ami nyberger miller, for survivors left behind after suicides, and in boston, ronald kessler, the principal investigator of the harvard medical site for study for resilience in service members. and professor kessler that word, resilience, the army has tried to build it into soldiers in a strong way. and if i remember from the survey, those kinds of things didn't work. is that right? >> no, that's not right. the service didn't look at that. but there was a report that was quite critical of the army program for resilience training. and it's in the early days, it's a smart idea to try to develop ways of strengthening people before they're exposed to trauma. but we don't know a great deal about how to prevent the onset of mental disorder. we're much better at treating disorders after they occur than preventing them before they occur. we're in the fortunate position in an odd way though, because as you noted from the very beginning, ray, the rates of mental disorders are quite high in the army and occur often before the soldier joins the force. so early detection before they get into the army, t

ronald kessler of harvard medical school is one of the principal investigators. he joins us now. welcome. first, remind us of the extent of this problem and what piece of it were you most focused on? >> well, the extent of the problem is that roughly 18 out of every 100,000 soldiers commit suicide every year. so we're talking about really still quite a small number of people, but it's higher than the civilian population, and i was involved in the part of the study that looked at surveys to try to understand what the risk factors might be for these suicides. of course, the suicides are just the tip of the iceberg. there are many more suicide attempts, many more people thinking about killing themselves and life isn't worth living and so forth. so the whoag range of mental health outcome. >> brown: research shows many soldiers suffered from mental illness before coming into the military. explain what you found. >> that's true. the rates of mental illness among soldiers is considerably higher than in the civilian population, looking at people the same age, sex and education. part of

figurely, director of tulane university's traumatology institute, and amy miller, and in boston ronald kessler, the investigator for the army study to assess risk and resilience in service members. professor, that word, resilien resilience. the army has tried to build it into it's soldiers in a thought-out way, a programmatic way, and one of the findings from the survey is that those kinds of things didn't work. is that right? >> well, no, that's not right. the survey didn't look at that. but there was a recent report from the institute of medicine that was quite critical about the army's program for resiliency. it's in the early days. it's a smart idea, it seems to me, to try to develop ways of strengthening people before they are exposed to trauma. but we don't know a great deal about how to prevent the on set of mental disorders. we're much better at treating mental disorders after they occur than at preventing them before they occur. we're in the fortunate position in an odd way, because as you noted in the beginning, ray, the rates of mental disorders are quite high in the army and many o