How to request a relative's military service record

Most families looking for a veteran's service history start on the open web, find almost nothing, and conclude the record is lost. It usually is not. It is in St. Louis, and it is requestable — often by anyone, if the service is old enough.

This guide is written for people doing what this Foundation is doing.

Start with what the family already holds

Before requesting anything, find out whether a DD-214 exists in the family. This is the discharge paper, and for post-1950 service it is the single densest document you will find: rank at separation, dates and place of entry, military occupation, foreign service, campaigns, and decorations.

One caution. A DD-214 carries a Social Security number and a date of birth. Do not upload one to a genealogy site, a photo-sharing service, or a family group chat. Work from the awards and campaign block, and keep the full form offline.

Request the Official Military Personnel File

The National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis holds the OMPF. It is the authoritative source for rank progression, unit assignments, decorations and dates.

Request it with a Standard Form 180 (SF-180):

Instructions and the fillable PDF: archives.gov/veterans/military-service-records/standard-form-180
Online alternative for veterans and next-of-kin: vetrecs.archives.gov

The form is three pages. There is a fillable PDF, but it still has to be printed, signed, and mailed or faxed — a signature is required. There is no fee for a basic request.

Fill in as much of Section I as you can: the name used during service including full middle name, date and place of birth, approximate dates of service, branch, and the service number or SSN if you have it. A service number is worth real effort to find. It is the strongest disambiguator there is when several men shared a name.

Relationship: the part most people get wrong

Many families assume that if they are not next-of-kin, they cannot ask. That is not how it works.

Records become archival and open to the general public 62 years after the service member's separation or death. A Second World War record has long since crossed that line and can be requested regardless of your relationship. Mark the veteran as deceased on the form and state your relationship plainly.

For more recent service — a Korea-era or Cold War record — the 62-year rule may not have run yet, and you may need to be next-of-kin or supply proof of death.

The 1973 fire

In July 1973 a fire at the National Personnel Records Center destroyed a large share of Army records for personnel discharged between 1912 and 1960. There was no index and no duplicate.

If a request comes back thin, that fire is the likely reason, and it is not the end of it. NPRC reconstructs from alternate sources: pay vouchers, morning reports, unit rosters, VA claim files, and the Selective Service system. Ask them directly to attempt reconstruction, and say so on the form.

Then go local

The federal file is not the only record.

State archives, university special collections, and the local newspaper's photo morgue hold material that never left the county. This Foundation's strongest single lead on Aubrey Lee is a photo negative in the Shreveport Times collection held by the Northwest Louisiana Archives at LSU-Shreveport, catalogued by number, recording his promotion to colonel.

One correction to a common instinct: do not visit the newspaper's office. Papers have not functioned as public archives for decades, and the negatives have usually been transferred to a university. Find out who holds the collection now and write to the archivist.

Expect it to be slow

A straightforward archival request commonly takes several months. A reconstruction attempt takes longer. File early, file for everyone at once, and keep a tracking sheet so that a request filed in the spring is not filed again in the autumn.

The people whose memories would fill these gaps are in their nineties. The paperwork will wait. They will not.