The Florida Air National Guardsmen who manned the Southeast Air Defense Sector at Tyndall AFB, Fla., have closed the door on 37 years of history and opened a new one as an Air Operations Center in-the-making. A Nov. 21 news release says a ceremonial switchover took place Friday, but the SEADS airmen have been working toward the change in mission for about four years. According to Col. David Kriner, commander of SEADS and now the 601st AOC, there’s more training and integration to be done. The new AOC will support the Continental US NORAD region, providing air tasking orders and strategy-to-task functions, said Kriner. Picking up SEADS old mission—air defense of the southeastern US—has been split between the Northeast Air Defense Sector and Western Air Defense Sector.
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.