The Air Force has decided to host cyber warfare training at Keesler AFB, Miss., dashing hopes of at least two other Air Education and Training Command bases—Goodfellow and Sheppard in Texas—that felt they were good candidates for the new mission once USAF announced Lackland AFB, Tex., as its preferred location for 24th Air Force, the new cyberspace operations numbered air force. According to a report by the Standard-Times, the Goodfellow community believes the base may still have a cyber role. “We’re still optimistic here that we’ll get a significant slice of the cyber training mission, whatever that is, when things settle down in probably … six months or a year,” retired Col. Charlie Powell, a member of the Goodfellow Air Force Base Coordinating Group, told the newspaper. And, the Times Record News reports that Sen. Kaye Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.) still believes both Goodfellow and Sheppard are candidates for future cyber roles, saying she would be “making that case to the Pentagon as it plans for Fiscal Year 2011 and beyond.” Meanwhile, Keesler will be transforming its current communications and information program to incorporate cyber training and plans to finalize the curriculum during a meeting early next month with representatives from the Air Staff, AETC, Air Force Space Command, and the Air Force Institute of Technology. (Keesler report by Susan Griggs)
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.