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[MIKE] Hello and welcome to another episode of the SITREP. I’m Army Veteran Mike McNamara.
[PAUL] And I am Marine Corps Veteran Paul Corbett. Today, we are covering more than 25 questions regarding the National Personnel Records Center, such as how to get a copy of your DD-214, how to get records for a deceased family member, how many records were lost during the fire at NPRC, and much more. But before we begin, do us a favor and hit that like button and subscribe, which helps the SITREP in its mission of connecting Veterans with the benefits they have earned and deserve.
[MIKE] Today we have Mr. Scott Levins, Director of National Personnel Record Center in St. Louis, Missouri. Thanks for flying in, Scott.
[MR. LEVINS] My pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me.
[MIKE] This is a very unique topic, one that we get asked a lot, so, you know, let's - what is the NPRC?
[MR. LEVINS] So the NPRC, NPRC stands for National Personnel Record Center, and it's an office of the National Archives and Records Administration. And it's an office that's located in St. Louis, Missouri. It's comprised of multiple buildings. One actually is actually an underground space in Illinois. And the center is where we store all of the military and civilian personnel records of the federal government. Our holdings in the military side start right around the Spanish American war, and they go through the late 1990s, early 2000s, when the military departments each started on a point forward basis converting to digital.
[PAUL] And so I - roughly how many locations are there and are they spread across the country or how does that work?
[MR. LEVINS] So the National Archives has offices all across the country, but they centralize the function of managing military and civilian personnel records in the St Louis area. And we actually have two buildings. One that's primarily military records and another that's primary civilian records. The military building's in north St. Louis county. It's a structure that's composed of 15 different independently built warehouse spaces. That range in size between 20,000 square foot to 40,000 square foot. And it holds about 56 million personnel and related records.
[MIKE] Wow.
[PAUL] That's a lot of records.
[MR. LEVINS] Yeah, it's a lot of records. There's enough records in that building that if you took the folders and laid 'em lengthwise side by side, they would stretch from coast to coast seven times.
[PAUL] Wow.
[MIKE] Okay. And that's still true today, even with, you know, so much stuff being digital, or is that - are you still required to keep a paper copy even if it's digitized?
[MR. LEVINS] So the military departments transitioned to digital records beginning in the late 1990s, and they were all had been there by the early 2000s. The stuff that was maintained before that is paper and microfilm, most of that has not been digitized. So the records are maintained electronically on a point forward basis. So if you're a modern veteran, you separated from the service generally after the year 2000, your record is probably available electronically and maintained by your personnel command. Our staff can reference those systems to provide records to veterans who write to us. The records that predate roughly the year 2000, depending on the branch of service, those are still maintained in analog formats. But the VA has begun digitizing those in a very aggressive schedule. So they are - the VA is trying to digitize the records of every living veteran.
[MIKE] So if I wanna get my records, how do I contact you? What's the best way? What's the fastest way?
[MR. LEVINS] So we don't take requests over the phone, 'cause you're gonna need to sign under penalty of perjury that you are who you say you are when you submit your request. So the best way to get your records is to go online, go to our website, archives.gov, click on the section for military service records, and you will find a link to an application called eVetRecs, which will enable you to submit your request electronically. You can sign it electronically. You'll receive a service request number and you'll be able to come back later and check on the status of that request using that service request number.
[MIKE] Mm-kay.
[PAUL] And about how long will that whole process take, roundabout?
[MR. LEVINS] So it's a function of what you're looking for. So, as I discussed earlier, because we operated with strict occupancy limitations in that building throughout the pandemic, we grew a backlog that is the largest it's ever been in the history of the center. Mm-kay? A year ago it had eclipsed 600,000 requests. Mm-kay? I've checked with my predecessors and their predecessors and never been that high. Now we've already reduced it by 30%, still too high, but we're down to about 380,000 today. Our approach to bringing the backlog down was to work all the requests for DD- to restore service on routine requests for DD-214s before we deal with other types of requests. We know that if you request your DD-214, it's most likely related to some sort of benefit application for you. And so we continually ingest those cases ahead of other requests that are still pending. So if two requests come in at the same time, one is, I need my DD-214, maybe I'm trying to apply for a home loan or somethin' like that, the other one is, I wanna know what grandpa did, you know, during World War II, we're gonna work the DD-214 one first. We've eliminated the backlog of DD-214 requests. And that makes up 60% of our work. So, like, you know, we're gonna probably receive 26,000, 27,000 requests this week, 60% of 'em are gonna be for...
[PAUL] Jeez.
[MR. LEVINS] I want my DD-214. Our - 90% of those requests are being serviced in less than 10 days last week. Average time, about six days. So, if you just ask for your DD-214, expect to get it right away. If you ask for a complete copy of your record or other types of things, it's expected to take a lot longer. We're aggressively hiring new staff and hiring more contract laborers to support us. We've got a model that shows us eliminating our backlog, restoring service to 90% serviced in 20 days or less, by the end of the calendar year. So we will get better. But right now, we have a lot of people who've been waiting since the pandemic. Prior to the pandemic, like, on the day it hit, on the day we sent people home, we had 56,000 cases pending. And if we're doing 25,000 a week, that - you know, it's about two and a half weeks worth of work.
[PAUL] Man.
[MR. LEVINS] So that's where we're trying to get back to.
[PAUL] That's a lot of busy people.
[MIKE] That's a lot of busy people.
[MIKE] I request my records or I request a veteran's records, how much is it gonna cost me to get the record?
[MR. LEVINS] In most cases, there's not going to be a charge. We are - we - we're not funded by appropriated congressional action every year. We're funded through reimbursements from the military departments and from the National Archives, depending on who owns the record that we're servicing. So when you - if you're an Army veteran and you submit a request to us, we're gonna service that request, we're not going to charge you, but then we're going to charge the legal owner of that record, which in most cases is still gonna be the Army, unless you've been out for 62 years and you don't look like you have been.
[MIKE] No, not yet.
[MR. LEVINS] No, there are some exceptions to that. There are some instances in which fee schedules apply and there might be minor charges paid if the character of service was dishonorable. Also, if the record - once the record is accessioned by the National Archives, the National Archives has a fee schedule that's imposed. So if you're looking for your record, you're not gonna get charged for it. But if you're looking for your grandfather's record and he's been out for more than 62 years, and that record is now owned by the National Archives and Records Administration, there is a fee schedule published in the federal register that we will apply. Right now because of the pandemic and the situation that we're in, we're waving those fees, but someday they will be restored.
[PAUL] Oh, it's kind of like a general research kind of thing, or what have you?
[MR. LEVINS] Right. It's basically the - they'll send an invoice out to the requester and say, we found a record, this is what we have. You know, we can give you this package for this amount of money, or we can give you complete copy for this amount of money. But they will be upfront with you. 'Cause if you think about it, a lot of the records that are accessioned by the National Archives are the ones that are, like, from the fire period. And so, you know, if we - if all we have are a couple pieces of paper regarding a veteran, and we want people to know what they're going to get. A lot of the people who would request records of their ancestors are interested in genealogy and they'll get frustrated if they come to us for a record and alls we do is turn around and give them a form that has three pieces of information on it that they already knew, 'cause they really haven't gotten anything new. So we always will be up front and tell the customer what we're gonna send them if there's gonna be a fee involved.
[MIKE] Yeah, 'cause that's - if you're talkin' Army and Air Force from World War II and Korea, that's a fe-...
[MR. LEVINS] It's a lot.
[MIKE] ...that's a few million people.
[MR. LEVINS] It's a lot.
[PAUL] Yeah.
[MIKE] That's the biggest the military ever was. So, yeah.
[MR. LEVINS] Right, right.
[PAUL] So with regard to requesting, if I'm a veteran and I wanna get copy of my records, is - is the process for getting a copy of my records the same for whether they're medical, or dental, or training, or service, or any of that? Is it all the same process?
[MR. LEVINS] So there was a lot there.
[PAUL] Yeah.
[MR. LEVINS] Most of it is the same. So if you go online to archives.gov and you find our eVetRecs application, you can submit a request. We actually - the application will actually ask you questions about what you need the records for, and we'll try to steer you to what documents that you're gonna need. But generally speaking, a personnel record, a military service record, also called a military personnel record, is gonna include most of the things that you mentioned. The one difference I wanna point out is, there is a difference between, you know, when veterans say, I want my medical records, they - we kind of use that term generically. But most of the time they're referring to a specific series of records called service treatment records. Those are the records that follow a veteran throughout their military career. Physical examinations, shot records, dental records, things like that. But if that veteran was actually treated inpatient in a military hospital, those are a different series of records. Those are called clinical records. And to do a search for those, we're gonna need to know what hospital they were treated in and when. And we won't - if you just ask for medical records, we're not going to make that leap and assume that their hospital records. We're just gonna provide you with the regular service treatment records.
[PAUL] Oh, that's interesting. So what - would that also be the case if somebody was, like, at some forward operating base overseas or something? Like, you need to know to look at that location or that...
[MR. LEVINS] So for the...
[PAUL] Or in that country? I don't...
[MR. LEVINS] So for the records that are in our holdings, in our physical custody - sorry, our physical custody, and in our legal custody, most of them are gonna have the medical records inside the personnel folder. So the series is called the official personnel folder, official military personnel folder. Medical records will be inside that folder, usually. There are some exceptions to that. But if you were treated at a military hospital, including a hospital overseas, then that hospital's gonna retire those records to us separately. And, you know, unless you - unless we are - the requester tells us, I need hospital records from this hospital, give us - you know, they might not know the exact date of treatment, but give us the year you were treated and then we'll do a search for that collection.
[PAUL] That's something I didn't know.
[MIKE] Right, so now - yeah, you have to obviously be specific on...
[MR. LEVINS] Yeah.
[MIKE] ...on what you're looking for, whether it's just a regular old, annual physical, or when you went into such and such medical facility for treatment. That's interesting.
[MR. LEVINS] Yes, and the VA adjudicators know this as well though, too. So if you file a disability claim with the VBA, and you let them track down the records that are needed to adjudicate that claim, they're gonna know enough about your claim to know whether to request just the service treatment records from us, or if there were hospital records involved, they'll request them from us as well. Let me add a little bit more on the whole medical records piece of this. Records - the analog records, paper records that were retired to our center over time, as I mentioned, the medical record, service treatment record was often inside the personnel folder. If the veteran later filed a claim with the VA, then the VA would've requested that record from us, extracted those medical records, ingested them into the VA claim folder and then returned the personnel record to us minus those medical records. So a lot of times we get requests for medical records, especially if someone's been out for a long time, you know, if someone's from the Vietnam era is requesting medical records, there's a good chance we're gonna go pull that personnel folder and the meds will already be gone and there'll be a charge out in place saying, you know, they went to the VA in, you know, 1980 or something like that. And those records are in a claim folder with the VA.
[MIKE] And then the person would need to contact the VA...
[MR. LEVINS] Yes.
[MIKE] ...to get a copy of their medical treatment or their medical folder?
[MR. LEVINS] Yes.
[MIKE] Okay.
[MR. LEVINS] What I advise people to do is just come to us with your request. Let us take a look, we'll figure it out.
[MIKE] And then you can direct them...
[MR. LEVINS] And then we'll direct it.
[MIKE] Mm-kay.
[MR. LEVINS] Now I - I will say that in the 1990s, there was a change made and the military department stopped sending the medical records to NPRC and instead retired them directly to the VA. They were remain- maintained at - in analog format by the VA. To make things more complicated, the VA's office that maintained them was also located in St. Louis. So veterans just will sometimes say, I'm writing to St. Louis, and they don't make a distinction between the VA and the National Personnel Record Center. But those records have now all been digitized. So the records are still with the VA, but they've been digitized and they're in the Veterans Benefits Management System.
[MIKE] How do - how does a veteran go about, like, replacing certificates, awards, medals?
[MR. LEVINS] Again, we can help with that. If you - again, you can submit your request online. We ask you what the purpose of your request is, and we try to steer you toward what documents you need. But there's also in the application, a free form text box. So if we steer you wrong or you don't see the option on there you're looking for, you can just type in what you want. If we get a request for metals verification, we don't make determinations. Mm-kay? That's an important distinction to be made. That's a job for the military departments. But what we'll do is we'll pull your record and we'll see what metals have already been awarded. And then we will send you a letter back that lists the metals that have been awarded in the past. And then we will order them from the military departments to have them reissue the actual medals.
[MIKE] How does a veteran go about getting their spouse's records? So, you know, if a spouse accompanied the service member throughout their career and he or she went to a medical facility on a military base to be treated, how does that spouse then get access to those records?
[MR. LEVINS] Okay, so the spouse - if the spouse is the veteran and the spouse is still living, the request has to come from the veteran. That's who we're gonna release it to. If the spouse is deceased, then we can release to the next of kin of the spouse, which would include the widow or widower. It would also include the mother, father, brother, sister, or any children. Mm-kay? But then the process is the same. And our ability to locate a record is gonna be a function of the information that's provided to us by the requester. So if it's a personnel record, that's pretty straightforward. If we have the person's service number, which in most cases of modern veterans is gonna be their social security number, we're gonna be able to find the record. If you're looking for clinical records, then again, we're gonna need to know when that person - what hospital that person was treated at, when they were treated at. And then we're gonna have to go look through that series of records for the actual hospital records.
[PAUL] And how would someone prove that they are in fact a direct family member of a veteran?
[MR. LEVINS] So we - you're gonna sign under penalty of perjury that you are. And then you - we're gonna look for some reasonable proof of death. And we'll accept, you know, just an obituary will suffice.
[PAUL] Okay.
[MR. LEVINS] Now where the government is moving though is more and more controls on identity for accessing these records.
[PAUL] Mm-hm.
[MR. LEVINS] So I do envision a time when we will require more. Especially, like, electronically there are ways - when you come in electronically with your requests, there are ways to identify - verify your identity.
[PAUL] Like ID.me or something...
[MR. LEVINS] Exactly.
[PAUL] ...like that?
[MR. LEVINS] Exactly. So we are moving towards that.
[MIKE] What if I need the records for - from my relative and he, or she has passed away? What - how do I go about then getting the relatives, if the veteran is in fact no longer with us?
[MR. LEVINS] Okay, I spoke earlier about the records becoming public records 62 years after...
[PAUL] Mm-hm.
[MR. LEVINS] ...the member separates. If that's the case here, then anyone can submit a request for that record. You don't need to be necessarily a next of kin. But if the deceased veteran has not been separated for 62 years, then we can release that record only to their next of kin. And DOD has a definition for what next of kin means. It means un-remarried, widow or widower, mother, father, son, daughter, or brother, sister. Then the process is exactly the same as if you were requesting your own re- your own record. You're gonna go online, create your request. Our application's gonna require some sort of proof of death, a death certificate, or even an obituary will suffice. And the application will let you upload that document into our system so that when our technicians assign that request, they can see it's already there and they can go ahead and release the record.
[MIKE] Okay.
[PAUL] And then when you provide documentation, is - you can provide it digital, or you can provide it in actual hard copy?
[MR. LEVINS] Yes, so we, you know, right now we're getting about 60, 65% of our reference request come in electronically. And that's our preferred method, for sure. But we still will take paper. I tell veterans groups, you know, we'll take crayon on a cocktail napkin if that's all you got. It - we need you to sign it and we need you to give us the information that we need to do a thorough search. And if you're looking for records of a deceased relative, we're gonna need the proof of death.
[PAUL] With all the requests you - that NPRC has coming in every week, I mean, how many employees do you guys have? It's gotta be a boatload of people.
[MR. LEVINS] Before the pandemic, we were around 650 employees at our two buildings. 'Cause we also have, you know, a civilian operation that mirrors the military one, only on a smaller scale, because there's no VA for civil servants. During the pandemic, because most of our - almost all of our records are analog, we operated with - to safeguard the workforce and do our part to safeguard the community, we operated that facility with strict limitations on how many people could be in the building at a time. And so we went - we were operating for almost two years that it fluctuated, but generally between 10 and 25% of our normal capacity. Because of that, we grew a large backlog of requests. Now we returned our workforce to onsite work 100% about a year ago last March. And since then we've been hiring people. So we've increased right now. Last l- last number I have is, like, 711 employees, but we're still fillin' vacancies. So if you're a veteran and you live in the St. Louis area, uh, USA jobs. Because, uh, we - we hire a lot of veterans. I mean, they know the records and, you know, it's, um, it's - it's very, uh, rewarding work to do. 'Cause you really make a difference in people's lives when you furnish them with a document that they need to get - to get something done. Most people who write to us, um, for records are not window shoppin'. They need a DD-214 because something happened in their lives. Um, maybe someone passed away and they need to get 'em buried in a national cemetery, that sort of thing.
[MIKE] So we - we get a lot - a lot of veterans are confused about whose records were lost back in the early '70s and in the fire that happened. Can you kind of break that down a little bit? Wh- which records, whose records, do you know how many records?
[MR. LEVINS] The estimates are that between 16 and 18 million records were lost.
[MIKE] Oh, wow.
[MR. LEVINS] And it's - generally speaking, it's the, um, Army and Air Force records from World War II, Korea era. Um, with the Air Force, the records were arranged alphabetically, so it's (Hubbard) through Z. Um, where, if your - you - your last name began with something before H, uh, you might be lucky. The - the - the building in which the fire took place, we actually continued to occupy that building for many years after the fire. We moved on about ten years ago, um, the building still stands today. It was originally built as a six-story building, and the fire started on the six floor and took out the entire six floor. So as part of the recovery, um, the demolition crews removed the sixth floor and then restored all the systems in the building. And the building continued to function as a five-story building for many, many years thereafter. Um, when we - so we deal with a lot of records. There are - first of all, there are a lot of records that were salvaged from the fire. So we've got a lot of records in our building that are brittle, because they got water damage during the fire. And through the process of, um, vacuum drying those records, they became very brittle. We've got a lot that have charred edges around them, so they have to be handled very carefully. Um, a lot of times we will reproduce them in a pr- preservation lab, and then our technicians will work off of a - a photocopy or a digitized copy of the record instead of working with the originals. 'Cause again these are, uh, records that will be kept for the life of the Republic. And the records that were salvaged are kept in two special warehouse bays where the temperature and humidities are strictly controlled, temperature's set at around 50 degrees in those bays. You gotta wear a jacket if you're gonna be working in there all day, it's cold. 'Cause that'll help ensure that the records are retained for as - the life of the Republic. When it comes to records that were l- lost - so we - we estimate about 80% of Army veterans, World War II, Korea era, the records were lost. When the fire occurred, the government didn't just shrug its arms and it's shoulders and say, there's nothing we can do about this. It's, you know, um, immediately they went to action and they issued, um, a, um, requirement for all federal agencies across the government to stop the destruction of any records that could possibly be used to verify military service. And there was a working group created that identified series that could be used to reconstruct basic service and get those records to St. Louis. So records that might normally be kept for seven years, like, um, final payment vouchers, for example, your last payment you got when you get out. Um, it's got the date of your separation on there. It's got the character of your service on - on there. Those would normally be short-term records, but those were all collected and maintained in St. Louis. So what we do is if we search for - um, we receive a request and we don't have a record and we recognized based on the - the - the branch of service and the time period involved that it was likely lost in the fire, then we try to reconstruct the basic service. And we're lookin' for three data points. We're looking for the entry date, the separation date, and the character of service. And if we can get those three data points, then we can issue a document, it's called the National Archives Form 13038 that can be used in lieu of a DD-214 to get whatever benefits that you're seeking. And we're usually able to do that. But a lot of times it's a function of the amount of information that we get from the requester. In some cases what we'll do is, um, if a request is received and we don't have a record, um, and we're not able to reconstruct, we will send a form back to the requester and ask for additional information. Like, normally when we to request your military records, we're lookin' for the basics. What branch service were you in? What was your service number or social? Um, and usually that's enough. Maybe your date of birth will play into the equation. But for fire-related reconstruction, we might ask what units you are in. And then we'll use organizational records, morning reports and unit rosters, and follow you throughout your service to see if we can get your - your separation date, that sort of thing. So a lot of times our ability to reconstruct is gonna be a function of the amount of information that we receive from the requester. And one of the challenges is that because of the age of those records, most of the requesters today are not the veterans themselves.
[MIKE] Right.
[MR. LEVINS] They're - you know, someone's lookin' for grandpa's record, and nobody knows what his service number was. So what our staff will do is they'll use...
[PAUL] Oh, I didn't even think of that's, it's a totally different number.
[MIKE] Yeah, World War II, Korea. Yeah.
[PAUL] Yes.
[MR. LEVINS] Right.
[MIKE] No social security numbers.
[MR. LEVINS] Right. So that would - you know, the military switched to the social security numbers in the mid to late '60s.
[PAUL] Right.
[MR. LEVINS] Um, prior to that, you were assigned a unique service number. And if no one remembers that service number, one of the things we do is our staff has access to a lot of VA systems. VA is a tremendous partner in the work that we do. And what we'll do is we'll see if the veteran ever filed a claim, then we might be able to find that serve - that - that service number. We can look - look up the social security number to find the claim, and then with that claim information we can find the service number. Then we can use the service number to find the record. Uh, we also have some index cards, the VA index cards that were created at, you know, back in the '40s and '50s that will give us that kind of information as well. So it - that's a lot of detective work, uh, to...
[MIKE] Mm.
[MR. LEVINS] ...to reconstruct the records, but we're normally successful.
[MIKE] But I guess my point is if I served in Desert Storm, then, um, the chances of my records being burned up in the fire are almost nil?
[MR. LEVINS] Right. So the fire was in 1973.
[MIKE] Right.
[MR. LEVINS] And there - there haven't been any since.
[MIKE] Right.
[MR. LEVINS] Um, so if you got out after 19- and - and actually, it's not like - if you separated in 1973, it's not like your record arrived here the day you got out. Right?
[MIKE] Right.
[MR. LEVINS] Your field command would've sent it to your personnel command and - and they would do some stuff to it, and eventually it would get into our building. So, you know, really it would be impossible if you got out after '73 for that record to have been lost in the fire. Now one thing I will say though, is generally speaking, Army Air Force, World War II, Korea era - era, um, but there were office spaces on that sixth floor as well, office spaces for 200 employees. And they could have had records on their desk from Navy Marine Corps.
[MIKE] Okay.
[MR. LEVINS] So those records weren't stored on that floor, but they could have been temporarily out of their file and on someone's desk (unintelligible) lost.
[MIKE] Somebody used - used...
[MR. LEVINS] And, um, also on that - that - the floor that burned, the sixth floor, there was a vault for specially protected holdings. So, you know - you know, records that you'd be particularly embarrassed about if you scr- you screwed 'em up, um, famous people. Also, it was a common practice if you - and it still is today - if - you know, I'm not a veteran, but my father was in the Army. Day one when I start workin' there, they asked me if I have any immediate family who were veterans, or if I have a veteran. I say, "My father was a veteran." That record gets pulled. It gets put into that specially protected area. So I don't have access to my father's record. I can't make him in general when he wasn't. Um, nobody...
[MIKE] That's interesting.
[MR. LEVINS] Nobody can get angry at me and take it out of my dad by tearing up, you know, his record. So all - that - a lot of people - in fact, I know someone who worked at the National Personnel Record Center in the early '70s before the fire, and because of that, he was involved in having his father's record relocated into that vault on the sixth floor. And then 25, 30 years later he's retired, and he contacts me 'cause his dad passed away and he needs a 214 for a funeral service. And when I go to look for it, 'cause it wasn't - it wasn't an Army veteran it was - I think it was a Navy veteran. Shouldn't have been burned in the fire, but when I did the research on it, I found that because you worked here in the '70s, you actually had his record moved to that vault on the sixth floor where it was burned. So it's not absolute, I guess my point is.
[MIKE] It's crazy.
[MR. LEVINS] It's usually gonna be on Army.
[MIKE] So the vault wasn't fireproof?
[MR. LEVINS] No, no.
[MIKE] Okay.
[MR. LEVINS] No.
[PAUL] I bet the new one is.
[MIKE] I bet the new ones are, yes.
[MR. LEVINS] Yeah. So, y- the - the building was built by the Department of Defense. Army Corps of Engineer built - built that building, the one that - that - that burned. And um, they hired an architectural firm, and that firm, uh, did a requirement, uh, study for the new building. And they visited different facilities around the country that were used for storing large volumes of records. And they visited, uh, a Navy facility in Garden City, New York that had sprinklers in it. And they also visited a DOD facility in, uh, Alexandria, Virginia that did not. Um, the - the Navy folks had the sprinkler systems. The DOD folks argued that the water was as big a threat, if not greater, than fire. And therefore - um, and that was probably because they were right on the shores of the Potomac and dealt with flooding all the time. Um, and it was still being debated among - in - in the whole, you know, archivist, uh, records management, um, arena about, you know, whether sprinklers made sense or not. But when that building was built, it was a deliberate decision not to equip it with sprinklers. By the '70s the government got smarter, and it was a requirement to have sprinklers in the building, but they were - it was grandfather clause. Um, at the time that fire occurred, there were no sprinklers in that building.
[PAUL] Mm.
[MR. LEVINS] And there were - there's a number of other, um, fire protection measures that were not in place in the '70s that are in place today as well.
[PAUL] So if I'm someone that served in the military and I was in Spec Ops or something like that, um, or I'm the family member of somebody who is in Spec Ops, uh, am I able to get their records from NPRC?
[MR. LEVINS] We don't have a vault anymore. We don't store any classified records. When we pull personnel records sometimes I will find - especially in the older ones - that maybe there are some classified markings on some documents, and we'll secure those right away and we'll work with declassifiers. And normally almost every - in fact every time I'm aware of, they were documents that had been declassified years ago, but they had not been properly marked as declassified. Um, and that happens once in a while, not very often. Um, I'm also - I've been told that if you had - um, some sort of your personnel record was classified, that there would be something in your - your non-classified part of your record that would st- would state that and would say where to find the classified portion. I've never actually seen that. And I've been working out there for 20 years and I've never actually seen that before. But I've also done this long enough to know to never say never.
[PAUL] Right.
[MR. LEVINS] And so, you know, I've had people tell me stories about their service that - you know, and suggest that somewhere the government's got this classified record. And, um, I've referred them to, um, a VA liaison for Special Operations, um, out at MacDill Air Force base, and they've had some success in helping some veterans.
[PAUL] So if I want to get a copy of my DD-214, or I wanna get a copy of a loved one's DD-214 due to burial or something like that, what is fastest way to do it?
[MR. LEVINS] Okay. So there's, um, it's the same way you go online and use our application. eVetRecs you go to the National Archives, um, webpage, which is archives.gov, click on Military Service Records. And then look for our application called eVetRecs to submit a request online. You made a distinction in your question between, you know, I'm lookin' for my DD-214, but then you also said, what if I need a DD-214 to support a funeral service?
[PAUL] Right.
[MR. LEVINS] Okay. When you're on that application, you can request expedited service, and you'll be asked why. And if it's a medical emergency or burial, homeless veteran seeking shelter, that sort of thing, we will expedite that request. And, you know, with burials, we - we turn those around in two, three days sometimes. We'll always try to meet the date that is required for the service. Also if it's a national cemetery, what I advise families - you know, grieving families don't need to be burdened with, uh, navigating the federal bureaucracy. Right? Um, let the National Cemetery Scheduling Office do it for you. Um, they deal directly with us on records, and we get hundreds every single day.
[PAUL] So if I'm a veteran who is submitting a claim, because a PACT act, it might have been exposure to burn pits or agent orange or whatever the case may be, um, and I am looking to get all the records I possibly can from my history in order to support a claim with the Veteran's Benefits Administration, do I go through National Personnel Records Center to do that, or is there a better, faster way?
[MR. LEVINS] The better, faster way is to file your claim with the VBA and let the VBA come to us to get whatever documents are needed to adjudicate the claim. Uh, the VBA, in a lot of cases they, you know, they anticipate claim activity before it occurs, and they come to us and request records for potential claimants. And they've already digitized them and have those records available at the VA to adjudicate that claim. In other instances, if they don't have the record already, they're gonna come to us. All we have to do is run out into a warehouse, find that record and deliver it to the VA. Most of those requests are serviced in three days. But if you come to us and you want a copy of everything that we have, um, the labor involved in doing that is much greater because we're gonna have to - first of all, analyze your request, make sure you're authorized to get these records. We're gonna have to reproduce them. These records are full of third-party-personal data, especially clinical records. If you get treated in a military hospital back in the '70s, every doctor, every nurse had a rubber stamp and they would stamp every document and then sign their name on it. And that stamp often has their social security number on there.
[PAUL] Oh, wow.
[MR. LEVINS] Uh, your - your ovals - your eval reports, they often have - your rating official has their social security number on there. So when - that's - that's one of the reasons it takes us a long time to service those types of requests, we have to reproduce them all. We have to redact all of that third-party-personal information that's prevalent in those records.
[PAUL] Wow. I never knew that.
[MR. LEVINS] If we're sending it to the VA, we don't have to do that. We just give the VA the record and they'll have it in a matter of days. And they'll be able to, um, have the information they need to support your claim. The, um - when the - the PACT Act was passed, the VA came to us before the act was even signed and they had already identified what records from our holdings were applicable. And then the moment that thing was signed, we started pulling 'em, and - and we've pulled 80 - I'm gonna lose the number now. I think it was 140,000 that we wound up pullin'. And the VA's already digitized all those records in anticipation of the claims. Um, the other thing, uh, Camp Jejeune Justice Act was part of that PACT Act. Um, you can file a claim for that without your records. I would suggest get DOJ to get 'em for you. The DOJ has a legal demand, they'll come to us and we'll get them the record and they'll reproduce it and make sure it's, you know, uh, furnished in - in a manner that will be acceptable to the court, that sort of thing. But that - that litigation also - there's a lot of steps to it that will occur before a record is even needed. So I would not let that hold up my claim.
[PAUL] So - but the - the only caveat to that - to kind of go back to something you had mentioned earlier, uh, in our podcast, um, you wanna make sure that you inform VBA as to all the different medical hospitals you went to in DOD, right, so that you guys know to actually pull the files from that particular facility?
[MR. LEVINS] Absolutely. That's - and again, an important distinction. Um, the more information you provide to the VBA, you know, th- th- they're gonna know what resources you go to. But where you're - what you're getting' at is that if you just ask for medical records, you're gonna get your service treatment records, which are the records that follow you around your service, your shots, your immunizations, your physicals, your, um, dental records. If you were treated inpatient by a, you know, a hospital, a military hospital, you need to say that, because that's a whole different series of records that we need to search.
[PAUL] Oh, so Scott, you, you kind of mentioned it a few times and some of the other questions, uh, that Mike and I have asked you, um, but really how has COVID or how has the pandemic really morphed or changed how operations are at NPRC?
[MR. LEVINS] Yeah, it's a - it's an amazing difference. Um, prior to the pandemic, you could count on one hand, the number of people that worked at NPRC that had laptops. You know, there weren't - there wasn't a lot of opportunity to - to work remotely because the records were analog. They're not digital. Um, the modern records are - are digital. But even our production system was a secure production system, you couldn't - there was no way to access it securely from a remote location. You had to be on site to do your work.
[PAUL] Interesting.
[MR. LEVINS] Um, shortly after the start of the pandemic, we had already been working on functionality to digitally deliver records to customers. And we were - we had begun working on that as a, you know, a - an efficiency issue, you know, cost avoidance. We spent a lot of money on printers and toner and paper and postage. And, you know, to eliminate that delay of getting records, um, you know, physically shipped to a requester, uh, we wanted to figure out a way that we could, you know, in - in some cases anyhow, be able to respond electronically. And so we deployed that in March of 2020. Uh, but then our problem was we - we didn't have a whole lot of digital records available. Um, but the VA a while back had - had changed its adjudication process. Um, when they request records from us, uh, what they're doing now, uh, even before the pandemic, is they're digitizing the entire record. So what we've done is we've partnered with the VA, and all the records that they've already digitized they have now shared with us. And on a point-forward basis, every record they digitize they're sharing with us. And when they're digitizing records, they're - they're really comin' from three different buckets. If a veteran files a claim with VBA, they're gonna - and they don't already have a digital record, they're gonna pull that physical record from our holdings. And they're gonna digitize that. Also, if there's a request pending with us, a veteran's just come to NPRC and ask for their record, we are sending a significant portion of those records to the VA for digitization so that we can respond electronically to the request. And then the third one is they are proactively just in massive volumes pulling boxes of records off of our shelves, digitizing the contents, and then returning them to us. So there's a large scale digitization effort going on right now, which will be and all the data's being shared between both agencies so it'll be beneficial to both. And when we respond electronically to requestors, the way we do it is we will send them an email response to their request with information on how - we will post the documents to a secure server, and then give them instructions on how they can download the documents. And we put watermark seals on them to attest to their authenticity.
[MIKE] Is the plan or intent to digitize everything?
[MR. LEVINS] The V.A. is, you know, I don't wanna speak for the V.A. 'cause they're the ones that are doing it. But they have expressed to me that their intent is to digitize the records of every living veteran and they're estimating that volume at about 18.5 million, I believe.
[MIKE] And what about the records of deceased veterans?
[MR. LEVINS] So when they pull the records it, you know, obviously that changes every day, right?
[MIKE] Right.
[MR. LEVINS] 'Cause people live and die. They're not making, they're identifying large blocks of records, and they're digitizing everything without regard for whether the person's deceased or not.
[MIKE] Okay.
[MR. LEVINS] So a lot ofpeople who are deceased are gonna have their records digitized anyhow. But their goal is by doing those portions of our holdings, they will get to everybody that's still living. Whether we'll go back and digitize the records of other veterans remains to be seen. I will say that before we had this building constructed and, you know, it's probably been about 15 years. You know there were studies done on digitization. And at the time the payback period for digitizing everything was like a 200-year payback period.
[MIKE] Wow.
[MR. LEVINS] But the pandemics changed everything. And also advances in technology of, you know, cost down as well.
[MIKE] Mm-hm.
[MR. LEVINS] Uh, so there's potential to do somethin' that seemed completely unreal- unrealistic, uh, 15, 20 years ago.
[PAUL] So a question that I've seen a lot on Google trends and stuff like that is, are a veteran's records public?
[MR. LEVINS] They're not public records. The records are actually legally maintained by the branch of the military that created the record. We act as an agent for the military departments in managing those records keeping them in the proper environments so that they can be preserved and making them available to veterans and other requesters who come in. There's two legal requirements that come into play. There's the Privacy Act, which means that if you're a veteran we have to maintain your privacy. There's also the Freedom of Information Act, which means that we have to release things that may be about your military service, but would not be considered to be an invasion of your privacy. So the records are not public, but they could be requested by a third party. We could release certain data elements that wouldn't, that the military departments would not consider to be an invasion of your privacy. However the records at some point in time will be accessioned by the National Archives and Records Administration. And at that time they would become public records. That occurs 62 years after your obligation, your military service obligation has ended.
[PAUL] And why is it 62 years?
[MR. LEVINS] So I'm gonna, this will take a second to get through. But most records created by the federal government are temporary records. It means some day they will be destroyed. You file your tax returns, you know, seven years, six months later, they will be destroyed. Military service records are elite in the sense that they're among that very small percentage of 2 to 3% of federal records that are created that will be kept for the life of the republic. Once a series of records is scheduled to be kept permanently the next thing that has to happen is you have to determine when they will legally shift from the owner of the record, the agency that created the record, to the National Archives. In this case, a survey was conducted. We asked veterans for the purpose, you know, why they were asking for their records. And we collaborated with the military departments in conducting that survey. And we found that on average, 62 years after your obligation ends, the purpose of that request changes. It changes from a primary need, like an entitlement for a benefit, to a secondary need. Like it's a genealogy request or a mortality study or something like that. So with military service records, after each veteran service obligation has ended, 62 years after that service obligation has ended, that's when the record legally becomes owned by the National Archives and that's when it becomes a public record.
[PAUL] Interesting. So, even if an individual was looking for records of someone who is currently serving in the military, they wouldn't even reach out to you guys for that. They would reach out to the proper DOD channel. But for someone that is no longer serving in the military, then they might look to you to get those documents.
[MR. LEVINS] That's correct. So the - if you're still serving, then it's your personnel command that would maintain that record. And even after you get out, you're, because the records are electronically maintained today and those systems are maintained by the military departments, not by the National Archives, your personnel command still has access to those records. But by coming to NPRC, it sort of provides one-stop shopping for those records. And our staff can access those electronic systems that are maintained by the military departments to recall those records.
[MIKE] So if I left the service in 2010 than the National Archives, isn't gonna really have total control of my records till 2072?
[MR. LEVINS] That's when the National Archives will legally own your record.
[MIKE] Own your record.
[MR. LEVINS] Right.
[MIKE] Before then...
[MR. LEVINS] Before then we won't even have because you used the year 2010, we won't even have a physical copy 'cause it won't be an analog record. It'll be a digital record...
[MIKE] Right.
[MR. LEVINS] ...maintained by the service branch in which you served. If you write to us for your record, we're going to access those systems, download the record, and either transmit it to you electronically or print it and send it to you a hard copy if that's what you need.
[MIKE] Okay.
[PAUL] So that comes next to like, so how do military records, how do I get my military records? So, if I, you know, if I'm lookin' to get a copy whether it be analog or digital, how do I go about that? How do I do that?
[MR. LEVINS] The easiest way to get your military records is to go to the National Archives website, archives.gov. And right on that main landing page, um, there's gonna be a section that's called military service records. And if you click on that, you're gonna find all kinds of information about what records we have what, you know, time periods are available, so forth. And there's an online application called (Evetrex). And if you use that application to submit your request to us that's the best way to submit a request because then it's gonna be assigned a reference request number that you can come back later and check on the status of your request. It's a entirely digital process. You can sign the request electronically as well. And when you do it, you know, we get a large volume of requests. We normally get about 5,000 requests every single day. If I receive 5,000 pieces of mail, and I have our mail room staff transcribe those into our systems, as good as they are, they're gonna make some typos. But if you key your request in, and it's the only one you got and it's yours, you're gonna do it right. Then information's gonna, be entered into our system completely accurately. And then all the automation in the system w- with regard to finding the right record and so forth will work properly.
[PAUL] Five thousand requests a day?
[MR. LEVINS] A day, yes.
[MIKE] Actually, lately for military records or just records in general?
[MR. LEVINS] Military records.
[MIKE] Oh, wow.
[PAUL] It's (unintelligible).
[MR. LEVINS] So the office in St. Louis, the National Personnel Records Center, the - the reference volume is higher than the rest of the National Archives combined. And, um, 5,000 per day is a general term. Right now we're actually doing a little bit more. We're receiving a little bit than more than - that we're typically gettin' 26-, 27,000 a week right now.
[PAUL] And how - how many of those requests are cut- out- outta my own curiosity, how many of them, if you know, off the top of your head, how many of them are coming from the general public and how many of them are coming from other agencies like say V.A. for a veteran that's submitting a claim or something like that?
[MR. LEVINS] Okay. Let me back up a little bit. So the 26- 27,000 requests that we're getting a week right now are what we call correspondence requests comin' from a member of the public, either the veteran, the veteran's family, a third party. And it requires us to pull a record, look at that request, determine that, you know, this person's authorized to get these documents, make reproductions, redact third party personal information, compose a response letter and send it out. We also have a whole another business line, which is what you're referring to is like when another federal agency comes in for a record. The V.A. is the heaviest user among federal agencies. They come to us 5- to 7,000 times a week for record requests. That's a whole different, so that's on top of the 27,000. Those are record...
[PAUL] Oh, wow.
[MR. LEVINS] But those are much easier for us to service. We just run out in the warehouse, we pull a record, we deliver it to the V.A. V.A. then digitizes the entire record, ingests it into its veterans benefits management system and adjudicates the disability claim. And the turnaround time on that is very quick and easy 'cause we don't have to do any analysis regarding release ability. We don't have to make any document reproductions. We don't have to redact anything. We just pull record and send it to the V.A. So the normal response time on requests from the V.A. is about three business days. So if a veteran has a disability claim to file, it makes more sense for them to just file it with the V.A. and let the V.A. do the legwork. The V.A. has a duty to assist and they will, you know, get the record for. Whatever the records they need to adjudicate their claim, they're gonna get them whether we hold them or whether they're available electronically.
[PAUL] Scott, thank you so much for joining us today. A lot of great information about NPRC and to our audience out there, be sure to check out the video description for links and be sure to like and subscribe, so you don’t miss out on future episodes of the SITREP.
[MIKE] And as always, for those who served or are currently serving, thank you for your service.