Letter to Chairman Smith, and Ranking Member Thornberry - Buchanan Calls for Congressional Hearing on Military Training Accidents

Letter

Dear Chairman Smith and Ranking Member Thornberry,

The death of my constituent Army Specialist Nicolas Panipinto last year and a recent training accident at Camp Pendleton that left nine service members dead are tragic examples showing the obvious need for reforms to military training. That is why I am calling for the House Armed Services Committee to immediately hold a public hearing looking into the disturbing frequency of U.S. military training accidents around the world and to examine potential reforms to help save lives.

The loss of a single American soldier is tragic and the continued loss of service members in preventable training accidents is completely unacceptable. 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. Accidents like this one and the one that took the life of Specialist Panipinto cannot be tolerated. We need to get to the bottom of these tragic accidents and enact reforms that will save lives going forward.

According to a report by the Congressional Research Service, between 2006 and 2018 a staggering 32 percent of active-duty military deaths were the result of training accidents. During that same time period, only 16 percent of service members were killed in action. 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.

The highest tribute that can be paid to the soldiers lost in training accidents is to enact reforms that ensure that these mistakes never happen again. We cannot afford to wait any longer and risk the health and safety of our men and women in uniform. I thank you for your attention to this critically important matter.

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