VietNow National Magazine
Do You Know Where Your
Records Are?
Probably not. But this
roadmap might give you some idea.
By Raymond
F. Gustavson, Jr.
Where are my service records?
The official answer is that they are in
the constructive custody of the United
States government. But that doesn’t
really answer the question for someone
who has had a claim pending for months
or years with the Veterans Administration.
In my research for this article I started
at the web site for the National Personnel
Records Center (NPRC), in St. Louis, Missouri.
There I learned that they are “a
central repository of personnel-
related records, both military and civil
service,” and they “provide
world class service to Government agencies,
military veterans, former civilian Federal
employees, family members, as well as researchers
and historians.”
The NPRC states it is the repository of
millions of medical and personnel records
of discharged and deceased veterans from
all services. The Center, consisting of
a five-story structure covering nearly
five acres, stores its records by veteran’s
name and Social Security number (SSN) or
service number. NPRC also shares this complex
with the U.S. Army which houses its reserve
components there.
Records at the National Personnel Records
Center are divided into three categories:
Personnel, Medical, and Clinical (hospital
inpatient records). These three categories
are then broken down by officer and enlisted
classes for the various service branches,
and herein lies the problem.
Personnel
The personnel file is an administrative
record of appointments, duty stations and
assignments, training, qualifications,
performance, awards and medals, disciplinary
actions, insurance, emergency data, separation
/ discharge / retirement, administrative
remarks, and other personnel actions. The
DD Form 214,
Report of Separation, or equivalent is
filed in the personnel file. Detailed
information about the veteran’s participation
in military battles and engagements is
not contained in this record.
Personnel folders for the following branches
are maintained by NPRC for these dates
only:
• Army: Officers separated July 1,
1917 to September 30, 2002; and Enlisted
separated November 1, 1912 to
September 30, 2002.
• Air Force: Officers and Enlisted separated
September 25, 1947 to September 30,
2004.
• Navy: Officers separated January
1, 1903 to December 31, 1994; Enlisted
separated January 1, 1886 to
December 31, 1994.
• Marine Corps: Officers and Enlisted
separated January 1, 1905 to
December 31, 1998.
• Coast Guard: Officers and Enlisted
separated on or after January 1, 1898.
Note: NPRC reports that military
personnel records for individuals separated
before the above dates are on file at the
National Archives and Records Administration,
Old Military and Civil Records Branch (NWCTB),
Washington, DC 20408.
Currently, the separate branches maintain
their personnel records as follows:
• Army: Enlisted personnel service records
are stored in an optical imaging format
called Permanent Electronic Records Management
System (PERMS) at Fort Benjamin Harrison,
Indiana. All General Officer records are
maintained at the Pentagon. Service members
who retire or are released from active
duty with no further service obligation
(i.e., Reserves), have their personnel
records electronically transferred to the
Army Human Resource Command in
St. Louis. Records for veterans in the
Reserves are maintained in the reserve
unit.
• Air Force: Personnel service records
are stored electronically in the Automated
Records Management System
(ARMS). For a veteran assigned to an
active Reserve or Air National Guard
unit, personnel and medical records
are maintained by that unit. Inactive
Ready Reservists or Active Reservists
not assigned to a unit have their personnel
and medical records sent to the Air Reserve
Personnel Center (ARPC)
in Denver, Colorado.
• Navy: Personnel service records
are stored electronically as image files
in the Navy’s Electronic Military
Personnel Records System (EMPRS). Active
reservists have their personnel records
stored in the reserve unit.
• Marine Corps: Service records are
scanned and stored electronically in the
Optical Digital Imaging – Records
Management System (ODI-RMS).
• Coast Guard: If the veteran has
a reserve obligation, but is not an active
reservist, medical and personnel records
are maintained by Coast Guard Personnel
Command, Reserve Personnel Management Branch
(CGPC-RPM), until
the veteran either resumes drilling or
the reserve obligation ends. If the veteran
is in an active Reserve unit, the unit
usually maintains both the SMRs and personnel
records. However, in some districts, these
records are maintained at Maintenance Logistic
Centers (MLCs) or Integrated Support Commands
(ISCs). When the veteran no longer has
a reserve obligation or retires from the
Reserves, service and personnel records
are sent to CGPC-ADM-3. Then, personnel
records are sent to NPRC and SMRs are forwarded
to the RMC (Department of Veterans Affairs
(VA) Records Management Center).
Medical
Service medical records are the military
health records for each veteran, and include
the following:
• Physical examinations, including
entrance and discharge physical examinations.
• Medical history.
• Dental examinations and records,
clinical record cover sheets, and summaries.
• Entries from outpatient medical
and dental treatments.
• Physical profiles.
• Medical board proceedings.
• Prescriptions for eyeglasses and
orthopedic footwear.
Service Medical Records were formerly
retired to NPRC with the Personnel Folder
when a member was released, discharged,
or retired from active duty. That practice
has been discontinued, and the records
are now sent to the Department of Veterans
Affairs (VA) Records Management Center
(RMC) after the following dates:
• Army: Discharged, retired, or separated
from any component after October 16,
1992.
• Air Force: Discharged, retired,
or separated from Active Duty after May
1,
1994; or discharged or retired from the
Reserves or National Guard after June 1, 1994.
• Navy: Discharged, retired, or separated
from any component after
January 31, 1994.
• Marine Corps: Discharged, retired,
or separated from any component after May 1, 1994.
• Coast Guard: Discharged, retired,
or separated from Active Duty/Reservists
with ninety days active duty for training
after April 1, 1998.
RMC is responsible for inactive claims
folders located at the RMC or a Federal
Records Center (FRC).
Clinical Records
Clinical records are records of hospital
inpatient treatment for service personnel,
and are filed at the National Personnel
Records Center (NPRC) by the name of the
hospital where the member was treated.
To find these records, the NPRC needs the
name of the hospital, month (if known),
and year of treatment, as well as the veteran’s
name and social security or service number.
But note that these records are “retired
to NPRC in annual collections by the creating
hospital.” Army and Air Force records
are retained for one calendar year, and
Navy records are retained for two calendar
years before retirement. Teaching
hospitals that maintain Clinical Record
Libraries may retain records for up to
five years before retirement to NPRC.”
VA Records Management Center (RMC)
Located in St. Louis this entity “maintains
the active duty health records or manages
their whereabouts when on loan within the
VA.”
Service Medical Records, including entrance
and discharge physical examinations, are
sent to the VA Regional Office (RO) of
jurisdiction if the veteran files a claim
at the time of separation. He does this
on VA Form 21-526, Veteran’s Application
for Compensation and/or Pension. If no
claim has been filed, the records are forwarded
to RMC for storage. If the veteran subsequently
files a claim for VA benefits, the records
are sent to the VA Regional Office where
they are inserted into a protective envelope
and filed in the claims folder.
The St. Louis Fire
Approximately sixteen to eighteen million
Military Personnel Files pertaining to
certain Army and Air Force service members
were destroyed in a fire on July 12, 1973.
An estimated eighty percent of Army records
for personnel discharged between November
1, 1912 and January 1, 1960 were lost.
Seventy-five percent of Air Force records
were lost for personnel discharged between
September 25, 1947 and January 1, 1964
(with surnames Hubbard through Z lost).
Of note, records of Army retirees who were
alive on July 12, 1973, escaped the fire
because they were stored at the U.S. Army
Reserve Personnel Command.
If you were in the affected group
the chances of finding your records
are slim. While employed at the VA,
I personally sorted through many pages
of charred records while attempting to
adjudicate a veteran’s claim. Of
course,
I tried my best not to damage these valuable
documents, and made sure that these records
were photocopied before studying them further.
The VA has several alternate, though not
very good ways, of obtaining secondary
evidence in fire-related cases. First,
they ask the veteran to assemble information
from a variety of sources:
• VA military files. (By this I assume
the veteran should send in copies of any
Service Medical Records, VA award letters,
or other correspondence in his possession.)
• Statements from service medical
personnel
• “Buddy” certificates
or affidavits.
• State or local accident and police
reports.
• Employment physical examination
reports.
• Medical evidence from private or
public hospitals, clinics, and physicians
where a veteran was treated, either during
service or shortly after separation.
• Letters written during service.
• Photographs taken during service.
• Pharmacy prescription records,
and/or insurance examination reports.
The VA then tries to obtain copies of Office
of Surgeon General (SGO) reports. To do
this, the veteran is asked to complete
NA Form 13055, Request for Information
Needed to Reconstruct Medical Data. The
completed form is submitted to NPRC.
A word of caution: SGO extracts cover
only those active duty personnel who served
in the Army and Army Air Corps during World
War II from 1942 to 1945 – and the
Korean Conflict from 1950 to 1954. About
five percent of SGO records contain
information concerning Air Force, Navy,
Marine Corps, and military cadet personnel
from the Korean Conflict. A small percentage
of the SGO records refer to treatment at
Navy, Air Force, and civilian facilities.
The SGO extracts of military hospital admission
records allegedly reflect one hundred percent
of the battle injuries treated primarily
at Army facilities, as well as a sample
of admissions for other reasons.
A further word of
caution: These reports
provide minimal information, and are identifiable
only by service number, since the name
of the serviceperson was not made a part
of the
record.
SGO extracts include the following:
• Service number
• Rank
• Branch of service
• Age
• Race
• Years of service.
• Station of admission.
The hospitalization information available in the SGO
extracts includes:
• Up to three diagnoses for the covered hospitalization.
• The part of the body involved, and the
operative procedure, if needed, for each
diagnosis.
• The total number of days hospitalized. • The
type of treatment facility.
Important: For extracts between 1944 and 1945, information
is available concerning the:
• Type of case.
• Circumstances leading to the hospitalization.
• The line-of-duty determination.
New methods for obtaining your Service Medical Records
EMilRecs is a new computer program used
by the VA, military service branches, and
other federal agencies to order and track
Service Medical Records from NPRC. It is
an in-house system and not open for use
by the public. From what I’ve seen of the literature
on it, it works well, but has one serious drawback.
If NPRC does not find your records within thirty days
of an initial request, the request is canceled. Of
course, this cuts down on NPRC’s
backlog, but it means the VA must initiate
another search.
Summary
As you can see, locating and obtaining
your Service Medical Records is a process
that has become more complicated over the
years.
I like to use an analogy to help understand
the complexity of the process. Remember
the closing scene in the movie, “Raiders
of the Lost Ark,” where the Ark is taken into
a warehouse and set down in the middle of a long row
of crates? The camera then begins moving backward,
slowly at first and then with increasing speed until,
if you’re not watching carefully,
you lose track of the Ark, and are left
staring at hundreds, and then thousands
of crates. You can no longer pinpoint the
exact location of the Ark, and you are
left wondering what happened to it, and
would anyone ever be able to find it again.
After you were discharged from service,
your Service Medical Records were transferred
from your unit. If you were lucky, some
clerk processed them according to a set
of well-defined procedures, and the VA
has no problem finding them. If you were
unlucky, however, your records were sent
somewhere, but nobody knows where, and
locating them becomes a laborious process,
going even to the extreme of having clerks
make a “sequence
check” to see if the records were
misfiled.
Locating Service Medical Records, then,
and sending them to the requesting VA Regional
Office is one of the main problems facing
the VA, and contributes to its unending
backlog of claims. Of course, having five
branches of service, all or mostly independent
of each other, doesn’t help matters,
either.
As a matter of caution, I advise any service
member leaving service to copy their service
records and take them home with them. That
way you have a backup copy should the VA
have trouble locating the originals.
Should you encounter difficulties in obtaining
these originals, don’t hesitate to
contact a service organization such as
the American Legion, Disabled
American Veterans, etc. – or your
county or state veterans service officers.
They will be more than willing to tackle
this chore for you.
Raymond Gustavson served
with the U.S.
Army in Vietnam, and is a retired
VA Rating Specialist. He is currently
working on a novel about the Civil
War, and also is writing a self-help
book for veterans who want to better
understand the complexities of the
VA claims process.
Back
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Back to the VA Claims page.
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