Nearly 30 percent of the 834,463 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans treated at Veterans Affairs Department medical facilities have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, reports The Daily Beast, citing new VA analysis. Veterans advocates said these data support what they’ve long suspected—that VA officials continue to underestimate the number of recent vets suffering from PTSD, states the Oct. 21 report. However, a VA spokesperson told the newspaper that the agency still believes the overall PTSD rate is about 20 percent across the full population of all Iraq and Afghanistan veterans—not just those who have visited VA facilities. Previous reports showed that military personnel who deployed multiple times to Iraq and Afghanistan are more than three times as likely to screen positive for PTSD and major depression than those with no prior deployments, states the report.
The Air Force and Boeing agreed to a nearly $2.4 billion contract for a new lot of KC-46 aerial tankers on Nov. 21. The deal, announced by the Pentagon, is for 15 new aircraft in Lot 11 at a cost of $2.389 billion—some $159 million per tail.