After two months and 2,100 miles of pavement, security forces airmen completed their ruck march in honor of the victims of 9/11 and the security forces airmen who have died in the war on terror since then. “We’ve marched the last two months to remember our fallen, to honor the sacrifices of our defenders and their families,” said Col. Alan Metzler, Air Combat Command’s chief of security forces. The 4th Security Forces Squadron at Seymour Johnson AFB, N.C., organized the march, which began on July 12 at the Security Forces Center at Joint Base San Antonio. It ended on Sept. 11 in Battery Park in lower Manhattan, near the site of the former World Trade Center towers. More than 300 active duty, Air National Guard, and Air Force Reserve airmen from 23 security forces units took turns marching the various legs of the journey. Along the way, they laid wreaths at the site of the Flight 93 crash in Shanksville, Pa., at the Pentagon, and at Battery Park. (New York City report by SSgt. Chris Powell)
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.