A total of three batches of individual records are slotted to be released: Navy enlisted men from 1885 until 8 September 1939; Marine Corps enlisted men from 1906 until 1939; and the first 150 of about 3,000 Americans identified as “persons of exceptional prominence.” Included in the last category are the military records of generals George S. Patton Jr. and Omar Bradley; African American sports hero Lt. Jackie Robinson; President John F. Kennedy; author Herman Wouk; actors Clark Gable, Audie Murphy, and Steve McQueen; and, yes, entertainer Pfc. Elvis Presley.

Until recently, NARA was merely the physical custodian of these records that were open only to the veteran, the next of kin, or the individual’s service branch. In 1999, however, the Pentagon and NARA reached an agreement that would begin the process of systematically opening these records. According to Bill Seibert, chief of the archival operations branch of the records center, the records now “cease to belong to the military and instead belong to the American people…They’re public documents.”

After lengthy discussion with Pentagon officials over several years, NARA was able to negotiate an agreement that provided for all such military records to remain sealed 62 years past the date an individual left active service. That means that most World War II records, for example, will remain closed for several more years. In addition, because of a fire at the records center back in 1973, some files of Army and Air Force veterans will be withheld even longer - until 2023. Coast Guard records will probably not be available until 2026, and because some individual files contain fragile or crumbling paper, such files will probably be kept on hold for some time.

Persons interested in accessing the collection should contact the National Personnel Records Center, 9700 Page Avenue, Overland, Mo. 63132; phone: 314-801-0850.

You could start with this web page: http://members.aol.com/dadswar/ Try links on my pages: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~smcleod/GeneLinks.html and http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~smcleod/MilRecRelease.html

There is a section on Military Records
Write to:
National Personnel Records Center
ATTN: NRPM4, Room 2537
9700 Page Avenue
St. Louis, MO 63132-5100

You should have a form SF-180 to send in with your letter: standard_form_180

You can also make a Freedom of Information Act request to the Veterans Administration. VA FOIA

The records held at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. are prior to World War I. Service Records

The top floor of the St. Louis records center burned and all these records were destroyed. The top floor was never replaced and the building is one story shorter than when it was originally built. A large number of records remain so making a request for someone’s records is not unreasonable.

But, there is some hope. The St. Louis Records Center can’t find my grandfather’s records and the Veterans Administration can't find his pension records. I have both for his brother. I also have original documents from my grandfather’s service in the Spanish American War and WWI that he had saved so I’m a bit ahead in this way.

The hope is in the periodic personnel reports that must still be filed somewhere. I found my grandfather in the monthly Marine muster roll from 1898. These are on microfilm at the National Archives. I did this by picking a month and looking through one name at a time till I found him boarding the Pather in New York for transport to Florida where the Navy was creating the 1st Marine Battalion. I could with a lot of time track my grandfather through his entire five year Marine enlistment following each personnel action from his enlistment to discharge.

I was a company clerk in the 101st AB Div in Vietnam and did personnel reports. We called them morning reports. These were on five part forms that contained all the unit personnel actions for the previous day. I suspect that this form or something similar was used through WWII.