LEWISTON — When the U.S. war in Iraq began, the Maine National Guard had one staff person looking out for soldiers’ families.

Now, there are 24. They include social workers and psychologists, child specialists and a financial planner.

“I’ve got a wealth of resources now to support our families,” Maj. Gen. John W. “Bill” Libby said Thursday. Now, the chore is reaching service members and their families and getting the people who need help to take it.

It’s not an issue that’s going to go away, said Libby, adjutant general of the Maine National Guard.

In part, that’s due to continued operations in the Middle East.

Beginning in October and over the following nine months, nine units from the Maine National Guard will send people to the region. Most will be small groups. The total is expected to reach 350 to 400 people, Libby said.

But far more, 3,100 in the Maine Guard alone, have already served.

“We have broken a generation of men and women,” Libby told attendees of the Great Falls Forum, a monthly lecture series. He cited U.S. losses in Iraq and Afghanistan — about 6,200 men and women at last count — and national spending in excess of $1.2 trillion.

He also talked about unseen wounds relating to post-traumatic stress. Many returning service members will need ongoing help, counseling and other services. Some will need aid for the rest of their lives.

“We’re all Mainers,” Libby said. “We’re stubborn people. We are reluctant to ask for help when we need to ask for help.”

Libby was accompanied at Thursday’s lecture by Ann LePage, Maine’s first lady.

Since her husband took office in January, she has taken on helping military families as her cause of choice. She has visited events for the children of military families and she and Gov. Paul LePage have begun hosting monthly dinners with service members and their families at the Blaine House.

Each month, the LePages pick a different branch of the service and invite three people, their spouses and their children.

So far, most of the discussions have been chances for the first family to learn.

“I’m getting my feet wet and I’m hoping to do more,” Ann LePage said. “If nothing else, we’re bringing military families to the forefront so that people can see and feel what they go through.”

Libby hopes to do the same. He worries that people are slipping through the cracks.

In smaller towns — such as his home of Sydney, north of Augusta — service members and their families can feel cut off. Libby’s town has one solider abroad, one wife without a husband and one child missing a dad.

The families’ experience ought to be closer to living on an Army base, where help is ready and people understand the sacrifices military families make, Libby said.

The 67-year-old general hopes to make it his legacy before he retires in the next couple of years, he said.

“One of my missions before I retire here in the not-too-distant future is to break that code to figure out how we truly can become Fort Maine,” he said.

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