Air Force officials on Friday will bury Col. Leo S. Boston of Canon City, Colo., with full military honors at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. Defense Department forensic scientists identified the Vietnam War pilot’s remains in April. Boston went missing over North Vietnam west of the Black River in Son La Province on April 29, 1966, while flying his A-1E Skyraider during a search and rescue mission. Then a captain, he flew with the 602nd Fighter Squadron out of Thailand. DOD considered him missing-in-action until April 1978, when his status changed to presumed dead. The Air Force promoted Boston to the rank of colonel while he was listed as MIA. Between 1996 and 2005, joint US-Vietnamese teams investigated Boston’s case, eventually recovering aircraft wreckage, human remains, and crew-related equipment that led to his identification. (Colorado Springs release)
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.