Beginning 
in January, the Air Force Officer Training School’s basic officer training course at Maxwell AFB, Ala., will be nine weeks long, three weeks shorter than it is now, announced school officials. The change results from finding efficiencies in the course’s scheduling processes and curriculum, said OTS Commandant Col. Thomas Coglitore in a Dec. 4 Maxwell release. “Our staff was able to adapt its operations and curriculum in several innovative ways to save money and airmen’s time while still producing fully qualified and capable second lieutenants,” he said. The course syllabus is now pared down to the minimum necessary to fulfill federal commissioning standards, states the release. “There are 116 tasks directed by Air Force instructions to commission someone as an officer and 10 more from the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” said Coglitore. He continued, “I am comfortable that we are not lowering standards, but becoming more efficient with how we schedule and conduct the training.” In Fiscal 2012, 642 second lieutenants graduated from the course; 1,055 new officers are expected to graduate in this fiscal year from across the Air Force’s Active Duty and reserve components, states the release. (Maxwell report by A1C William Blankenship)
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.