Keepers of military records stand guard
By Repps Hudson

Are you in charge of all the Army’s personal records?

Yes. The records include all kinds of things. Personal records are kept on
soldiers throughout their careers. The Army keeps these and then transfers them
to the National Personnel Records Center (next door) when the soldier leaves
the service.

Did you ever think you, an artillery officer, would be supervising paperwork
like this?

I never thought I’d ever do this. But as you are around in the Army and go
through your career, you find yourself in funny places. I’m an artillery
officer, but I haven’t done artillery in about 11 years. Since then I’ve done
operations and a lot of inspector-general work, both investigative and
inspections. That’s taken me around the world. Then I got into personal and
career management.

It surprises me that so much still seems to be on paper. Why isn’t it on a
microchip in a soldiers’ dog tags?

We have a lot of paper. We have microfiche. We handle records for the
active-duty and reserve soldiers electronically. They have the ability now to
see their electronic records from their home computer.

Aren’t military records crucial because of benefits and awards, which are
important to families?

Yep. It is a challenge. But I have good people working for me. Alexandria takes
care of the active duty officer records. Indianapolis takes care of the
enlisted records. That’s the bulk of our work because there are almost 500,000
enlisted soldiers in the active Army. Here we do all the Army reserve records.
Each state manages its own National Guard records.

How do records arrive?

By mail. A soldier will mail in a hard copy. Or a soldier can Web upload a
document and send it to us. We will put it in the right record. If we receive a
hard copy, we have to scan it in electronically. We have to ensure we get the
right record with the right soldier.

Are there errors in past records?

There was one case of a soldier who told his family of all the great things he
did in Vietnam. In the record, we found a morning report that showed someone
threw a bar of soap at him in the shower and injured his eye. He didn’t win a
Purple Heart. But he was evacuated for that.

So you investigate?

We have cases where people claim they win awards. If it’s a case of questioning
an award, we can look.

There are wannabes claiming they were in Vietnam or elsewhere. Do you see those?

Not many. Sometimes we see exaggeration of actions. It’s not a systemic
problem. There was a recent story in The Army Times that involved us. A soldier
had a lot of awards that were falsified.

Isn’t that a federal crime?

It is. We had the case of Randall Moneymaker. (A federal jury in Roanoke, Va.,
found Moneymaker guilty last year on six counts of theft and fraud relating to
military achievements and awards.)

If someone claims a high military honor, do you get calls from civilian
reporters asking to check it out?

Right. There are other checks, with the awards branch in Alexandria. Believe
me, we can look and we can see. One of our folks testified at Moneymaker’s
trial. We have folks that notice these things.

Can you tell when something isn’t right?

You can usually tell. A lot of people here have been working here 10 or 20
years. The guy who caught Moneymaker had about 30 years of experience.

Why do people care so much about finding false claims?

Because it’s what right. They feel it diminishes the awards of the soldiers who
are serving. Our employees, many of them prior military, have what we call Army
values. They will tell their supervisor when they think something is not right.

How many records are here?

We don’t have paper records. We manage everything electronically. We do manage
paper records for reserve retirements. We have about 740,000 records altogether.

A security clearance is necessary?

Yes, secret. For some, it’s higher.

A reader would want to know if the records of her dad, husband, brother or son
are safe.

They are.

If I needed to get to them, could I?

Oh, yeah. You can send a request by mail or e-mail. We get around 700 to 800
requests a week. Half of those are picked off by the National Personnel Records
Center next door.

What’s a typical request?

“I need a (Department of Defense Form) 214 to verify my service.” That’s an
easy one. There are harder requests. “I need to verify my dad’s awards from
Vietnam or World War II.”

What about my father, who was in World War I?

We can find that too.

How far back do records go?

As far as I have seen is World War I. The awards branch in Alexandria has been
able to go back to the Civil War for the Medal of Honor. A typical request is
for a father who just died. The family wants to bury him in a uniform with his
medals. A lot of folks who do that usually write high-level people, the
secretary of the Army or a high-ranking general officer.

Wasn’t there a fire here?

In 1973. This building next door, that whole top layer burned. Any records
before 1973 could have been lost or damaged. A lot were burned, and a lot
weren’t. A lot got water damaged. The Personnel Records Center people were able
to recover a lot.

What if a veteran’s file was lost in the fire?

Then we root around in morning report files. Any means we can find to verify
something.

How fast can you retrieve a file?

If it’s high enough priority, we can get it in one or two days. Benefits are a
big priority. So are homeless vets. They have no advocates. Requests from
members of Congress have priority.

What’s the future of this records center?

We are going to consolidate at Fort Knox in a couple of years.

The Military Personnel Records (MPR) facility of the National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) is located in the St. Louis suburb of Overland, MO, about 10 miles west-northwest of the Gateway Arch.

The National Personnel Records Center, Military Personnel Records (NPRC-MPR) is the repository of millions of military personnel, health, and medical records of discharged and deceased veterans of all services during the 20th century. (Records prior to WWI are in Washington, DC.) NPRC (MPR) also stores medical treatment records of retirees from all services, as well as records for dependent and other persons treated at naval medical facilities. Information from the records is made available upon written request (with signature and date) to the extent allowed by law.

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