Key keywords: House Armed Services Committee, U.S. military firings, DoD personnel records, congressional military oversight, wrongful military discharge, veteran benefit eligibility, Pentagon accountability, military vaccine mandate dismissals The U.S. House of Representatives Armed Services Committee issued a formal, bipartisan demand on Wednesday for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) to turn over full, unredacted records of all non-voluntary military firings dating back to January 2021, following months of stalled information requests and rising complaints from service members who say they were wrongfully terminated. For months, the panel has sought granular data on more than 8,200 active-duty, reserve and National Guard personnel dismissed from service over the past three years, but the Pentagon has only provided aggregated, high-level summary statistics that omit critical context including individual service members’ performance records, stated reasons for discharge, and status of appeal requests. The new demand sets a 30-day deadline for the DoD to deliver all relevant documentation, including communications between commanding officers and personnel offices related to dismissal decisions, records of service members who lost access to education, healthcare and retirement benefits following their firing, and breakdowns of discharges linked to the now-rescinded COVID-19 vaccine mandate, as well as discharges tied to the military’s 2021 extremism screening initiative. Bipartisan leaders of the committee noted that nearly 2,100 former service members have submitted formal complaints to congressional offices claiming they were fired without due process, including 1,700 who say their dismissal was directly tied to their refusal to take the COVID-19 vaccine, despite the DoD’s earlier public claim that fewer than 900 discharges were vaccine-related. Many of the dismissed personnel held high-priority, hard-to-replace roles including fighter pilots, cybersecurity specialists, nuclear maintenance technicians and medical personnel, leading to bipartisan concerns that unsubstantiated firings have eroded military readiness at a time of rising global tensions. Committee chair Rep. Mike Rogers stated in a press briefing that “the American people deserve to know if their military is holding leaders accountable for fair personnel practices, or if qualified service members are being pushed out for arbitrary, politically motivated reasons. The DoD’s ongoing refusal to provide transparent records is a violation of congressional oversight authority, and we will use all legislative tools at our disposal to get the answers we need.” Ranking member Rep. Adam Smith added that while the committee supports reasonable personnel rules, “we have a responsibility to ensure no service member is denied due process or stripped of their hard-earned benefits without just cause. This request is not about partisan politics—it is about upholding the integrity of our military justice and personnel systems.”