Missouri Democrat Ike Skelton, who served in the House for 34 years and led the House Armed Services Committee from 2006 to 2010, died at an Arlington, Va., hospital on Oct. 28. He was 81. “The Department of Defense lost a lifelong friend yesterday with the passing of former Rep. Ike Skelton,” said Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel in a statement on Tuesday. “His leadership of the House Armed Services Committee, and his passion for our men and women in uniform, helped make the military he loved stronger,” said Hagel. “America has lost one of her greatest sons,” said HASC Chairman Rep. Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) in a release. “As the chairman of the Armed Services Committee during a particularly contentious time, he never let partisanship get ahead of his primary responsibility—our troops and their families,” said McKeon. Skelton is credited with building up Missouri’s military installations, including securing the B-2 stealth bomber mission for Whiteman Air Force Base in the late 1980s after the installation lost its Minutemen II ICBMs, reported the Kansas City Star. (See also AFA 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.