Citing a disturbing rise in deadly U.S. military training accidents, U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-FL) this week called on the U.S. House Armed Services Committee to immediately conduct a public hearing on possible reforms.
“The loss of a single American soldier is tragic and the continued loss of service members in training accidents is completely unacceptable,” Rep. Buchanan said on Monday. “We need to get to the bottom of these tragic accidents and enact reforms that will save lives going forward.”
Rep. Buchanan sent an Aug. 17 letter to House Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Mac Thornberry (R-TX) and Committee Chairman Adam Smith (D-WA) pointing out that last year’s death in South Korea of his constituent Army Specialist Nicholas Panipinto, and a recent training accident at Camp Pendleton in California that left nine service members dead, dictate the need for military training reforms.
“The recent deadly accident in California is the third accident involving an amphibious assault vehicle at Camp Pendleton in the past decade; accidents in 2011 and 2017 left one service member dead and 15 injured,” wrote Rep. Buchanan. “Accidents like this one and the one that took the life of Specialist Panipinto cannot be tolerated.”
In fact, between 2006 and 2018, some 32 percent of active-duty military deaths were the result of training accidents, Rep. Buchanan wrote, citing a July 1 report from the Congressional Research Service entitled, Trends in Active-Duty Military Deaths Since 2006.
“During that same time period, only 16 percent of service members were killed in action,” wrote the congressman. “And in 2017 alone, nearly four times as many service members died in training accidents than were killed in action.
“Serious steps need to be taken to prevent these tragedies from continuing,” Rep. Buchanan wrote.