>>> military suicides are surging. listen to this, averaging now nearly one a day this year. the pentagon reports 154 service members committed suicide in the first 159 days of 2012 . that is higher than the number of service members killed in action so far this year in afghanistan. nbc news pentagon correspondent jim joins me right now. what is behind this number?
>> i can tell you this is one of the most frustrating issues i've ever seen for pentagon and military officials. and if you ask them, what is behind the sudden spike.
>> suicides among active duty and reserve members? they'll tell you, we don't know. they don't have any idea. they say this is a very complex issue and that, so far, they look at this as only a short-term spike and not yet a trend. the worst of these trends occurred about three years ago when the number of suicides doubled and have remained at a level of about 300 per year. that's close to that one a day, as you mentioned a minute ago. according to pentagon and military officials, they've been spending millions of dollars. they put together a couple of task forces. the one issue that they're really trying to push is awareness, that every troop has to keep an eye on his brother, his fellow soldier, marine, airmen, sailor. and if there's any sign it has to be reported. but one of the issues here, according to military officials, is that even if they recognize somebody as a potential threat, there's no way to monitor them, really, 24 hours a day . the army, for example, is spending $50 million on a five-year study, which should be due by the end of 2014 . but in their interim reports, even these mental health experts from both the military and the civilian world can only say this is very complex.
>> all right. and as i understand it, the army convened its suicide prevention group earlier this week to study what is happening there. thank you very much, nick. greatly appreciate
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