According to a brief report by the Honolulu Advertiser, Air Force and Hawaii Air National Guard officials are trying to resurrect construction of an assault landing runway at the joint use Kona International Airport. Pacific Air Forces believes it can save money by having active and Air Guard C-17 crews based at Hickam Air Force Base train at home rather than having the expense of sending them to continental US fields, where schedules often conflict. However, PACAF hadn’t yet been able to secure the money to construct the notional 4,000-foot assault tactics strip at the airfield shared by Hickam and the Kona airport.
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.