The first cadre of 20 airmen who have been helping other airmen transition from the stresses and trauma of combat to their normal lives back home is set to conclude its stint within the next month at the Deployment Transition Center at Ramstein AB, Germany. These 20 career field facilitators, as they are known, have been at the center since it stood up in July as USAF’s first facility dedicated to this purpose. Themselves combat veterans, they have assisted more than 930 airmen in the explosive ordnance disposal, security forces, and vehicle operator career fields prepare to return to home station and their families after combat deployments. “There’s no way we could be as effective without them,” said Capt. Heather DeShone, DTC program manager, of the CFFs. She added, “They speak the right language and they’ve been there, done that.” (Ramstein report by Capt. John Ross)
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.