Lawmakers appear to be taking sides in a battle for defense budget dollars centering on the Air Force’s two strategic airlifters—specifically the C-5A vs. the C-17. One side favors revamping the 48 oldest C-5s, while the other side wants to buy more than the currently authorized 190 new C-17s. At a March 7 House Armed Services Air and Land Forces Subcommittee hearing, C-5 advocates Jim 
Marshall (D-Ga.) and Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.) questioned the Air Force’s desire to retire the C-5As, maintaining that, once the A models receive new avionics and new engines they will last another 25 years and that such upgrades cost less than buying new C-17s—Gingrey said “one-third that of a new C-17.” They also noted that the C-5 can haul some military equipment that won’t fit on the C-17. And, Marshall maintained that once upgraded, the notorious 49.5 percent mission capability rate would rise nearly to the level of the C-17. (See below.) On the other side, James Saxton (R-N.J.) noted that the number of times the Air Force can fly the mammoth C-5 fully loaded “is really small,” arguing that just because it can haul twice the load of a C-17 doesn’t make it “the ultimate airplane.”
A provision in the fiscal 2025 defense policy bill will require the Defense Department to include the military occupational specialty of service members who die by suicide in its annual report on suicide deaths, though it remains to be seen how much data the department will actually disclose.