the phone. Turner says: "Hold on, hold on. Let me tell Sam one last thing real quick."

The clock is ticking, but what he has to say is worth the time.

"Hey, Sam, you didn't let me finish. You know what I was gonna say? I love you."

Next he talks to Elie about her school project on Mexico.

"What kind of food do they eat in Mexico? Oh, the flan. That's good. Start with the dessert. Maybe y'all can make some tacos and spicy rice. I love you. Bye-bye."

Elie will turn 7 in a few days, Sam will be 5. Turner missed Meribeth's first birthday and will miss her second in June.

Family, says Turner, is not the Army's priority, even though it does what it can to ease the stress of war.

He knows if he stays with the 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment, he will almost certainly have to leave home again. The Fort Stewart soldiers have already been alerted for another deployment in November 2009.

Turner, 35, felt called by God to this work. He attended seminary at Regent University in Virginia expressly to join the Army's chaplain corps.

He wanted to help the suffering. But he didn't anticipate his own.

There's not much time left on the phone. Heather tells him Elie will begin karate lessons as well.

"Wow. So you're going to karate four nights a week. Sure you want to do that?"

Heather insists it's OK.

"We have 40 seconds left. How are you feeling?" he asks. Heather is sniffling from a cold she can't shake.

"We're getting cut off, sweetie. I love you!"

Fifteen minutes whiz by faster than a missile.

Turner encourages his soldiers to take advantage of the free calls. Sometimes, he whips out a global cellphone from his upper left arm pocket and hands it to a soldier. If he makes an excuse — says "I'll call later. She's sleeping" — Turner insists: "Wake her up. Tell her you love her."

He knows the most formidable enemy a soldier faces isn't necessarily on the battlefield, but at home, where anxiety and the strain of separation can exact a heavy toll.

At Patrol Base Red, an hour's journey from Falcon, the chaplain perches on a dusty concrete ledge with Spc. Zacheriah Taylor. Facing a row of smelly wooden latrines, the two men talk with the ease of friends on a fishing trip.

Taylor, 24, serves in an armor company of soldiers who know the innards of M1 Abrams tanks better than they know their own hearts.

On this day, he has been waiting to share a heartache with the chaplain.

Taylor's wife is unhappy. Unexpectedly, she told him over the phone that she wants out of their marriage. He feels helpless.

Turner has heard this story before. He is aware of 40 soldiers in his battalion who have been divorced since deploying.

Tactically, a 15-month deployment makes sense to Turner. It allows soldiers to get settled and know the territory. But emotionally, he says, it's a disaster.

Homefront problems multiply with longer tours. To make matters worse, more than half of the 1-30th soldiers have served in Iraq once or twice before.

Taylor says he knew his wife was struggling at home. Her father died last August. Her mother's kidney disease has recurred. Her sister is about to have a baby. Her brother, a young Marine lieutenant, is also deploying to Iraq.

It's a crushing feeling anywhere to hear your wife say she's walking out. But here, far from home on Iraq's battlegrounds, it's a moment of indescribable frustration. Taylor couldn't run to her. He couldn't hold her and say: "Don't go. Let's work this out."

He couldn't do anything but hang up the phone when his time was up and fester inside.

He stopped talking to his platoon mates, fearful his personal life would fuel gossip. He needed a confidant —and finally found one in the chaplain.

Turner likes to remind everyone that soldiers wear two tabs on their chest. One says U.S. Army; the other bears their name. The latter is the chaplain's realm.

Marriages. Divorces. Babies.

"I'm more interested in the soldiers' hearts," Turner says.

He routinely rides out to these smaller bases to talk to soldiers who otherwise might live out an entire deployment without ever being able to air their troubles.

He usually arrives with a much-heralded supply convoy carrying vats of mess hall chow: Salisbury steak, mac and cheese, green beans, succotash. It's the only hot food at this compound, structured around a house once owned by wealthy Iraqis.

A muezzin's call to prayer echoes from the village mosque on the other side of the protective wall. It was in another kind of service, held on this side of the wall, where Taylor heard Turner preach.

"Which would you choose?" Turner asked about a house built on sand or one built on rock. The easy fix or a solid start?

The words got to Taylor.

"I want to be there for her, but it's hard when I'm 10,000 miles away," he tells Turner.

The chaplain urges Taylor to "man up." It's advice he often serves up, unable to accept that fierce warriors would "just cave" when it comes to fighting for their families.

He tells Taylor that the Bible teaches men how to battle for marriages just as Jesus battled for spiritual victory. That every wife, every child, wants a husband and father who is on fire for his family.

Turner knows that with Taylor, a devout Christian, he can weave faith into the conversation. But as an Army chaplain, he often has to tiptoe through a religious minefield.

Though most soldiers list a Christian denomination as their religion, an Army flock includes Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Wiccans and even a few who fancy themselves Jedi Knights.

Turner doesn't profess to be a religious specialist. Islam was an elective he chose not to take in the seminary. He tossed the vial of holy water from his chaplain's kit — he had no use for tools used by a Catholic priest. But if a soldier asks for a rosary or a Quran, he delivers.

Then there are the nonbelievers. With them, Turner takes care to spell god with a little "g."

As darkness descends on Patrol Base Red, Turner wants to make sure Taylor is prepared for the next conversation with his wife — and many more.

Sometimes, he tells Taylor, he gives his wife of nine years a big hug when she's doing the dishes. Or he helps her fold the laundry.

"That sends her to the moon, man," he says.

Five minutes of quality time, he says, can lift his wife for a week.

Taylor is learning to be a better listener.

"Lately, my wife's been a lot more open with me," he says. "I told her things would be different when I get back."

He wants to show the world that he is a new man committed to Christ, committed to his family.

He asks Turner to baptize him on Easter, just a week away.

Coming tomorrow: Scarred by the deaths of his platoon mates, a Bravo Company soldier patrols the farmlands of his nightmares. He looked to the chaplain to regain his sanity once — and wonders if he'll need him again.