The Air Force has reworked the evaluation system used to determine if an airmen is physically and mentally capable of performing nuclear-related duties, according to a Feb. 27 release. Officials rewrote the Personnel Reliability Program manual to eliminate need for base-level add-ons and to clarify standards for judging an airmen’s physical, emotional, and mental fitness for duty, states the release. Everyone on a nuclear base “is tied into PRP monitoring, from our commander’s and supervisors, to the medical professionals and personnel agencies to a member’s peers and each individual on PRP,” explained Col. Zannis Pappas, nuclear operations career field manager. According to an internal assessment, PRP covered 12,000 airmen force-wide in 2012, demanding nearly 38,000 hours of base-level administrative work, according to the release. The program overhaul was prompted by the Air Force’s 2012 internal study, as well as a follow-on review by the defense acquisition, technology, and logistics undersecretary, according to the 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.