(CNN) As the US Air Force acknowledged the illegal release of the military service records of 11 persons, including those of two congressman, they are now calling for an explanation.
11 separate records were made available by the Air Force, two of which included the military records of Republican congressmen Don Bacon of Nebraska and Zach Nunn of Iowa. Nunn is an officer in the Iowa National Guard, according to his campaign page, while Bacon retired from the Air Force after nearly 30 years of service as a one-star general.
The House Armed Services and House Oversight and Accountability Committee chairs, Mike Rogers and James Comer, wrote to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin last week requesting a number of records and instructions regarding the process of sharing service records.
There was a “unauthorized release of military service information about 11 individuals,” according to an internal audit of the October 2021–2022 Air Force records release procedure, according to service spokeswoman Ann Stefanek in a statement on Tuesday.
According to Stefanek, the Air Force Department employees did not follow the correct protocols, which call for the member’s authority signature to authorize the distribution of material. “There was no indication that any employee had political motivation or bad intentions.”
Lawmakers wrote in their letter to Austin that the Air Force’s behavior was “at the very least, unacceptable.”
“It is important that the men and women of the armed forces have confidence in their leadership’s ability to protect private personnel information from improper disclosure,” they said.
The unauthorized release of Bacon and Nunn’s notes was first reported by Politico.
Rep. Zach Nunn, R-Iowa, records were released by the Air Force.
The heart of the problem appears to lie in a military personnel record request form called the Standard Form 180 or SF-180. A military official familiar with the matter told CNN that releasing information about SF-180 “requires the signature of the service member. That did not happen in the cases of these 11 people.”
