#Middlebury #Veterans #MilitaryPersonnelRecords #StLouisFire
VETERANS POST
By Freddy Groves
On July 12, 1973, a fire in St. Louis, Missouri, at the National Personnel Records Center destroyed between 16 and 18 million military personnel files. My mother’s file was one of those.
The files covered the period from pre-World War 1 to 1963. There began decades of veterans struggling to prove military service in order to access their benefits.
When I sent away for my mother’s records, what I received back was a certificate, similar to a Little League participation certificate. It has the information that I had provided: dates of service, branch of service, rank, but not much more. Thankfully, I’d had enough information on hand to send them to prove service, including a copy of a newspaper photo taken as she took the oath.
But what of people who don’t have even those things? What if you have … nothing?
After the fire, the Records Center started a new rule for all military facilities: Save everything. No matter where in the country a record was likely to be found, it was to be saved and indexed. In this way they were able to index approximately 6 million files. When a claim for benefits came in from a veteran whose file was burned, instructions were sent out to attempt to reconstruct the file from the pieces here and there.
The Veterans Affairs, Office of Inspector General was asked to audit the process of reconstructing a file. Here is what they found:
- Last year it was taking an average of 450 days from time of claim to a claim decision, compared to 146 days for a non-fire claim.
- Staff were not following the steps outlined in their instructions, thereby adding 73 days to the process.
- Staff did not complete follow-up procedures 25% of the time due to lack of training.
If there’s good news, I’ll never have to send away for my father’s military records. The man saved everything, and I mean everything: every transfer, pay stub, promotion notice, TDY order … everything. Perhaps you should do the same.
© 2023 King Features Synd., Inc.
