Former Army Air Corps SSgt. Roy E. Talbott, 84, received a Purple Heart earlier this week during a ceremony at the Taj Mahal at Randolph AFB, Tex., for injuries he sustained during an attack by Japanese fighter planes in the Pacific Theater during World War II, reports Robert Goetz. Talbott, who was a B-24 gunner with the 5th Bomb Group, and the rest of the crew were returning to Los Negros Island after a May 1944 bombing mission when they were attacked. Their bomber crash-landed on a dirt runway at New Guinea. His daughter, Army Col. Donna Talbott, worked with the Air Force Personnel Center and the Military Order of the Purple Heart to arrange the award.
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.