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15-year-old Meghan Nelom lost her father to war. She wears his dog tags in remembrance of him.

KILLEEN, TX — America's fallen warriors have left behind more than 2,000 children. Fort Hood has seen more fallen warriors than anyplace else. Now, school counselors warn that the children of soldiers are paying a price.

As more parents deploy again and again for extended tours, the Killeen school district desperately needs more counselors to help absorb the blows.

"My dad's been gone," said Shatonna Jones. "Went to Korea and then Iraq. He's been gone all four years of school."

Shatonna's dad has deployed four times. While he's at war, the 18-year-old high school student has cared for her little sister and a severely ill mother.

Patrick Ganacias's mother and father are headed back to Iraq for a second time.

"I got to stay strong," he said. "Take care of my brother. My sister moved out, so it's just me and my little brother."

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Shoemaker High counselor known as "Miss Critch" came up with the idea to put up stars representing parents of students who are at war.

Blue and silver stars line the halls of Shoemaker High School representing parents who have gone to war.

Seven gold stars over the front door represent Shoemaker parents killed at war.

Regillio Nelom's daughter walks beneath his star each morning.

"I mean, yes. My dad has died," said 15-year-old Meghan Nelom. "But I'm still the same person, and I still need to go on."

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A gold star represents a parent-soldier who has died.

She wears her dad's dogtags. She started wearing her father's dogtags a couple of months ago, and she hasn't taken them off since.

"Gives me strength to get up in the morning," Meghan said.

She and other students say they also draw strength from the woman who came up with stars idea.

The students call her "Miss Critch."

Barbara Critchfield is a counselor at Shoemaker High.

"[If] I'm having a bad weekend, I call her and say 'I can't do this,'" Shatonna Jones explains. "She says, 'yes, you can, and I'm behind you 100 percent.'"

Counselors in Killeen ISD say students are resilient, but they are starting to bend and break from the strain of war.

"I think they're just worn out with it," said Diane Guidry. "They don't think it's ever going to stop."

And it's apparent in the students' grades.

"We have the largest failure rate we've ever had," said Priscilla Flores about students in her school . "The children have just shut down. As humans, we can only take so much."

To make matters worse, Killeen doesn't have nearly enough school counselors to absorb the emotional blows.

When the Pentagon extended combat tours to 15 months, there were a lot of tears.

"The kids started coming in," Diane Guidry said. "'Miss Guidry, I've got to see you today. They've just heard the news. My mom's crying. We're having a hard time at home.' I don't know what to do. They're little ones, you know?"

State guidelines call for at least one counselor for every 350 students.

Brandi Carroll has 600.

Diane Guidry has 1,000.

"It's hard to see them hurting. When they hurt, we hurt," said Flores.

The Killen ISD hopes to hire more than two dozen more counselors. In the meantime, counselors make do and make sacrifices of their own.

School counselor Priscilla Flores suffered a heart attack. A week later, she was back at work.

"It was stress. Doctor said it was stress," she said. "I had to come back. I couldn't give up."

Charlotte Graves counsels students at Smith Middle School at Fort Hood. Five parents from her school have died and many times that have been wounded.

All of them struggle with the funerals.

Graves is haunted by the image of a 12-year-old boy wearing his dad's Cavalry hat at his father's memorial service.

"The hat was falling down over his eyes, so you couldn't see him cry," she remembered. "And that is tough... going to the funeral."

"We're 100 percent military. The whole school," she said. "Every child in this school is affected by the military one way or the other. Going or coming. Going to Iraq or coming home from Iraq."

Back at Shoemaker High School, the row of stars keeps growing. Barbara Critchfield started with 80. Now, there are 2,000.

"I'm probably going to have to do a second row," she said. "We still have a thousand to put up."

E-mail jdouglas@wfaa.com