Some 16 Air Force medics deployed to El Salvador for a US Southern Command medical readiness exercise that ended Dec. 13 treated 7,300 patients on the country’s southeastern coast. They got translation assistance from Peace Corp volunteers and spouses of US military members on embassy duty. SOUTHCOM plans to run 64 similar exercises in 17 Caribbean, Central, and South American countries through September 2008.
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.