Post-traumatic stress disorder

A Marine Sergeant and a war correspondent reflect on the physical and psychic cost of war. Marine sergeant TJ Brennan was hit by the blast from a rocket-propelled grenade and suffered traumatic brain injury. Photographer Finbarr O'Reilly was embedded with Brennan's unit in Afghanistan.

While embedded with troops in Iraq, David Morris almost died when a Humvee he was riding in ran over a roadside bomb. His book explores the history and science of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Kayla Williams and Brian McGough met in Iraq in 2003. Williams' new memoir, Plenty of Time When We Get Home, describes their homecoming after McGough suffered physical and cognitive injuries in an IED explosion.

Before it was called PTSD, soldiers traumatized in war were described as "shell-shocked" or "battle-fatigued." The new HBO documentary Wartorn, directed by Ellen Goosenberg Kent and Jon Alpert, chronicles the history of PTSD on the American battlefield from the Civil War to the present.

The rate of Army suicides has doubled since 2004. But treating suicidal soldiers is difficult because many don't seek help. Psychologist Craig Bryan, who works with returning vets, discusses the combat stresses that lead to PTSD and suicide -- and what the military is doing to help.

A staff writer for The New Yorker, Jane Mayer joins Fresh Air host Terry Gross to talk about what she discovered while researching her upcoming article "The Predator War." The story explores the ethics and controversies surrounding the CIA's covert drone program, in which remote-controlled airplanes target and kill terror suspects within Pakistan — a country that's a U.S. ally, not an adversary.

Puppies Behind Bars is a canine training program that enlists prison inmates to train puppies as bomb-sniffing dogs or as service animals. Many of the dogs are then paired with wounded or disabled veterans.