One General’s Quest to Vibe Check Air Force Culture

March 21, 2024 | By David Roza

JOINT BASE MCGUIRE-DIX-LAKEHURST, N.J.—Most Air Force conferences focus on tactics and technology, but an event held at the U.S. Air Force Expeditionary Center headquarters earlier this year focused on so-called “soft” skills: listening, mentoring, team-building, and connecting with people.

More than 100 USAFEC squadron, group, and wing commanders and senior enlisted leaders from as far as Guam and Germany attended the four-day conference, with the goal of sharpening their tools for building strong unit culture at their home stations.

“We’re not going to directly tell you what you should do or what you should think about culture in your units,” USAFEC commander Maj. Gen. John Klein told the participants. “Really it’s a tool bag, and you can choose the tools that you need based on the situation you face to help you intentionally engineer the culture of your squadron.”

The conference is part of a larger effort Klein started that he calls “Forging Warrior Hearts,” which aims to use culture to strengthen Airmen for challenges both at home and in a possible war with China, which experts warn could be bloodier than any conflict the U.S. military has faced in decades.

Gen. Mike Minihan, Klein’s boss and the head of Air Mobility Command, has championed the phrase “warrior heart,” which emphasizes holistic fitness, teamwork, and “the will to win.” Klein took the idea a step further after a string of deaths by suicide and drug overdose at JBMDL in late 2022 and early 2023. Mental health providers were overloaded, and the support programs rolled out by the Air Force over the years seemed insufficient.

“It made me start thinking, ‘How can we get upstream of this problem?’” he said. “A lot of our programs and messaging were reactive, on the right side of the spectrum. How do we proactively forge true mental health, instead of reactively treating mental illness?”

The answer, Klein argued, is to build up the sense of connection and pride Airmen feel about themselves, their unit, and their mission—strong unit culture.

“You can probably walk into a section and you can tell ‘hey something’s really good here,’” he said at the conference. “There’s a vibe, there’s a spring in their step, and you can just sense the pride, the purpose, the connectedness there in that group, amongst those Airmen.”

U.S Air Force Maj. Gen. John M. Klein, U.S. Air Force Expeditionary Center commander, speaks to members of the 621 Contengency Response Wing at an all call, Feb. 21, 2024. (U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Levi Reynolds)

Forging Warrior Hearts is meant to push leaders to engineer strong cultures in their units. But culture and vibes are subjective in an Air Force where flight hours, equipment availability, and other objective results mean everything. Even defining culture is open to interpretation. Klein defined it as “how things are done around here” while his command chief, Chief Master Sgt. Courtney Freeman, defined it as “that’s not how things are done around here.”

“You tell a maintainer to go fix an airplane and they can see with their eyes and know with their actions that they corrected something or moved the needle,” USAFEC command chief Chief Master Sgt. Courtney Freeman told Air & Space Forces Magazine. “With culture, that’s a hard thing to do. You can’t necessarily put your finger on it. You can’t touch it.”

So why fly USAFEC leaders around the world and take precious time away from their units for something that won’t show up on a readiness report? Because it touches everything that does, Klein said. A unit with strong culture, he believes, performs better.

“It’s an investment in the institution of the Air Force,” he said. “How senior leaders talk about our profession—and what we talk about—has an impact upon how our Airmen perform their duties and how they find their way. They are tomorrow’s Air Force, so this is our institutional imperative.”

A Loneliness Epidemic

JBMDL is not the only Air Force base affected by suicide. Sixty-four active-duty Airmen died by suicide in 2022, 51 in 2021, 81 in 2020, and 82 in 2019. Klein believes unit culture plays a key role. He cited the 19th-century sociologist Émil Durkheim, who found that higher rates of suicide corresponded with lower levels of social integration among groups of Catholic and Protestant Europeans. Speakers at the conference traced a similar thread in America today.

“We are in an epidemic of loneliness,” said Dr. Kimberly Dickman, an assistant professor who teaches human relationships and sexuality at the U.S. Air Force Academy.

Dickman cited a 2023 U.S. Surgeon General report that attributed growing isolation to multiple factors, including:

smaller families

declining attendance in labor unions, religious groups, and community organizations

rising economic insecurity

heavy use of smartphones, the internet and other technologies that can isolate individuals

the COVID-19 pandemic

Loneliness is associated with a greater risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia, stroke, depression, anxiety, and premature death, wrote U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy.

“The mortality impact of being socially disconnected is similar to that caused by smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day,” he noted. “And the harmful consequences of a society that lacks social connection can be felt in our schools, workplaces, and civic organizations, where performance, productivity, and engagement are diminished.”

Loneliness can affect any age group, but data shows higher rates among young adults in their late teens and early 20s—the same age group of many Airmen and Guardians. As of March 2023, 43 percent of the active duty enlisted Air Force and Space Force were below the age of 26. Those young troops account for about half of all military suicides, according to a 2023 report made by the Pentagon’s Suicide Prevention and Response Independent Review Committee (SPRIRC).

minot — Airmen try to stay warm before launching an aircraft at Minot Air Force Base, N.D., Jan 26, 2017. (U.S. Air Force photo/Senior Airman J.T. Armstrong)

Social isolation is not the only factor in mental health. Many Airmen do not have enough money for food and housing, while others struggle with staff shortages, dilapidated dormitories, not enough slots for child care, and faulty computer programs that disrupt vital work tasks, SPRIRC found.

Indeed, when asked what he would fix immediately, one staff sergeant at the conference spoke for many of his peers when he answered “more people.”

“If I could wave a magic wand, it would definitely just be more people to take stress away from each person,” he said. “That way they will have energy to go out after work instead of just sitting at home taking a nap and becoming introverted.”

Staffing, rent prices, and child care slots are not entirely under a wing commander’s control, but Klein said strong connections can help leaders act on them before they become a crisis, and develop more effective solutions.

“Those types of issues don’t emerge overnight,” he said. “They can be very complex, and if the leaders are not paying attention to those things that are important for the health and well-being of our Airmen and their families, then it’s entropy: things can slip and slide until it becomes a problem.”

‘We Had to Create Space for That”

2017 was a difficult time for then-Brig. Gen. John Nichols and Chief Master Sgt. James Lyda to take command at the 509th Bomb Wing at Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo. The wing had suffered seven deaths by suicide over the past 14 months, and an eighth occurred shortly after the change of command.

“It was pretty heinous, we had people running each other off the road, we had people who were not just getting DUIs but getting DUIs and killing civilians on the road,” the now-retired Lyda said at the conference. “It was a tough place to be.”

Isolation was part of the problem: a survey found that the most common complaint among Airmen at Whiteman was “I don’t fit in, I don’t feel like I belong, I’m not connected to the mission and I don’t have a purpose,” Lyda recalled.

The general and the chief decided that they were “going to get out of our offices and connect with Airmen,” he said.

air force culture — Retired Chief Master Sgt. James Lyda speaks at the U.S. Air Force Expeditionary Center’s Culture Conference at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, N.J., Jan. 31, 2024. (U.S. Air Force photo by Master Sgt. Robert Hicks)

Their first order of business was to host a weekly get-together for all Airmen and their families at the base club, where Lyda said he and Nichols talked with every single Airman individually.

“We didn’t do it because we were going to fix it, because we weren’t,” the chief said. “We did it to set an example. So that our seniors and our masters and our lieutenant colonels and our majors would buy into it. Whatever your boss finds interesting, you find fascinating, right?”

It paid off: Lyda said the base went from eight suicides in 16 months to zero in the next 24.

“It was amazing the culture shift that happened when we started reconnecting with people on a real level,” he said.

It worked in the Army too. During his time leading infantry and Ranger battalions, Army Col. Michael Kloepper found that fewer Soldiers reported anxiety on health and wellness surveys when they felt connected with their squad. But building connections requires time and space.

“When you create space for people to work out together, and then go eat together, there’s something really tight there,” Kloepper said at the conference. “We had to create space for that: no meetings before 9:30 so that people have time to eat together. And we had to invest in our dining facilities because people were choosing to go eat at other places because the food wasn’t very good.”

Connections often happen naturally on deployments, said Staff Sgt. Richard Gregory, a distribution supervisor with the 87th Logistics Readiness Squadron at JBMDL.

“You build a wild amount of camaraderie when you’re deployed, just because you have to find ways to have fun,” he said. “People come to stateside bases and it’s a little different here, no one wants to hang out.”

When he was stationed at Joint Base Charleston, S.C., for example, Gregory often spent weekends going to the beach or hanging out in the city rather than staying on the base. But at rural locations such as JBMDL, where there are not as many opportunities to have fun off-base, Gregory said he appreciated his squadron commander putting together group 5k runs and an event called “Combat Dining-Out,” where squadron members got together for water gun fights, food, and drinks.

“Everyone’s on the same level pretty much at that point, so that was actually really enjoyable,” he said. “Those don’t happen at every base. They’re pretty rare.”

Which activities work best for building cohesion is open to debate. When Klein and Freeman first laid out the basics of Forging Warrior Hearts in a memo and an op-ed last May, commenters on the popular unofficial Facebook page Air Force amn/nco/snco rebuked many of their suggested activities, such as formation runs, group physical training, blues inspections, wing parades, and bringing roommates back into dorm rooms.

Still, some at the conference thought the ideas had merit: preparing for blues inspections brings Airmen closer together to check each other’s uniforms; unexpected rewards such as a day-off for the best-dressed can build good habits; PT gets the endorphins flowing; and while roommates can be annoying, they can also form strong bonds with each other.

No matter what tools or activities a leader chooses, Klein emphasized that a one-off event is not enough to improve unit culture: it takes consistent effort.

“The trap is the business of the day-to-day,” he said. “So you’ve got to have a plan. Otherwise you’re overcome by events.”

Blindspots

Cohesion acts as insurance against what Kloepper called “trust-denigrating behaviors:” DUIs, suicides, drug abuse, sexual assault and harassment, discrimination, and other negative outcomes. But it can also provide a first line of defense so that Airmen do not have to rely on mental health services to overcome day-to-day challenges.

Kloepper envisioned “a continuum of care” where service members can discuss those day-to-day hardships, such as a failed test or a breakup, with their peers and mentors, saving limited mental health resources for more serious issues or chronic conditions. Then-Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force JoAnne Bass advocated for a similar system.

“When I talk to our mental health providers, they tell me that out of every 10 Airmen that come to mental health, only two need clinical mental health support; the other eight just need to know someone cares,” Bass said at a leadership symposium in February. “There is a shortage of mental health providers, but there is not a shortage of leaders and wingmen. We have to embrace community and talk to one another.”

U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Benjamin Kellum, a crew chief assigned to the 6th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron, teaches Airman 1st Class Jacob Scott, a crew chief assigned to the 6th AMXS, about components on a KC-135 Stratotanker at MacDill Air Force Base, Florida, Jan. 16, 2024. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Michael Killian)

Staff Sgt Edlin Rodriguez-Medina, also of the 87th Logistics Readiness Squadron, felt the power of a caring mentor after he moved to a new assignment at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev. Prior to that, Rodriguez-Medina was stationed in Honduras unaccompanied for a year, and he was having difficulty readjusting to life as a father in a new unit while also preparing for a promotion to staff sergeant and all the responsibilities of being a new NCO.

“I can’t say I was going through the best time in my career,” he said, but an experienced staff sergeant helped him get through it. “He had a great heart and could pretty much mold you to be the best version of yourself. I think just having him by my side and having one-on-one conversations with him definitely helped out.”

The importance of building relationships is not new. The legendary Air Force fighter pilot Brig. Gen. Robin Olds wrote in his memoir about learning it from his predecessors, men like Gens. Carl ‘Tooey’ Spaatz and Jimmy Doolittle, then using it to change the culture of the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing during the Vietnam War.

“When we weren’t flying, I was stalking through the base, looking over their shoulders, visiting the squadrons and hanging out with them at the O-club,” he wrote. “Pretty soon, I knew all of their names.”

The data bears it out. In its 2023 report, the SPRIRC found that “military personnel who positively view their leadership report better physical and mental health, reduced mental health stigma, and increased engagement in help-seeking behaviors.”

But while strong leadership is celebrated in the Air Force, the skills for fostering connection and trust can go to seed amid institutional blindspots and the daily struggle to meet requirements.

“Sometimes, organizations have mechanisms to quietly defeat programs to improve them,” said Dr. Daniel Connelly, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who teaches leadership at the Air Command and Staff College. “It’s important for any military to educate its leaders so they can identify such mechanisms and creatively respond to the challenges they present.”

Several of the speakers at the culture conference went over basic techniques for building connections, such as making eye contact, sharing vulnerability, developing emotional intelligence, and giving positive reinforcement. Do Air Force leadership schools need to teach those lessons better?

“I think everybody knows that culture is important,” Klein said. “And in a lot of cases, people just need to be reminded.”

As proof, a survey taken before the conference showed that 67 percent of the participants rated their squadron culture as “strong” or “extremely strong,” but many of them reassessed after three days at the conference.

“Sitting in your office at your squadron, you did the survey and said ‘hey I think we’re great’” one participant said. “And then you spend a little time here talking about it and went ‘h, I think I’ve got a little bit of work to do.’”

Blindspots are inevitable, which is why subordinates must feel safe calling them out, said retired Maj. Gen. Dondi Costin, former Air Force Chief of Chaplains.

“As a general rule, we think we’re doing better than our people think we’re doing,” he said. “So just ask them. Trust me, they will tell you. Maybe not at first. They’re scared of you, which might be the first problem.”

Willing to Die for Each Other

Ultimately, “Forging Warrior Hearts” is meant to help prepare the Air Force for war. Klein hopes cultivating resilience and strong bonds at home will help Airmen get through challenges not only in-garrison, but also in conflict.

“If it’s not aligned to your mission and who you are as a unit, then it’s just a club,” Klein said.

In the same vein, Kloepper said task cohesion—where members of a group share a sense of purpose—is more powerful than social cohesion, where members of a group feel familiar with each other.

“When you share a common sense of purpose, you’re willing to die for each other, for somebody with whom you have nothing in common in background but everything in common in values, standards, and purpose,” he said.

eagle team — The 621st Mobility Support Operations Squadron air mobility liaison officers and expeditionary air/ground liaison element (EAGLE) team members, ruck march together during Exercise SWAMP AVENGER at North Field, South Carolina, May 24, 2023. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Scott Warner)

After the conference ended and the participants scattered to their units, how will Klein know if USAFEC’s investment paid off? The general said leaders will be expected to report back on how they are owning culture in their usual biweekly activity report, and Klein and Freeman will see for themselves if it’s effective during their regular base visits.

“You can feel it when you walk in,” Freeman said. “You can get a sense talking with the Airmen, talking with the leadership. It’s something that you feel when you go into formations.”

It is subjective, but “some think that the most important qualities in a military’s life and performance never can be described in purely numerical terms,” said Connelly, the Air University leadership professor.

Klein and Freeman’s tenure at the helm of USAFEC will end this summer, but Klein hopes the culture conference will continue afterwards in some form. In fact, he said attendees told him they wanted a version of the conference every time the center changes command teams.

“It would be a starting point for the new set,” Klein said. “I would like to see that, but it’s up to the next commander.”

The general hopes the wider Air Force adopts a similar mindset where leaders “own” the culture of their units and proactively nurture it.

“Culture needs to come to the forefront of all of our minds as leaders,” he said. “I think what good culture boils down to is trust and belief: when you get people believing in what they’re doing, and in each other, you’re in a good place.”

Space Force Wants Operational Capability for Tactically Responsive Space in 2025

March 21, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

Editor’s Note: This story was updated March 26 after Space Systems Command clarified its statement to note that TacRS is not a formal acquisition program and thus does not have a formal IOC date.

The Space Force is expanding the scope of its upcoming mission to launch a satellite on 24 hours’ notice—and hopes to reach an initial operational capability for the effort, dubbed “Tactically Responsive Space,” in fiscal 2025.

Budget documents released this month revealed new details on USSF’s plans to build on the success of last year’s “Victus Nox” mission, which offered ground-breaking proof that the Space Force can respond swiftly to changes in the domain and the needs of combatant commanders.

Next up is “Victus Haze,” first announced last August. Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman has said that mission must go even faster than Victus Nox, which took a satellite from warehouse to orbit in just five days, putting it into orbit just 27 hours after receiving launch orders.

“I still think we have margin in the schedule,” Saltzman said at the AFA Warfare Symposium in February. “And so in Victus Haze, we’re going to set some standards that say nope, we’ve got to compress this more.”

Victus Haze will also add complexity, including multiple mission components, according to Space Force budget documents. USSF is requesting $30.05 million for Tactically Responsive Space in 2025, including funds to “support the planned launches and operations of the two VICTUS HAZE missions that will be ready for call-up in the second quarter of FY25.”

An official from the TacRS program office declined to offer details on Victus Haze due to ongoing contract negotiations. “What we can say is that an additional opportunity was approved to expand the scope of the VICTUS HAZE mission,” the offical said.

A Defense Innovation Unit official told reporters at the Satellite 2024 Conference this week that contracts for Victus Haze will likely go out in the “next couple of weeks,” Breaking Defense reported. Budget documents project a contract award in May.

After Victus Haze, the Space Force wants to “provide initial operational capabilities starting in FY 2025” and keep pressing forward with Victus Sol, with launch slated for the first half of fiscal 2026, according to budget documents.

“We consider VICTUS SOL to be our first operational mission as it will address a stated Combatant Command need,” the TacRS program official said. “We are currently developing our overarching TacRS acquisition strategy which includes operational readiness milestones for specific mission sets based on demonstrated proficiencies across our space, ground, and operations segments.”

victus nox — An image from video shows payload deployment as Firefly Aerospace successfully launched the U.S. Space Force’s VICTUS NOX mission with 24-hour notice, demonstrating a critical capability for the United States to rapidly respond to on-orbit needs during a conflict or in response to a national security threat. **Firefly Aerospace**

Details of the Victus Sol mission are not yet clear, but broadly speaking, the Space Force wants the mission to build on its ability “to launch within 24 hours of notice, match the orbital plane of a previously unknown object, and conduct rendezvous and proximity operations for inspection and characterization on an operationally relevant timeline,” according to budget documents.

Planning for a fourth “Victus” mission will start in fiscal 2025.

As China and Russia continue to develop new counterspace weapons and capabilities to deploy in space, Space Force leaders say they need the ability to respond at a pace that far exceeds the years it usually takes to develop and launch military satellites. Falling launch costs and expanded satellite manufacturing have helped make that vision more affordable.

Saltzman and other USSF leaders have noted that Victus Nox and subsequent Victus missions will help the service refine its procedures and move faster. Ultimately, though, the program official said the service won’t need to repeat the entire process of contracting, storing, moving, and launching satellites for TacRS to work.

“In the future, not all TacRS missions will be launched within 24 hours as some missions are being designed to take advantage of on-orbit, pre-positioning, and rapid manifesting opportunities,” they said.

Push for More Pentagon Budget Flexibility Faces Fierce Criticism from Senator

March 20, 2024 | By John A. Tirpak

A panel of experts who recently completed a two-year review of the Pentagon’s system for planning and executing budgets concluded that the Department of Defense needs more budget flexibility to cope with accelerating threats.

But that recommendation is already facing resistance on Capitol Hill, as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) argued during a March 20 hearing that the Pentagon already has too much funding flexibility, and that the massive cost overrun on the Air Force’s Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile proves it.

Warren, who has repeatedly criticized the cost of nuclear modernization and what she views as Pentagon overspending in general, said giving DOD more latitude to reprogram funds is “a terrible idea” during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing to discuss the report of the Commission on Planning, Programming, Budgeting and Execution Reform.

Other committee members thanked the panelists for their two years of work on the PPBE commission and said they were willing to help see some recommendations through to law, but many said they felt Congress has already given sufficient authorities to accelerate programs for rapid prototyping.

Warren, meanwhile, asserted that the initial cost estimate of Sentinel was low-balled to gain congressional approval, and that the new Nunn-McCurdy breach—when the Air Force estimated the program will cost 37 percent more than expected—“may be worse than that.”

The Air Force reported the overrun will mean the Sentinel program, baselined at $93.5 billion, will now cost $118 billion and take two years longer than expected. The service said it expected to be able to use more of the Minuteman III missile’s infrastructure for Sentinel, but that bad wiring, foundation problems, and other costs, largely civil engineering, were underestimated at the program outset.

If the Pentagon is given “more tools to cover up its mistakes, then I think it becomes even more tempting to lowball the costs and the risks of a new program. This looks to me like the perfect recipe for mismanaging tens of billions of dollars,” Warren said. “The Pentagon arguably has too much flexibility as it is, when it comes to taxpayer dollars.”

The 394-page report from the PPBE commission was released March 6 and offered 28 recommendations on how the Pentagon’s acquisition system should be changed to better “keep up or keep ahead” of China and other world competitors, panel co-chair and former Pentagon comptroller Robert Hale said at the hearing.

The recommendations called for an overhaul of how the Defense Department sets requirements, organizes program data and delegates authority to program officers. It urges new business systems, more informational engagements between the Pentagon and Congress, consolidation of budget program elements into portfolios, and new databases that both can access to stay on top of projects. The commission recommended re-naming the enterprise the “Defense Resourcing System.”

If implemented, the changes would also work to “mitigate” the effects of continuing resolutions, which keeps funding frozen at the previous year’s levels, said co-chair and former undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment Ellen Lord. Hale explained that the new rules would allow new programs to start under CRs and permit about five percent of operating monies to overlap fiscal years, to avoid mad-dash spending sprees to meet end-of-the-fiscal-year deadlines.

Warren was seemingly unmoved by the argument that the Pentagon needs more flexibility to move funds around and disregard “color of money” limits, saying it’s “terrifying” that none of the armed services except the Marine Corps have ever passed an audit.

“I think we can say from that … that DOD is not doing a good job of keeping track of where its money goes. So it’s puzzling that, despite this failure of basic internal controls, this commission is asking for DOD to have significantly more flexibility to move money around,” Warren said.

Warren asked Hale if giving the Pentagon “more flexibility to move money around from program to program makes it more likely or less likely that DOD will provide accurate cost estimates for major programs?”

Hale responded that he didn’t think the changes would affect “the accuracy of the programs because they’re moving money around within the guidelines of the Justification books, and they [already] told you how … it’s going to be spent.”

The proposed new rules would not “solve some of the problems that you are raising,” he continued, “but I don’t think it would worsen any of them and it would allow us to react to technological change or allow DOD to react to technological changes in ways that will I think, strengthen national security.”

Warren also used the hearing to criticize the yearly practice of different Pentagon organizations submitting unfunded priority lists to Congress after the budget request has been submitted, calling it a “second bite at the apple” that “leads to chaotic budgeting.”

Pentagon leadership signaled support last year for a bill sponsored by Warren to do away with unfunded priority lists, which are required by law. However, the legislation stalled and never received a vote.

Indo-Pacific Command Wants to Triple the Air Force’s Buy of Joint Strike Missiles

March 20, 2024 | By Chris Gordon

America’s Pacific forces want more missiles—and a lot of them—according to U.S. Indo-Pacific Command’s wish list for fiscal 2025. A standout of INDOPACOM’s unfunded priorities list—items not contained in the budget—is the Joint Strike Missile (JSM), an advanced standoff munition being developed for the Air Force’s F-35s.

The Air Force requested $165.9 million to procure 50 Joint Strike Missiles in FY25, and the service wants at least 200 missiles total, according to budget documents.

But in its wish list to Congress, INDOPACOM is asking for an additional $298.5 million for JSMs next year, according to the document obtained by Air & Space Forces Magazine. Each missile costs $2.8 million apiece, meaning INDOPACOM’s request, if granted, would roughly triple the Air Force’s buy of JSMs for 2025.

“The threat has continued to grow and accelerate,” Adm. John C. Aquilino, the outgoing head of INDOPACOM, told lawmakers on March 20.

The Air Force requested 48 JSMs in FY24, at a cost of $129.2 million. Aside from the missiles themselves, there are associated costs, such as testing and integration. A 2024 budget has yet to pass.

And the Air Force wants more JSMs, too. In budget documents, the service says it is currently slated to end up with 204 total JSMs, compared to the preferred inventory objective of 240. The service’s funding was pinched due to the Fiscal Responsibility Act, which capped the defense budget at 1 percent growth. Air Force officials said its procurement account was hard-hit by the required tradeoffs the service then had to make.

“Once the proposal for Lots 1 & 2 is received, procurement quantities may change based on the negotiated contract and available funding,” Air Force budget documents note.

INDOPACOM’s unfunded priorities list is part of a process in which combatant commands and services submit requests for items that could not be included in the official budget request but that they want highlight to lawmakers. This practice is somewhat controversial but legally required. Some lawmakers want to eliminate unfunded priorities lists, a move Pentagon leadership supports. Nevertheless, INDOPACOM’s list totals $11 billion for 2025.

“This intent for urgency and to move faster—any delays in those fundings or reduce fundings push everything out, and then those capabilities we’ve asked for deliver, not in a relevant time, or in a time where they don’t deliver the deterrent effect soon enough,” Aquilino told the House Armed Services Committee.

The JSM is jointly produced by Raytheon and the Norwegian defense company Kongsberg. It is designed to be carried internally in the weapons bay of the stealthy F-35 but could also be carried externally on other fighters. The conventionally-armed missile has a range of roughly 150 nautical miles, according to its manufacturers.

Other stealthy long-range cruise missiles, such as the Lockheed Martin-made JASSM standoff air-to-surface weapon and its LRASM anti-ship variant, must be carried externally on F-35s due to their size—though none of the missiles have been tested yet on the fifth-generation multirole fighter. JASSM and LRASMs are already in use on other platforms. In 2018, the Air Force conducted successful tests of the JSM, which was carried externally on F-16s, a first step before fitting the weapons into F-35s.

VCSO: Commercial Space Strategy Coming ‘Within the Next Month’

March 20, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

The Space Force’s strategy for leveraging commercial space is coming “within the next month” and will include details on the service’s program for tapping into those capabilities during a conflict, Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. Michael A. Guetlein said March 20.

Pentagon officials have been talking about the Commercial Space Strategy nearing completion for more than six months now. Speaking at a forum hosted by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute, Guetlein offered a few details on how it will look.

“We’re going to release the commercial strategy here within the next month,” said Guetlein. “In that commercial strategy, we’re going to talk about the Commercial Augmented Space Reserve. That is all about building the partnerships during peacetime with our industry partners, that we’ve never done before, so that we can share data, talk about ideas, etc., so that I can guarantee your capability will be there during times of crisis or conflict.

“Those are transparent conversations that we need to have that we haven’t been having in the past,” he added. “So we are trying to go across the entire spectrum of discussions and organizations and processes to embrace as much of the commercial partnership as we can.”

The concept of CASR has been compared to the Air Force’s Civil Reserve Air Fleet, which draws planes from U.S. airlines to provide emergency airlift in times of crisis. The fleet was last activated during the noncombatant evacuation out of Afghanistan.

For the Space Force, however, leveraging commercial capabilities is a more pressing need.

“The threat is also coming in the near term, not in the far term. So that means I don’t have time to go off and build a lot of new capability,” said Guetlein. “If you look at the DOD way of the past, we would say we needed to build the capability and own the capability. … That’s all changing. I can’t build enough capability fast enough to get after the near-term threat.”

To address the issue, the Space Force is looking to create what it calls “hybrid architectures” of military, commercial, and allied satellites that all feed data into one system, Guetlein said.

“As we do that, we’re able to reach into industry and take advantage of their innovation,” he added.

Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. Michael Guetlein speaks at the McAleese Defense Programs Conference in Washington, D.C., March 7, 2024. **U.S. Air Force photo by Eric Dietrich**

One such architecture is the Protected Tactical Enterprise Service, or PTES—a ground system that enables anti-jamming satellite communications for tactical users across all services and around the globe by using the Protected Tactical Waveform. In its 2025 budget, the Space Force wants to expand PTES to include commercial and allied satellites “to support filling critical tactical SATCOM gaps and improve overall theater warfighting SATCOM flexibility and resiliency,” according to budget documents.

The expansion effort is budgeted for $55.4 million in fiscal 2025 and $304.8 million through 2029 for demonstrations, experiments, and prototypes, with the goal of reaching initial operational capability by the end of fiscal 2026.

The Space Force also has an even bigger effort going called Commercial Satellite Communications, or COMSATCOM, which is slated to get $134.5 million in 2025 for experimenting and procuring services over wideband, narrowband, protected, and commercial communications bands.

Satellite communications may not be the only area where the Space Force turns to industry. National Reconnaissance Office director Christopher J. Scolese, speaking on the same panel as Guetlein, noted that his agency has started using commercial satellite imagery for geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) and using commercial satellite buses for its weather satellites.

“We can focus the exquisite systems on the thing that you need an exquisite system for. We can utilize the commercial systems to address many of the other issues that we have to go off and deal with,” he noted.

The Space Force and NRO are working closely on commercial integration, Guetlein and Scolese said, to include so-called “Reverse Industry Days” when the Space Force invites companies to learn about problems the service is working on and offer their own solutions, instead of detailing requirements.

“When we’re looking at what the future contracts might look like for commercial, the NRO is leading the way,” Guetlein said. “Their GEOINT contracts … we’re using that currently as our model of a way to get after having capacity during times of crisis and conflict.”

As the Air Force Weighs Privatized Dorms, How Will It Oversee Contractors?

March 20, 2024 | By David Roza

As the Air Force considers privatized housing for unaccompanied Airmen at isolated bases or in high-rent areas, the service is looking to the Navy for lessons on how to avoid the problems that have marred privatized military family housing for years.

Specifically, Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force David Flosi told lawmakers March 20 that the service is tuned to the Navy’s Public Private Venture program, which Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy James Honea said has successfully housed unaccompanied sailors for more than 20 years.

“We’re paying close attention to the Navy and the lessons that they’ve learned so that we don’t replicate some of the mistakes that came through our initial contracts that we wrote with privatizing military family housing,” Flosi said at a hearing before the House Appropriations subcommittee on military construction and veterans affairs. “We’re also learning to be more accountable through that process as well.”

The Air Force is planning to invest $1.1 billion in restoring and modernizing its dormitories, the largest such investment in more than a decade, Flosi said. The plan touches about 60 installations— 23 of which are to be completed in fiscal 2024, installations boss Ravi Chaudhary told lawmakers in February.

The fiscal 2025 budget includes funding to revamp housing at Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Va., Barksdale Air Force Base, La., Cannon Air Force Base, N.M., Goodfellow Air Force Base, Tex., and Ellsworth Air Force Base, S.D., Flosi said.

The Air Force’s first privatization project for unaccompanied housing will take place at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., though the chief did not say when that project will begin. Most military barracks, which are called dormitories in the Air Force, are run by the government, but the Navy and Army are also looking to explore or expand privatized barracks.

U.S. Airmen assigned to the 20th Fighter Wing clean different levels of a dormitory building during a dorm clean-up at Shaw Air Force Base, S.C., Jan. 28, 2017.

Chaudhary told Air & Space Forces Magazine he was confident about overseeing privatized dormitories.

“If we didn’t capture all of the lessons learned from privatized housing, we wouldn’t be worth our salt,” he said earlier this month. “So yes, any privatized approach will capture the lessons, and if, anything, make it more robust so that we don’t get into the situation that we had in 2019 with privatized housing.”

Problems with privatized family housing actually became widely known in 2018, when Reuters published an investigative series of articles on how inconsistent oversight and insufficient standards led to unsafe family housing and unaccountable contractors across the armed forces. Subcommittee ranking member Rep. Deborah Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) was skeptical contractors could improve their performance in unaccompanied housing.

“I would envision us having, in the not too distant future, hearings like we had with family housing companies,” she said at the March 20 hearing, “because the privatization process is a failure in terms of maintaining the quality of life of housing.”

The senior enlisted leaders of each branch said they shared Schultz’s concerns but said they were being careful not to repeat past mistakes.

“We also share some concerns from past history, which is why we are measuring twice to cut once in this phase,” said Sergeant Major of the Army Michael Weimer, whose service is exploring privatized unaccompanied housing at Fort Meade, Md., U.S. Army Garrison Miami, Fla., and Fort Irwin, Calif.

Honea, the top enlisted sailor, said the privatized military family housing debacle represented a failure of oversight on the part of military leaders. The Navy’s Public Private Venture (PPV) program was an exception, he said, especially for barracks like Pacific Beacon in San Diego, which bills itself as “resort-style” housing for single enlisted sailors, complete with a rooftop pool and “unmatched views of the city.”

“Private barracks like Pacific Beacon have been operating for 20-plus years largely as a success because we’ve not abdicated our responsibility in providing that oversight to ensure that our private partner is delivering on the promises that they’re going to make,” Honea said. “If we continue along that way, we’re going to do resoundingly well.”

The advantage of privatized housing is that it allows services to meet changing needs faster than with military construction funds, which can take years to turn into bricks and mortar.

Flosi said privatized housing could be particularly useful where Airmen suffer excessive commute times due to a lack of housing in remote areas. For example, Rep. Susie Lee (D-Nev.) said Airmen at Creech Air Force Base, Nev., spend as much as $400 per month on gas in order to drive 100 miles to work and back every day. Privatized housing could also be useful in areas where local rent prices outpace the basic allowance for housing, Flosi said.

The government’s own housing has had issues of its own. The Government Accountability Office published a report last year identifying serious flaws in how each service assesses its unaccompanied housing, including the Air Force. The report flagged missing heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning systems, broken fire safety systems, mold or mildew growth, water quality problems, pests, insufficient oversight from the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and other issues.

The Government Accountability Office presented images of mold found in military barracks during a Sept. 27 House Armed Services Committee hearing. **Screenshot via YouTube/U.S. House Armed Services Committee**

The index for evaluating housing conditions may also be in need of an update: the GAO analysis showed that nearly 50 percent of Air Force dormitories considered at risk of significant degradation had a condition score of 80 or above. There also is no Air Force-wide system for monitoring tenant satisfaction, which hampers leaders’ ability to perceive and respond to flaws. Privatized military family housing suffered from similar issues across the services, GAO noted.

“These problems are, unfortunately, not dissimilar from the ones we have observed and documented in privatized family housing,” Elizabeth Field, GAO’s director for defense capabilities and management, said in September. “The only real difference is that the Defense Department has felt more pressure in recent years to fix the problems in family housing than it has to fix the problems with barracks.”

For his part, Chief Master Sergeant of the Space Force John Bentivegna said the Space Force was not looking into privatized unaccompanied housing, but since many new Guardians are older and may have families or postgraduate degrees, the Space Force is “looking at what that means for dorm life, if you will, and what the infrastructure looks like.”

Still skeptical, Wasserman Schultz asked Honea what about about the Navy’s PPV agreements gave him greater confidence in terms of overseeing private contractors. He said did not have an answer ready and promised to follow up with her.

“I just hope this raises caution flags on moving forward on barracks and unaccompanied housing, because I don’t trust them [private housing contractors],” Wasserman Schultz said. “They are willing to take massive fines just as the cost of doing business, and then they do it again. So I would just really consider this a very big caution flag here that could down the road result in language coming from me.”

Pentagon Partners with Japan to Save on New Hypersonic Defense, But How Fast Can It Come?

March 20, 2024 | By Unshin Lee Harpley

Advances by both Russia and China with hypersonic weapons have the U.S. Air Force general in charge of homeland defense seriously concerned about how to detect and defend against the threat—and the new 2025 budget request is pushing hundreds of millions of dollars toward the effort.

Last week in two different congressional hearings, Gen. Gregory M. Guillot, head of the North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command, emphasized that hypersonics are “probably the most technologically challenging threat that we’re facing, as well as the most destabilizing.” Compared to intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), hypersonic missiles can fly at lower altitudes with less predictable flight patterns, resulting in shorter detection times.

Russia has made significant investments in advanced hypersonic technologies such as glide vehicles, and a 2023 Department of Defense report described China as having the world’s leading hypersonic weaponry, a concern recently emphasized by lawmakers.

Yet in its fiscal 2025 budget request, the Missile Defense Agency is actually planning to cut funds for regional hypersonic missile defense slightly, from $209 million in FY24 to $182 million.

The dip, however, is due in part to savings the agency is reaping from collaboration with Japan’s Ministry of Defense on a next-generation hypersonic missile defense system, budget documents state.

Streamlined contracting practices and the utilization of existing systems also lowered costs—savings MDA budget documents state are crucial for transitioning program requirements and system design towards developing and testing hardware and software.

Last year, the U.S. and Japan announced a joint effort to develop the Glide Phase Interceptor (GPI), involving RTX (formally known as Raytheon Technologies) and Northrop Grumman. This missile defense system launches modified missiles from U.S. Navy surface warships, aimed at intercepting hypersonic weapons during their “most vulnerable” glide phase, occurring post-launch and before re-entry into the atmosphere. The project represents the second joint development of an interceptor missile by Washington and Tokyo, following the two allies’ successful collaboration on the advanced interceptor missile project, Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) Block IIA.

MDA’s budget request stated the GPI is scheduled for delivery in fiscal 2035. However, Congress mandated in its 2024 National Defense Authorization Act that the Glide Phase Interceptor program achieve initial operational capability by the end of 2029 and full operational capability by the end of 2032.

Lawmakers have shown a willingness to add money to meet its hypersonic defense requirements, though. In the 2024 NDAA, they doubled authorized spending for hypersonic defense, adding $225 million to the Pentagon’s $208 million request aimed to accelerate development and fielding of the GPI.

For to GPI to shoot hypersonic missile downs, the U.S. will first have to detect and track them. Accordingly, Guillot cited the Long Range Discrimination Radar (LRDR)—with a 220 degree wide field of view and arrays measuring 60 feet high by 60 feet wide—as one of his “top priorities.”

MDA is seeking $100.9 million for LRDR in fiscal 2025, relatively consistent with the previous year’s request of $103 million. The system will provide “persistent long-range midcourse discrimination, precision tracking, and hit assessment,” according to budget documents, with particular focus on potential long-range missile threats from the Pacific theater.

“LRDR’s improved discrimination capability in the Missile Defense System architecture increases the defensive capacity of the homeland defense interceptor inventory by enabling conservation of Ground Based Interceptors,” budget documents state.

An LRDR system has already been initially fielded at Clear Space Force Station, Alaska. But 2024 and 2025 are poised to be pivotal years for the capability, as MDA outlined plans in its budget to test and incorporate it into the agency’s “increments” and achieve operational acceptance and transfer of the system to the U.S. Space Force.

Aside from GPI and LRDR, the Missile Defense Agency’s 2025 hypersonic defense budget includes $76 million for its Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor prototyping program. In February, MDA and the Space Development Agency worked together to launch a batch of missile tracking satellites into low-Earth orbit, including MDA’s HBTSS and SDA’s Tracking Layer spacecraft. For the next several years, MDA wants to conduct on-orbit tests and operations with the satellites.

Tom Stafford—Test Pilot, Gemini and Apollo Astronaut—Dies at 93

March 19, 2024 | By John A. Tirpak

Lt. Gen. Thomas P. Stafford, a U.S. Air Force test pilot, an astronaut on two Gemini and two Apollo missions, and an important figure in the development of stealth technology, died on March 18 at the age of 93.

Stafford “wrote the book” on basic test flight techniques still taught today, and his space flights were all highly significant. As commander of Apollo 10 in 1969, Stafford led the dress rehearsal for Apollo 11’s moon landing, taking his lunar module within nine miles of the moon’s surface, and proving out nearly all other flight aspects of the landing missions that followed. As commander of the July, 1975 Apollo-Soyuz Test Program, Stafford pioneered international cooperation in space with the Soviet Union, laying a foundation for the two countries to later jointly build and inhabit the International Space Station.

After leaving NASA in 1975, Stafford commanded the Experimental Flight Test Center at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., where he supervised testing of the A-10, F-15 and F-16 fighters and the B-1B bomber. He also oversaw secret aircraft activities at Groom Lake, including development and test of the Have Blue experimental stealth aircraft, and later wrote the requirements for the F-117 attack plane which resulted from it. While at Edwards, Stafford also continued to fly, including surreptitiously-acquired Soviet fighters. Having learned Russian for the Apollo-Soyuz program, he was also a key debriefer of Russian pilot Viktor Byelenko, who defected to the West with a then-new MiG-25 in 1976.

In his last Air Force job, Stafford was deputy chief of staff for research, development and acquisition. He drafted the requirements for the F-117, as well as the AGM-129 stealth cruise missile and the B-2 bomber. He also outlined the Advanced Tactical Fighter roadmap which eventually culminated in the F-22. He retired from the Air Force in 1979.

Born in Oklahoma, Stafford served with the Oklahoma National Guard in high school. In 1952, he graduated near the top of his class from the U.S. Naval Academy with honors in engineering. However, to get access to the hottest airplanes, he opted for an Air Force commission.

He earned his wings in 1953 and went into fighters, flying the F-86D in Florida, South Dakota, and Germany. He was picked for the test pilot school, from which he graduated first in his class in 1959. Soon thereafter, as a test pilot instructor, he co-wrote the manuals “Pilot’s Handbook for Performance Flight Testing” and “Aerodynamics Handbook for Performance Flight Testing,” which are still assigned today.

Stafford was a finalist for the Mercury program but was an inch too tall to fit in the cramped and was turned down on that point alone. He re-applied to be an astronaut, but while he was waiting, he applied to and was accepted at Harvard Business School. He was about to start classes in 1962 when he got word he’d been chosen for the “New Nine” astronaut group and accepted the assignment with NASA. That group would earn their space spurs in the two-man Gemini craft, and those who survived all went on to command Apollo moon missions.

Gemini 6, in December, 1965, was Stafford’s first space mission. He and mission commander Wally Schirra made the first rendezvous—but not a docking—with another crewed spacecraft, Gemini 7. Rendezvous was the critical element in the plan to go to the moon.

Six months later, in May, 1966, Stafford commanded Gemini 9, flying into space with pilot Gene Cernan. They replaced the prime crew at virtually the last minute, after astronauts Elliot See and Charles Basset were killed in a T-38 crash.

The mission was fraught with problems, with the loss of their Agena target vehicle in a launch pad explosion, and the substitute vehicle unable to jettison its launch shroud in orbit. Cernan was to have tested a jet backpack on a spacewalk, but grave unexpected difficulties and Cernan’s exhaustion maneuvering in his stiff, reinforced space suit drove Stafford to abort the rest of the test. Cernan barely managed to re-enter the ship. When the guidance computer failed, Stafford calculated re-entry with paper and pencil. The overall difficulties and potential disaster of losing Cernan on the mission pushed NASA to create an underwater spacewalk rehearsal capability.

Astronauts Thomas Stafford (right) and Eugene Cernan wave to the crowd aboard the aircraft carrier USS Wasp as they emerge from their Gemini-9 capsule on June 6, 1966. John C. Stonesifer (far right), with the Manned Spacecraft Center’s Landing and Recovery Division, was onboard to greet the astronauts. NASA photo

Three years later, in May, 1969, Stafford commanded Apollo 10, and, reunited with Cernan, was the first to pilot the lunar module, nicknamed “Snoopy,” in lunar orbit. The two mapped landing sites in the Sea of Tranquility for Apollo 11, and contended with a faulty guidance system, but safely re-docked with the command module, nicknamed “Charlie Brown.” On the return, along with command module pilot John Young, the crew set a re-entry speed record of nearly 25,000 miles per hour. Together, they had performed all elements of the moon landing but the landing itself, which took place two months later in July, 1969.

After Apollo 10, Stafford served as head of the astronaut office, managing astronaut assignments and specialties for the remainder of the Apollo moon landing and Skylab programs. He then served as Deputy Director of Flight Crew Operations at Johnson Space Center, Texas, bearing the rank of Brigadier General; the first serving astronaut at that rank.

Stafford was the co-commander of the Apollo-Soyuz program in 1975, learning Russian and helping develop the adapter that made it possible for the two highly dissimilar craft to dock. Along with astronauts Deke Slayton and Vance Brand, Stafford docked with a Soyuz bearing cosmonauts Alexei Leonov—first man to make a spacewalk—and Valeriy Kubasov, who shared mementos and conducted experiments for 44 hours before undocking and making their separate ways back to Earth. The mission lasted nine days in total. Stafford was the first U.S. general officer to make a space flight.

The mission was credited with reducing tensions between the two superpowers and laying a diplomatic foundation for the ISS 20 years later.

Stafford and Leonov became close friends over the ensuing decades, and Stafford delivered the eulogy, in Russian, at Leonov’s 2019 funeral.

Stafford returned to the Air Force from NASA and was promoted to major general with the Edwards command. In 1978, he took on the deputy chief of staff assignment, during which laid the groundwork for the future force. He retired from the Air Force in 1979.

During his years with NASA and the Air Force, Stafford amassed nearly 7,000 flying hours and more than 507 hours of spaceflight, flying more than 100 types of aircraft and spacecraft.

In retirement, Stafford was an aviation consultant for many companies, and served on the board of Gulfstream Aerospace, as well as others. He headed many blue-ribbon commissions for NASA to map out future human space exploration, and advised NASA on the Shuttle-Mir program, during which Space Shuttle missions STS-63 and STS-71 docked with the Russian Mir space station. He also served on the Return to Flight Task Force after the 2003 loss of the Columbia shuttle.

U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), left, speaks with retired astronaut Lt. Gen. Thomas Stafford prior to the start of a hearing before the House Subcommitte on Space and Aeronautics regarding Safety of Human Spaceflight on Capitol Hill, Dec. 2, 2009, in Washington. NASA photo/Bill Ingalls

He published an autobiography, co-written with Michael Casutt, titled “We Have Capture: Tom Stafford and the Space Race,” in 2002.

The Lt. Gen. Thomas P. Stafford Air & Space Museum, a National Air and Space Museum affiliate, opened in Oklahoma in 1981, and today exhibits many of the artifacts from Stafford’s space and USAF career.

Stafford received dozens of distinguished honors, awards and honorary degrees. They include two awards of the Harmon Trophy; the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics award in 1969; the Society of Experimental Test Pilots Doolittle Award in 1979, and the Congressional Space Medal of Honor in 1993. In 2011, Stafford received both the National Aeronautic Association’s Wright Brothers Memorial Trophy and the Air Force Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award. He was elected to the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame; the International Space Hall of Fame; the National Aviation Hall of Fame and made a fellow of the American Astronautical Society.

His military decorations include the Air Force Distinguished Service Medal; Distinguished Flying Cross, Air Force Commendation Medal and Air Force Outstanding Unit Award. He received the Thomas D. White Air Force Space Trophy in 1975. His NASA Awards include the Exceptional Service Medal and two awards of the Distinguished Service Medal.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said Stafford was “critical to the earliest successes of our nation’s space program and was instrumental in developing space as a model for international cooperation. He also helped us learn from our tragedies and grow and reach for the next generation of achievement,” and contributed thoughts and ideas to NASA “to the end of his life.”

Air Force Publishes Sweeping Analysis of Suicide Deaths in 2020

March 19, 2024 | By David Roza

The Air Force published a comprehensive analysis of suicide deaths during the calendar year 2020 earlier this month. The Total Force Department of the Air Force Standardized Suicide Fatality Analysis (StandS) combined data from medical, personnel, investigation, and event reports for each Active Duty, Guard, Reserve, and Department of the Air Force civilian who died by suicide in 2020—an in-depth study to help leaders prevent future deaths.

The goals of StandS are to standardize the suicide death review process to better understand their causes, and to generate lessons learned and actionable recommendations for military suicide prevention, intervention, and “postvention.”

Future studies will look at deaths from calendar years 2018, 2019, 2021, and beyond, though the release dates for those are not yet available. The StandS report is the result of a partnership between the Air Force and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences.

Lt. Gen. Caroline Miller, deputy chief of staff for manpower, personnel, and services, first announced the report in March 2023, saying it was due that spring. It took longer than expected because it was the first report of its kind and officials wanted to get it right, Air & Space Forces Magazine reported in December.

There are two versions of StandS: a leadership report that summarizes the findings and provides recommendations, and a scientific report for researchers and health providers with more granular statistics. The findings listed on the leadership report include:

In 2020, most of the 117 members of the Air Force and Space Force who died by suicide were Active duty, with 81 deaths (69.2 percent of the total), 17 were Air National Guardsmen (14.5 percent), 11 were Reservists (9.4 percent), and 8 were civilians (6.8 percent).

Nearly all suicide decedents were male (93.2 percent).

The vast majority of suicide decedents were enlisted (90.8 percent).

The average age was 30.6 years old.

The most common method of death was firearm use (68.4 percent). Most of the firearms were owned by the decedent (70 percent) or another person (6.3 percent), not the Air Force.

Alcohol was known to have been used during over a third of suicide deaths (39.3 percent)

Most of the decedents were struggling in their relationships with intimate partners (74.4%), family members (37.6 percent), or other military members (24.8 percent). Other common problems included workplace issues (53.8%), administrative/legal (43.6 percent) issues, and financial (29.9 percent) stress. Most of the decedents (80.3 percent) were affected by several of these issues at once.

Most decedents (68.4 percent) disclosed suicidal thoughts at some point in their life, with over half (58.1 percent) communicating an intent to die by suicide at some point in their life.

About 70.9 percent of the decedents had been in contact with a primary care provider for any reason in the year prior to their death, while 39.3 percent had been in contact with a mental health provider.

About 16.2 percent of the decedents had a history of non-suicidal self-directed violence, while 26.5 percent had a history of prior suicide attempts.

air force suicide — U.S. Airmen from the 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing honor the daily estimated number of veterans who take their own lives, symbolized by 22 pairs of boots in recognition of Suicide Prevention Month Sept. 8, 2021, from an undisclosed location somewhere in Southwest Asia. U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Karla Parra

Contributing Factors

Researchers followed a social-ecological model used by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to sort the potential contributing factors into four levels: societal, military community, relational, and individual.

The societal level includes stigma about mental health, norms around firearm use, and stereotypes of masculinity and military identity.

“Adherence to stereotypically masculine traits of stoicism and self-reliance has been linked with thwarted belongingness, an indicator of the desire for suicide, among military personnel,” the report read. “Stoicism and self-reliance can limit self-disclosure, reduce access to social support, and prevent timely help-seeking.”

Isolation due to the COVID-19 pandemic also may have played a role in some cases.

“Loneliness, especially during COVID-19, has been referred to as a bigger health risk than obesity,” researchers said. “Some decedents experienced a lack of social connection so severe that there was no evidence of friendships or romantic relationships.”

The “community” level refers to the relationships people form in neighborhoods, schools, or workplaces. In the military community, some of the contributing factors flagged by the report include the stresses and frequent moves of service life, pay delays, concerns about the impact of mental health care on a member’s career, problems with accessing mental health care, and the normalization of problematic alcohol use and casual joking about suicide.

“Operations tempo and thus, increased responsibilities, were at times above and beyond what the Airmen were able to manage effectively,” the report pointed out under the “military occupational stressors” category. Researchers also found that leaders, colleagues, and family members often missed warning signs for suicide or lacked the tools to coordinate an effective intervention.

“In efforts to establish a ‘Wingman Culture,’ the Air Force has used multiple methods to train and equip Airmen to recognize suicide warning signs in order to take prompt action to save a life,” the report said. “However, individuals in decedents’ social network including friends, family members, intimate partners, military coworkers, and/or leaders (e.g., front-line supervisors, first sergeants, commanders) at times missed warning signs for suicide or noted warning signs but did not adequately respond.”

air force suicides — Hanscom Air Force Base, Mass., Integrated Prevention and Resilience Office provides free gun locks during a suicide prevention event at the Hanscom AFB Main Exchange Sept. 15. U.S. Air Force photo by Jerry Saslav

The relational level refers to conflicts or stressors in a members’ romantic or family relationships, their ability to handle conflict, break-ups, or the death of a friend or loved one. The individual level refers to a member’s own background experiences, mental and physical health, alcohol use, life and financial stresses, and access to firearms.

“No one factor exists in a vacuum—the Social-Ecological Model helps explore the interplay between individual, relational, community, and societal factors influencing suicide,” the report said. Instead of reducing the numbers to descriptive statistics, the report “is based on themes and trends observed by members of the USU team.”

Recommendations

The report offered 68 recommendations to address its findings, many of which involved firearm safety. Researchers called for leaders and service members at all levels to “promote a culture of safe firearm storage” by resourcing for safe storage efforts, creating how-to guides, and forming a task force to come up with a safe firearm plan at each installation.

For commanders, first sergeants, and front-line supervisors, the recommendations included reviewing StandS on an annual basis, holding regular meetings with mental health experts to create goals and evaluate progress, learning how to notice warning signs and act as supportive “gateway” to mental health care, and consulting mental health professionals for how to handle difficult decisions involving Airmen and Guardians with mental health conditions.

The report also made several recommendations specific to the disciplinary process, such as not delivering reprimands before a weekend. In the event of a suicide, researchers said leaders should have a clear communication plan to minimize the chance of rumors spreading false information.

If 2020 was any sign, the force needs to be better-educated on how to notice warning signs of stress, how to manage conflicts in relationships, regulate emotions, create supportive social connections, and how to intervene before a suicide occurs, researchers wrote. That education could take place in Professional Military Education, basic training, tech school, or other forums. Some of that shift involves not tolerating jokes about suicide, while other parts involve learning concrete skills such as where to find help for financial trouble and how to report complaints of discrimination or reprisal. Current suicide prevention training may also need to be updated, they said.

“Wingmen practice healthy behaviors and make responsible choices and encourage others to do the same,” the report said. “Wingmen foster a culture of early help-seeking. Wingmen recognize the risk factors and warning signs of distress in themselves and others and take protective action.”

Col. Daniel Voorhies, 341st Missile Wing vice commander, holds a sign reading, “You Matter” for Airmen entering the installation Sept. 9, 2022 at Malmstrom Air Force Base, Mont. U.S. Air Force photo by Heather Heiney

Other recommendations include aligning mental health services with operational schedules and tempo, increasing support or availability for Airmen with odd hours or top-secret clearances or who are in administrative or legal trouble. It also calls for base- and MAJCOM-level Community Action Boards and Community Action Teams, which would “provide a forum for the cross-organizational review and resolution of individual, family, installation, and community issues that impact the force readiness and the quality of life.”

The recommendations are not binding.

“We must emphasize that the intent behind providing a comprehensive list of recommendations is not to overburden DAF leadership or the [Suicide Prevention Program] with additional tasks or ideas that may have limited implementation feasibility,” researchers wrote. “We trust that the DAF leadership serving as the target audience for this Leadership Report will achieve system-related enhancements in those domains recognized to be most salient, feasible, impactful, and the most likely to result in favorable outcomes not just for suicide risk mitigation but also for the overall health of the Total Force.”