Officials are slated to break ground May 1 at Dover AFB, Del., for a new Fisher House that will be dedicated to families of fallen service members. Dover is home to the Air Force Mortuary Affairs Operations Center, which operates DOD’s sole Port Mortuary. Currently family and friends who travel to Dover to witness a Dignified Transfer are housed in local area hotels. Todd Rose, the center’s mortuary affairs division director, said, “Our mission is two-fold: dignity, honor, and respect to our fallen service members and care for their families.” President Obama donated $250,000 of his $1.4 million Nobel Peace Prize money to the Fisher House organization, which said in a release the money would fund facilities at Dover—an eight-bedroom facility expected to be completed this fall—and the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. (Dover report by A1C Matthew Hubby) (Also see Fisher House Web site)
A new report from the Government Accountability Office calls for the Pentagon’s Chief Technology Officer to have budget certification authority over the military services’ research and development accounts—a move the services say would add a burdensome and unnecessary layer of bureaucracy.
