Suicide rates of airmen dropped by 49 percent from Fiscal 2004 to 2005, according to Air Force statistics. There were 29 active duty suicides in 2005, a rate of 7.8 per 100,000 airmen. USAF officials credit the lower rates to a “state-of-the-art integrated system of policy and programs” called the Air Force Suicide Prevention Program, which the service created nine years ago.
The Pentagon’s new counter-drone task force will play a direct role in arming Airmen with new weapons to defend Air Force agile combat employment, or ACE, air bases in austere locations against enemy drone attacks, the director of Joint Interagency Task Force 401 said Oct. 14.