In September, four soldiers at Ft. Hood — veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — took their own lives in the course of one week. More than a hundred Army troops have killed themselves this year. Host Scott Simon talks with Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, and his wife, Deborah, about the increased efforts to curb suicides by military servicemen and women.

SCOTT SIMON, host:

In September, four soldiers at Fort Hood, veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, took their own lives in a single week. More than 120 U.S. Army troops have killed themselves this year. Earlier this week, we went to the Pentagon to discuss the tragedy of the growing number of suicides in the U.S. armed forces with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, and his wife Deborah.

The Mullens have struggled to find a link among these suicides.

Admiral MIKE MULLEN (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff): There’s just a lot we don’t know. And we have doubled our rate since 2004. We now exceed the rate in the population in the country. As I’ve looked into this and tried to understand it, it turns out […]