Capt. David Sivret and Maj. Andrew Gibson live parallel lives these days – one in harm’s way halfway around the world, the other safe on the home front.

Sivret, an Episcopal priest from Calais, is chaplain for the Maine Army National Guard’s 133rd Engineer Battalion, whose members were part of a convoy that was attacked in Mosul, Iraq, on Tuesday.

Gibson, a Congregational minister from Pittsfield, is chaplain for all of the 22,000 Maine guardsmen and their families.

As Guard chaplains, their mandate is the same, to comfort those in pain, but they console and counsel members of an extended family in very different places.

Both men spent the past week doing just that after one Maine guardsman was killed and three others injured in an ambush Tuesday by Iraqi insurgents.

Sivret, 48, prayed with the wounded and surviving soldiers, while Gibson, 43, accompanied the notification team that visited the slain guardsman’s widow in Portland and spoke with the families of the wounded.

Spc. Christopher Gelineau of Portland was killed and Spc. Craig Ardry of Pittsfield was seriously wounded. Ardry could be flown this weekend from a military hospital in Germany to a Texas hospital that specializes in burns.

Wounded in the same attack were Spc. Dwight Emery Nickles, 22, of Union and Spc. Sok San Pao, 22, of Portland. Both have returned to duty.

One of the first to respond after the attack was Sivret, the only soldier in his unit who doesn’t carry a weapon.

When Sivret heard over the radio that the convoy was calling for a medical evacuation helicopter, he raced back to his office, put on his helmet and tactical vest and drove a Humvee to a field hospital at nearby Camp Diamondback.

“They had just landed, and [Gelineau and Ardry] had just gotten into the emergency room,” Sivret told the Portland Press Herald.

The two were then flown to a hospital in Baghdad where Gelineau was pronounced dead.

“I held their left arms as they were being put onto the choppers,” he said. “And I prayed with them.”

The chaplain has met individually with the surviving soldiers who were attacked and this weekend will gather with them for a closed, mandatory debriefing.

“Shedding a few tears helps,” said Sivret. “There are those guys still today who, you know, are macho and are not supposed to cry,” he said. “But I shed my tears [Tuesday], and I’m sure I will again as I think about this situation.”

Gibson, the former pastor of a church in Pittsfield, said Friday in Bangor that the Casualty Assistance Center at Fort Drum, N.Y., called the notification officer on duty in Maine. Because the chaplain conducts training sessions on how to tell family members a loved one has been killed or injured, Gibson almost always accompanies the team.

Unable to discuss the cases of specific soldiers, the chaplain said Friday that in the car on their way to break the news to family members, the team sometimes prays together and reviews the reactions family members might have to such devastating news. It helps the team prepare mentally for what they might face, Gibson said.

“The way people deal with grief is very individual,” Gibson said. “Most often, a soldier’s death is a shocking death, a sudden death. A person could react by screaming and yelling or be stone-faced. As the soldier is telling the family member what happened, I monitor what’s happening with that family member.”

Also part of the team is a casualty assistance officer who helps the family with funeral arrangements and explains benefits. For the families of the wounded, the chaplain and his assistants often keep them updated with soldiers’ medical conditions.

But like Sivret in Iraq, most of Gibson’s time is spent helping people deal with the impact and stress that is inevitable when guardsmen are deployed.

Sivret serves as spiritual guide for soldiers of varied denominations, mental health counselor and “morale officer” for the 133rd. One of his jobs has been to screen troops before they embark on difficult assignments, such as searching for mass graves.

Gibson, on the other hand, oversees a team that helps the families of deployed guardsmen deal with their increased responsibilities at home. He coordinates the Guard’s family assistance centers in Caribou, Bangor, Augusta and Portland. They are designed to meet the families’ needs, such as legal advice, health insurance, chaplain referrals and financial assistance.

Although he has a staff of 10 working for him, the chaplain said that hundreds of people across the state have volunteered time, money and services to help families who need help with everything from yardwork to a new septic system.

In addition to their jobs, the chaplains have some other things in common. Both are married and have three children. They both graduated from Bangor Theological Seminary, Gibson in 1992 and Sivret six years later.

In addition to the men’s denominations, ranks and ages, there is one other major difference between the two.

After his tour of duty, Sivret will return to his ministry as rector of St. Anne’s Episcopal Church in Calais, Christ Church in Eastport and St. Luke’s summer chapel in Baileyville. Gibson, however, will continue to minister full time to members of the Guard and their families.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.