Army Lt. Gen. Ken Keen, head of Joint Task Force Haiti, told bloggers Monday there has been only one way to get supplies, equipment, and people into earthquake-devastated Haiti, the international airport, which routinely hosted only 13 flights per day. Now, said Keen, thanks to “the best airmen in the world” who quickly got the airfield operating again and with turnover of airfield management to USAF airmen, the flow has been fairly constant at 100 aircraft or so a day. He noted that some delayed and turned away flights, like one international flight delivering a portable hospital, have generated bad news, but he said many US flights also were turned away, in many cases because an aircraft on the ground had mechanical problems. On Jan. 18, Keen said 180 flights went through with no delays. Still, he advocated getting ports reopened quickly to “take pressure off the airport.” (Transcript)
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.