Members of the House want to establish a badge honoring airmen who have served as part of combat medical evacuation missions over the past six decades. Language they have included in H.R. 5136, the House’s version of the Fiscal 2011 defense authorization bill, would authorize the Air Force Secretary to issue this badge to airmen who have served as “a pilot or crewmember of a helicopter medical evacuation ambulance” in combat on or after June 25, 1950. The language leaves it up to the SECAF to prescribe the requirements for the badge. The House lawmakers also included language for similar badges for Army, Marine Corps, and Navy combat medevac personnel. The House passed H.R 5136 in May. The Senate has not yet passed its version of the bill, which, coming out of the Senate Armed Services Committee, did not include similar language.
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.