DON'S FREEWARE CORNER - APR 2020
REQUESTING U.S. MILITARY SERVICE RECORDS FOR
YOU OR A NEXT-OF-KIN
Don's Freeware Corner articles are printed in the
UTAH VALLEY TECHNOLOGY AND GENEALOGY GROUP
(UVTAGG) Newsletter TAGGology each month and are
posted on his Class Notes Page https://uvtagg.org/classes/dons/dons-classes.html
where there may be corrections and updates.
REQUESTING U.S. MILITARY SERVICE RECORDS FOR
YOU OR A NEXT-OF-KIN
©2020 Donald R. Snow - Last updated 2020-04-08
U.S. MILITARY SERVICE RECORDS
Anyone serving in the United States military
generates a service record consisting of their
induction information, orders to report to various
military installations, any military schools they
attended, their medical and dental history, and
their discharge certificate and information.
Depending on how long they served this file may
have a hundred or more pages and gives a complete
history of their military service. These are
stored at the National Archives, mostly in St.
Louis, Missouri, and some there were destroyed by
a fire many years ago. Many are still there and
are complete and are obtainable. Of those that
were destroyed, the National Archives has been
attempting to regenerate some of the information
from othr sources, but those may be very sketchy.
Any living U.S. veteran can request a free copy of
his own service record and for decieased veterans,
their next-of-kin can request a free copy.
Next-of-kin here is a living spouse, parent,
sibling, or child. Since the service record
contains so much data, it is a valuable source of
family history information about the person. This
article discusses the procedure to request such a
copy.
THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND THEIR WEBSITE
The U.S. National Archives website is https://www.archives.gov/
and you'll see information there about their
collections, how to search them, educational
information, and much more. One of the main
options is Veterans Service Records and clicking
there takes you to https://www.archives.gov/veterans
. At the moment (Apr 2020), the National
Archives is closed due to the Coronoavirus
COVID-19 pandemic, but you can still order
information for when they are open again.
Most of the military service records are stored in
St. Louis, Missouri and an unfortunate fire many
years ago destroyed some of these. When the
National Archives is again open to the public, you
could go there in person and request your service
record directly, but you can also do it very
easily from home now. You used to have to
write a letter with the details and hope you had
everything correct for the request, but now you do
most of the request online first, and then mail a
signature form to them.
THE REQUEST FORM
You first go to the website and click on Veterans
Service Record to be taken to https://www.archives.gov/veterans
, which is where you start. Next click on
Request Military Service Reocrds and you see this
screen.
Note that the left box asks whether you are
looking for just the veteran's DD 214 (Department
of Defense Form 214) discharge paper, the Official
Military Personnel File (the Service Record), the
Medical and Dental Record, etc. Questions about
these items are answered at the bottom of the
page. When you are ready to start the ordering
process, click on the box labelled "Start Form
Online (Then Print and Mail)". This takes you to
the eVetRecs page and starts the 4-step process.
These steps include asking things like whether you
are the vet or a next-of-kin and, if next-of-kin,
then which kin, and which records you are
requesting. They tell you to just start with
rqeusting one record, e.g. the DD 214, and then
near the end, to put the rest of the records you
want in the Comments box. So I wrote down
the correct names of the documents I wanted to
request so I could add those in the Comments box
at the end. The following screens ask for
things like the full name of the vet, his Social
Security Number (not his military ID), if you know
it, when he was born and where, approximately when
he entered the service and approximately when he
was discharged. The form is adapted to whether you
are the vet or a next-of-kin and it doesn't take
long to complete. Thee is a bar-graph that shows
you where you are in the 4-step process.
IThere is a place to put your name and mailing
address for them to mail it to. At the end,
they show you a pdf awhich you can save and print
so you can sign it to certify that you are who you
claim in the process and it has a mailing address
to mail it to St. Louis. You can also sign and FAX
the form. On the form that you print is a QR code,
one of those square things somewhat like a bar
code, that they can scan to associates your
mailed-in signed form with the electronic form you
filled out online. I think it's a good way
to do things. They say it may take up to 3 months
to process and it states that if they don't
receive your mailed-in letter within 30 days, the
process will be cancelled and you will have to
start over. They will send you a printed
form, if you want that instead of doing most of it
online, but the online ordering is easy and takes
care of several problems.
COMMENTS
Several years ago I requested a copy of my own
U.S. Navy service record and that has been very
helpful. I had tried to get a copy of my father's
U.S. Army service record for WW I. They told
me it was not at the St. Louis National Archives,
but that the Veterans Administration had it.
Soince I never could find out where to write for
it at the VA, I requested it again and asked them
where to write to the VA for it. We'll see
what happens this time. I didn't know I could
request a copy of my deceased rother's U.S. Navy
service record since I didn't know what "next of
kin" meant for the National Archives. Now I
have requested a copy of it. I mailed in my
parts of the signed form a month ago, so I
probably won't hear anything for another couple of
months. In the right-hand box on the webpage
above is an icon to check the status of your
request. Or you can tleephone them to check
on it. I haven't done this for my requests.
For any U.S. veteran I highly recommend that you
request your service record, so you and your famly
will have it with all the details. It tells
exactly where and when you served at each post or
military installation and how you got there. Your
medical and dental record has all those details
which you may need if you apply for veterans
benefits. If you were in some military schools,
all that information is there and all your
advancements in rank and their dates, as well as
all the medals you qualified for. It's
really worthwhile getting a copy and your copy is
free. If you don't get a copy now, your
descendants may have to pay quite a bit for a copy
of it later.
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