Air Force Special Operations Command’s 8th Special Operations Squadron has returned to Florida after a Southwest Asia stint in which the airmen flew their last missions in the MC-130E Combat Talon I—ending 41 years of active-duty service for the aircraft. The squadron flew the Talon I on the 1970 assault on the Son Tay prisoner of war camp in North Vietnam, participated in the 1980 Desert One hostage rescue attempt in Iran, transported Gen. Manuel Noriega from Panama following Operation Just Cause, and made multiple deployments for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. (Read more here.) Now the unit will transition to AFSOC’s new CV-22, starting in September.
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.