The call came during lunch.

“It’s one of my suicidal guys,” says Susie Gallucci, placing her hand over her cell phone.

It could have been one of her heroin guys or one of her homeless guys or one of her guys who’s all messed up and not quite sure why.

Gallucci is a Marine captain and she is on a mission to bring Marines back from some bad places. Her regiment is new, but the things she does are in keeping with a very old tradition.

“I’m serving a population no other service serves,” she says.

She is serving men and women who have been Marines or been in the Navy serving with Marine units. They have hit tough times, problems they can’t solve ….

So the captain comes calling.

“I’m a Marine, bottom line,” says Gallucci. “They can relate. They feel like I get it.”

The energy spills out of her. She seems to be waiting for that next phone call, the next crisis, the next Marine or sailor who needs help right now.

After she was commissioned at Quantico, Va., in 1998, Gallucci was on active duty for 6½ years. She was out of the Marines, training for the Olympic triathlon when an injury ended her bid. She returned to the Marines, as a reserve officer, after the death of a good friend, Maj. Megan McClung, in Iraq in December 2006. She went back to be part of the Wounded Warrior Regiment. She is its Northeast recovery care coordinator.

The regiment was created last year. The Marines say it is the first unit of its kind in any service. It helps Marines and eligible sailors through the tough times brought on by wounds and injuries and all the uncertainty that comes with them. It helps them after discharge, at a time when many might have thought the Marines no longer played a part in their lives.

“They’re well taken care of when they’re on active duty,” says Gallucci. “But when they come out, there’s a gap. We sometimes have to walk them into the VA.

“Most of the ones I work with are separated. The Marine Corps doesn’t overlook anybody.”

Gallucci lives in North Kingstown with her husband, John, who was in the Navy when they met during flight training at Pensacola, Fla. Their plans are sometimes interrupted by a phone call. It might be from a Marine or a parent of a Marine or a charitable organization. It could be about domestic violence or drug relapse or any of the ever-lengthening list of problems that Marines bring home. And Gallucci is back on duty. She goes to Marines’ homes, talks with their families, talks with their kids, puts a plan together. Sometimes, she takes another Marine with her.

She says she asks two things of the Marines she helps — that they be completely honest with her and that they refer her to three other Marines who might need help.

She has learned that there are big differences in what is done for veterans from one state to another. In Massachusetts, she says, there is a veterans service officer for every 12,000 veterans. There is nothing like that in Rhode Island. In Massachusetts, there is a fantastic suicide prevention team. There is nothing like that in Rhode Island.

She’ll work on that, along with all those problems that come to the Wounded Warrior Regiment.

But this week, she did some-thing completely different, or tried to. She made plans to climb Mount Washington and leave her cell phone behind.

She never made it to New Hampshire. She had to see a Marine.

To contact Captain Gallucci, call the Wounded Warrior Regiment at (877) 487-6299.

bkerr@projo.com