One of the most challenging activities of preparing a claim for benefits is gathering evidence. You can rely on VA for doing this for you, but the probability is very high that so doing will result in an unfavorable decision.
The National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) is an office of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). Located in multiple facilities in the St. Louis area, the Center stores and services over 4 million cubic feet of military and civilian personnel and medical records dating back to the Spanish-American War.
In the mid 1950s, the Department of Defense constructed the then-named Military Personnel Records Center in Overland, Missouri – a location south of the current new building. In the years that followed, military personnel, medical, and organizational records of each military service department were relocated to the Overland facility. A new larger building you see here was completed and occupied in 2012.
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When the original Military Personnel Records Center in Overland was constructed in the 1950s, it was not equipped with a fire suppression system. In 1973, a massive fire at the Center destroyed somewhere between 16 million to 18 million records documenting the military service of Army and Air Force veterans who separated between 1912 and 1964. Though the fire occurred almost 45 years ago, the Center continues to service approximately 200, 000 requests per year which pertain to records lost in the fire. When responding to fire-related requests, technicians attempt to reconstruct the basic service record by using auxiliary records such as pay vouchers and/or by obtaining documents from other official sources. Though the Center is normally able to reconstruct basic service data, it is often impossible to reconstruct complete records of awards and decorations.
Today, NPRC holds approximately 60 million official military personnel files. Its holdings also include Service Treatment Records, clinical records from military medical treatment facilities, auxiliary records such as pay vouchers and service name indexes, and organizational records such as morning reports and unit rosters. NPRC stores these records in both paper and microfiche.
NPRC's military records facility receives between 4, 000 and 5, 000 correspondence requests each day from veterans and their next of kin as well as requests from various Federal agencies, members of Congress, the media, and other stakeholders.
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The Center receives between 5, 000 and 7, 000 requests each week from the Department of Veterans Affairs and other federal agencies requiring the transfer of original records to the Document Intake Facility in Jainesville, Wisconsin for scanning into VBMS. These paper records are not returned to the Center. These records requests are normally serviced within two business days.
Despite the original idea in 1960 for the NPRC to serve as the sole central repository for information needed to verify veterans' rights and benefits, beginning in the early 1990s, the Military Service departments stopped retiring MEDICAL RECORDS, NOW CALLED SERVICE TREATMENT RECORDS, to NPRC and instead retired them directly to the VA. As a result, the NPRC does not have direct access to modern Service Treatment Records. This change was implemented by the Army in 1992; the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps in 1994; and the Coast Guard in 1998.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the Military Service departments also stopped retiring official MILITARY PERSONNEL FILES to NPRC, instead retaining them in-house digital form. This change was implemented by the Navy in 1995; the Marine Corps in 1999; the Army in 2002; and the Air Force in 2004. The Coast Guard continues to retire hardcopy personnel records to NPRC.
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The Military Services use their electronic personnel records systems to respond to routine correspondence requests from veterans and other stakeholders. With the exception of the Department of the Army, the NPRC refers correspondence requests for these records to the appropriate military department for servicing.
In 2007, the Department of the Army entered into an agreement to allow the NPRC to access a joint Department of Defense database called DPRIS to retrieve electronic personnel records for the purpose of responding to routine correspondence requests from veterans and other stakeholders. As a result of that decision, NPRC now processes records requests directly instead of sending those requests to the Department of the Army.
The Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps continue to service their own personnel records and respond to routine correspondence requests from veterans and other stakeholders through request.
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The National Archives' National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) stores records of individual military service pertaining to former service members who no longer have a service obligation. Included are records of veterans who are completely discharged with no remaining reserve commitment, or who are retired or have died. Records are usually transferred to NPRC within six months after these events. NPRC does not have records of members who are still in the active or inactive reserves or in the National Guard. The records of each military service department on file at NPRC are listed on the NPRC website.
The Official Military Personnel File (OMPF) is primarily an administrative record, containing information about the subject's service history such as: date and type of enlistment or appointment; duty stations and assignments; training, qualifications, performance; awards and decorations received; disciplinary actions; insurance; emergency data; administrative remarks; date and type of separation or discharge, retirement including DD Form 214, Report of Separation, or equivalent; and other personnel actions. Detailed information about the veteran's participation in battles and military engagements is NOT contained in the record.
For most military personnel records since the late 1960s the following information may be part of the record. Not everyone will have all these items. Most files do not have photographs; few have restricted items.
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Treatment Records (STRS) Many OMPFs contain both personnel and active duty health records. Health records cover the outpatient, dental and mental health treatment that former members received while in military service. Health records include induction and separation physical examinations, as well as routine medical care when the patient was not admitted to a hospital. In comparison, clinical records were generated when active duty members were actually hospitalized while in the service. Typically, these records are NOT filed with the health records but are available elsewhere in the Center.
In the 1990s, the military services discontinued the practice of filing the health record with the personnel record portion. In 1992, the Army began retiring most of its former members' health records to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). Over the next six years, the other services followed suit with the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps in 1994 and Coast Guard in 1998. In 2014, the military services discontinued the practice of retiring the records to VA, retaining them in-house.
As mentioned in the previous section, clinical or hospital inpatient records are not kept in the OMPF folder. These paper records, up until the time that the military service organizations decided to retain all records on their computer systems, are kept in another location in the NPRC and are retrieved when a records request is initiated.
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A clinical record is one where the service member stayed at least one night overnight in a hospital. These records are not stored under the service member's name but are stored in the archives of the military hospitals which are kept in the NPRC. When requesting these records the veteran must specify the military hospital name, location, dates or approximate month and year of treatment.
On July 12, 1973, a disastrous fire at the Military Personnel Records Center – the original records repository south of the new facility – destroyed approximately 16 million to 18 million Official Military Personnel Files (OMPF). The records affected were:
No duplicate copies of these records were ever maintained, nor were microfilm copies produced. Neither were any indexes created prior to the fire. In addition, millions of documents had been lent to the Department of Veterans Affairs before the fire occurred. Therefore, a complete listing of the documents that were lost is not available. However, in the years following the fire, the NPRC collected numerous auxiliary evidence that is used to reconstruct basic service information.
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This facility is located 6 miles directly south of the NPRC in the Goodfellow Federal Center – a suburban office park situated on a 62.5 acre, with 23 buildings comprising the campus. The RMC is one of many federal and civilian organizations housed in this huge complex.
The buildings that now represent the Federal Center were built in 1941 by the Department of Defense and were utilized as an Army small arms munitions plant to support the World War 2 effort. During the war, approximately 16, 000 employees worked at the complex manufacturing .30 and .50 caliber ammunition.
In 1992, the Service Medical Records Center (SMRC) was established to receive Service Treatment Records (STRs) directly from the military service branches upon a service member's discharge from active duty service. The aim was to bypass the NPRC in order to facilitate a more efficient way for Regional Offices to obtain medical records. Medical records would no longer be requested from the National Personnel Records Center.
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The Army was the first service branch to retire medical records to
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