In The News

Nebraska’s congressional delegation is seeking answers about safety and maintenance at Offutt’s 55th Wing following a World-Herald investigative report. The investigation showed that the 29 C-135 jets based at Offutt Air Force Base near Bellevue have been plagued by mechanical problems in recent years. The reconnaissance planes carry out critical missions from operating bases in England, Greece, Japan and Qatar. Rep. Don Bacon, a retired brigadier general who commanded the 55th Wing in 2011-12, said The World-Herald series accurately portrayed the dire state of maintenance in the Air Force today.

WASHINGTON — Rep. Don Bacon is defending the abrupt discharges of some immigrant U.S. Army reservists and recruits who enlisted with a promised path to citizenship. The Omaha area’s Republican congressman said Friday that the program involved was supposed to be a narrowly targeted way for the military to acquire specialized talents from foreign nationals. But, Bacon said, the Army ramped up the program well beyond what was intended, failed to do adequate background checks on the recruits from the start and is now having to go back through to weed out potential bad actors.