It’s official. The Defense Department will announce the winner of the Air Force’s KC-X tanker contract on Thursday afternoon at 5:10 p.m. East Coast time. Air Force Secretary Michael Donley and Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz will join Deputy Defense Secretary Bill Lynn and Pentagon acquisition executive Ash Carter in the Pentagon briefing room to crown either Boeing’s 767-based NewGen Tanker or EADS North America’s A330-based tanker model as the winner. Stay tuned for more coverage.
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.