Hey, if you’re in the United States Air Force (or any other American military branch, for that matter) easy on the pop culture.

Especially Miley Cyrus. Oh, and talking about doing drugs, too.

That’s basically what Air Force brass told four pilots stationed at Laughlin Air Force base down in Texas after they were investigated for texting one another a series of music lyrics, boasts, jokes and other things one would find in American text messages these days.

The two things that really put them in hot water: lines from Cyrus’ masterpiece “We Can’t Stop” and short bursts of recollection detailing their “wild bro-weekend in Las Vegas” (The Daily Beast‘s words, not ours) where they might or might not have gotten lifted on drugs and made fun of a bunch of girls they encountered.

To one of the pilots in trouble, however, it just doesn’t add up.

“I can’t imagine a scenario in which a group of Air Force officers would be texting about engaging in criminal acts if that’s what they actually had done,” one of the pilots later penned his boss officer. “Maybe I’m naive in this regard, but it makes no sense to me.”

According to the Daily Beast, some of the texts involved discussing talking prescription medication for recreational purposes and smoking marijuana cigarettes.

Their counsel says it’s part of the culture and far from peculiar (especially among American males) to cite references to television shows and movies and songs in casual — perhaps playful and even ironic — barbs between friends via text messages on smartphones.

Already three of the pilots have been “stripped of their wings” and now have to live with blemished records, which could put a kibosh on not only their Air Force careers but prevent them from attaining work as pilots when they leave the military — i.e. flying commercial planes.

This all despite of the fact that never has one of the pilots failed a drug screening test.

More from the Daily Beast:

Congressmen Duncan Hunter and Adam Kinzinger, both military veterans, sent a letter to the Air Force chief of staff on Tuesday demanding to know why the service had meted out what they called “excessive punishment” against the young pilots based solely on text messages that showed “no evidence of drug use” and were clearly joking in nature. The congressmen also asked on what legal grounds the Air Force confiscated and searched the men’s personal cellphones, as well as why the service used so-called non-judicial punishments that have deprived some of the men from a public hearing where they might exonerate themselves.

The Air Force insists the texts are at the very least evidence of bad judgment and behavior unbefitting an officer. “It goes without saying that the Air Force demands integrity and professionalism be at the center of all its airmen’s lives,” Colonel Kirsten Reimann, a spokesperson, told The Daily Beast. “They encompass who we are as a service, how we conduct ourselves both on- and off-duty, and define the high standards to which we all are expected to adhere.”

One of the pilots “availed himself of his right to a public hearing, under the Uniform Code of Military Justice”. It was over in just a couple of hours. He was exonerated and he returned to flying.

But the other pilots didn’t get this opportunity. They were given letters of reprimand, a commanding officer — Colonel Brian Hastings — signed off on their guilt after only including a fraction of the evidence, said they used drugs, and that was that.

After the harsh decision, it was later exposed that Hastings could’ve simply issued a warning, and let the pilots slide. The decision to hand out such a severe punishment (the letters) was his alone.

Not surprisingly, he’s not longer at Laughlin.

At the moment, the pilots are at desk jobs, and not flying. Their future is, at the moment, very much “up in the air”.