The damage from sequestration to the Air Force’s readiness “will extend into Fiscal ’14” even if sequestration is undone before the end of this fiscal year, said Air Force Secretary Michael Donley on Tuesday. He told defense reporters in Washington, D.C., that standing down pilots and weapon system operators due to slashed flying and training hours means it will take “anywhere from three to six months” into Fiscal 2014 to get proficiency levels back up to “combat mission-ready status.” The problem will be much worse in weapon system sustainment, he said. Deferring depot maintenance on aircraft and engines will be harder to catch up on because “that’s a capacity-limited sort of situation,” and it may not be possible to accelerate it. The deferrals will “ripple through the depot maintenance system over many months, and in some cases, may take a year or more,” said Donley. “It will take a while to dig out” of the deferred maintenance hole, he said during the April 23 meeting.
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.