Military retirees and some spouses^[1] or dependents whose next-generation Department of Defense identification cards have an "INDEF" expiration date continue to face problems using their IDs to traverse Transportation Security Administration checkpoints at U.S. airports.

And a potential solution under consideration at TSA -- that the agency drops the IDs, known as USIDs, as acceptable forms of identification when stricter travel requirements are implemented next year -- is sure to irritate those who like using their military IDs instead of a state driver's license or passport for travel.

Nearly a dozen military retirees have contacted Military.com in the past two years with concerns that their ID cards marked INDEF, meaning they have an indefinite expiration date, don't work with TSA screening technology in airports across the country.

Read Next: Pentagon's Second Review of Abbey Gate Attack Finds Troops Didn't See Bomber Before the Explosion^[2]

Former service members have run into the issue at Chicago O'Hare International, Seattle-Tacoma International, Orlando International, Tampa International, San Diego International and elsewhere.

According to TSA press secretary R. Carter Langston, the problem centers around USIDs that lack an expiration date. The "INDEF" designation cannot be read by the TSA's Credential Authentication Technology. When the CAT unit does not detect an expiration date, the CAT screen will display an "EXPIRED" alert, according to Langston.

The TSA officer is supposed to ask for another acceptable form of ID that can be read by the CAT unit, Langston said. If the passenger does not have another acceptable form of ID, the officer "will conduct manual inspection of the DoD ID presented as these IDs are currently acceptable forms of ID," Langston said in a statement.

The issue is largely a matter of inconvenience, since many people travel with a driver's license, passport or other form of identification.

But for DoD ID card holders, it could become a major problem beginning May 7, 2025, when all travelers and visitors to the U.S. will be required to have a passport, a state-verified REAL ID or another form of identification designated as acceptable by TSA.

Since the REAL ID Act of 2005 was passed, Defense Department IDs holders have been told their IDs are compliant and acceptable in lieu of a REAL ID and many have not bothered to get a REAL ID compatible state identification card.

They may need to or begin traveling with a passport, because given the ongoing issues, TSA is considering dropping DoD IDs from their list of accepted identification before the REAL ID requirement goes into effect, according to a source with knowledge of ongoing discussions between TSA and the Defense Department.

The Defense Department did not respond to a request for comment on the proposal, and Langston said he would not "confirm or deny discussions that are pre-decisional in nature."

But the proposal does not sit well among some former service members who spent decades serving their country and take pride in carrying a military ID.

"You can get on any military base in the country, but you can't get on an airplane with a military ID card? I don't agree with that at all," said a military retiree based in Washington state who requested that his name not be used to protect how he learned of the proposal.

The source added that the decision is not final and discussions were ongoing.

The Defense Department updated the new IDs, known as USID, for active-duty family members, military retirees and their dependents, reservists and Medal of Honor^[3] recipients in 2020, the first upgrade to the cards since 1993.

The USID cards look similar to Common Access Cards, which are issued to active-duty personnel, but they don't have a built-in chip. They were created to have durable lamination, full-color photos and enhanced security features to make them less able to counterfeit or misuse.

When the USIDs were introduced, TSA's scanning system was unable to read their barcodes. That issue largely was fixed in 2022 with a software update^[4], and DoD ID cards work for most individuals whose cards have an expiration date.

But the problem continues for IDs with the "INDEF" date. And retirees aren't happy about it.

"It's been my assumption all along [that I could fly with a DoD ID card]," said the Washington-based retired officer. "I had an old ID until just a couple of months ago, and it worked just fine."

Related: Defense Department Expands ID Card Renewals by Mail to US-Based Retirees, Dependents^[5]

An additional Pentagon review into the events surrounding the deadly bombing at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Afghanistan has determined that service members who spoke out publicly about what they felt was their ability to prevent the attack were mistaken.

The bombing, which occurred in late August 2021^[1], targeted the large crowds of Afghans who were trying to leave the country in the last days of the American military presence and ahead of the Taliban's takeover. The attack killed 13 U.S. service members, including 11 Marines and a soldier and sailor, wounded dozens more, and killed at least 170 Afghans.

"Over the past two years, some service members have claimed that they had the bomber in their sights, and they could have prevented the attack," one of the officials who briefed reporters on Friday said. "We now know that is not correct."

Read Next: Transgender Veterans Sue to Force VA to Cover Gender-Affirmation Surgeries^[2]

Officials identified the man responsible for the bombing^[3] as ISIS-K member Abdul Rahman al-Logari. Aside from his name, military officials also confirmed that al-Logari was among several prisoners that the Taliban released in the days prior to the bombing, though one official stressed that "ISIS-K would still have been able and capable of conducting the attack" without al-Logari "because they had multiple bombers that were available."

The news comes just over a year after some of the service members who were defending the airport and responded to the bombing spoke out publicly and before Congress, alleging that more could have been done to stop the bomber.

That testimony prompted U.S. Central Command to order the supplemental review^[4].

Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews, a Marine Corps^[5] sniper, told lawmakers in 2023 that "we were ignored" as they tried to get approval to shoot the person they suspected to be the suicide bomber.

However, the military officials who conducted the supplemental review said that al-Logari arrived on scene shortly before the bombing and service members had honed in on the wrong person.

Among the materials released to reporters, officials provided a comparison photo of the man Vargas-Andrews said he had in his sights with photos of al-Logari. The comparison noted that the officials found the "strongest negative possible rating" that the two were the same person.

One of the key issues that the investigation found was that "spot reports" -- instances of suspicious activity or behavior spotted by service members -- had become conflated with more developed intelligence reporting.

Officials noted that service members they spoke to as part of the review said the misidentified, bald man wasn't seen as having a weapon, "wires or bulging clothes indicating that explosives were present, and described no behavior that will allow them to conclude that he posed a threat."

The official reports asked for service members to be on the lookout for a man with loose clothes and groomed hair, a black bag and a child. The misidentified man that Vargas-Andrews and others focused on "had a backpack, which can be conflated with a black bag, he was clean shaven with a shaved head, which can be conflated with groomed hair, and he was with a teenager, which can be conflated with a child," an official explained.

In order to arrive at these conclusions, officials said they conducted an additional 52 interviews on top of the more than 100 already conducted in the original Central Command investigation, which was released in February 2022.

Military officials interviewed current and former service members across 24 separate locations, 13 states and six military installations.

"I think it's also very clear to us that as you talk to the different individuals, 190 total, every single one of them had a different perspective," one of the officials said. "Our job during the investigation was to take all these different perspectives and put the pieces together from those different perspectives."

In an interview with The Washington Post^[6], Vargas-Andrews broadly accepted the review's findings.

The review confirmed Vargas-Andrews' reports that the Taliban was routinely executing civilians at the airport who had gathered there in hopes of catching one of the last American flights out of the country.

"We found that the Taliban used excessive force, resulting in the death of civilians near Abbey Gate," an official said Friday.

Officials also stressed that as they conducted the review, "it became very clear to us that service members believed that what they were doing mattered, that it made a difference, and that it was important."

One official also noted that while "the new information did not change our Abbey Gate findings, it reaffirmed what we found two years ago, and I think it helped provide additional clarity."

Related: 'We Were Ignored': Veterans and Troops Detail Horrors of Afghanistan Evacuation as House Investigation Begins^[7]