An Associated Press report on Wednesday made much of the deployment of Army Patriot missile batteries to Jordan and the dispatch of US F-16s there, as tensions between Jordan and war-torn Syria reportedly escalate. However, Air Force and Defense Department officials told the Daily Report on June 5 that the deployment of the F-16s is part of the long-planned annual Exercise Eager Lion, a US Central Command-sponsored event held with the Jordanian armed forces and other allies in the region. Denver’s ABC New 7 channel reported that six F-16s and more than 60 personnel from the Colorado Air National Guard’s 140th Wing departed Buckley Air Force Base on Tuesday for the exercise. According to an Air Forces Central Command statement, Eager Lion, which runs through June 20, is a valuable training opportunity for US airmen that promotes closer military-to military ties, helps establish clear lines of communication with allies, and identifies “regional and global challenges that require collective responses.”
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.