The Michigan Aviation Hall of Fame last week inducted retired Maj. Gen. Richard Bodycombe, Lt. Col. John Slattery, Maj. Louis J. Sebille, and 1st Lt. Aleda Lutz. Bodycombe, who retired as the chief of the Air Force Reserve, flew the B-24 during World War II and was recalled for the Berlin Airlift. Slattery, who died in 2008, was a marine infantryman in World War II and Korea; switching to USAF and helicopters, he flew more than 100 rescue missions in Vietnam. Sebille, who flew the B-26 in WWII and F-51 during the Korean War, received the Medal of Honor posthumously for his support to ground forces at Pusan, where he flew his F-51 into enemy forces. Lutz was one of the most experienced flight nurses in WWII, flying 814 combat hours before being killed in a C-47 crash. (Also read Hall of Fame release; Free Press report; on Lutz, Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame biography; on Sebille, Air Force Magazine’s April 1990 Valor: Epitaph for a Valiant Airman)
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.