I have been trying to get a copy of a veterans medical records for a family. I began by writing NARA in St. Louis MO and received a call, and a confirming letter, stating his medical records were not with his personnel file and I should contact my regional VA office. He stated his records were not burned. After sending a copy of the NARA letter to the VA I received a letter that they did not have a copy of his medical records and they might have been archived and referred me back to NARA. In a last ditch effort I wrote the regional office of NARA in Seattle and was lucky to be helped by a fellow that unlocked the mystery. Seems the VA has a Records Management Center in St. Louis, MO where millions of claims folders are stored. He was good enough to take it one step further and telephoned the Management Center to verify that the records were there. The mailing address there is: VA Records Management Center P.O. Box 5020 St. Louis, MO 63115 Phone: 888-533-4558 Fax: 314-679-3615 I have not received an answer to my request (just mailed it) but am certain I've ended the run-around. Dave
Thanks for sharing that info here, Dave. That will hopefully save some other folks from having to experience the runaround that you went through. Are the records that are kept in that facility post-War medical records or do they also have wartime medical records? (I'm not sure if that's a dumb question, but I'm not giving away anything if it is. )
Good question Tommie. Their website states the Records Management Center began in 1992 and "receives over 300,000 inactive folders annually from VA Regional Offices." Sounds like they store everything the VA Regional Ofices have deemed inactive. The veteran I was researching was WWII. They may even have WWI records. It just strikes me odd that the VA didn't refer me there from the beginning--it took the Pacific Alaska Regional office of NARA to tell me. Thanks for the salute. Dave
Dave, The above link might be dead. This is probably their new one. VA Records Management Center - Locations
Thanks for the link. That was about ten years ago. I remember they were bouncing me around like a football, from NARA to the VA, back to NARA until I got some help. But that's the place.
When I originally requested my brother's records from NARA, I was fortunate that they were not destroyed in the fire. They sent me a complete set of his medals and awards and, his complete service record (W.D. A.G.O. Form No. 24) In these records it shows he was lost to the hospital in Feb, 1945. (once previously in Normandy) What prompted all this was why my brother was lost to the hospital in 1945. After NARA and the VA gave me the royal runaround they must have figured I wasn't going away so I finally received an envelope that must have contained a copy of everything in their file. (it was about 3" thick) It had all the records of when he was wounded in Normandy and his treatment, and the answer to his visit in '45 which involved treatment to his shoulder (he was a crew member in a light tank). They sent records of his disability payments after the war, all his GI bill information (he took pilot training, they even included his scored on the tests) His medical records when he re-enlisted in the Air Force, (going to the hospital again when some ammo blew up in a fire during the Berlin Airlift) They also included some records of his marriage, allotments, and payments of his life insurance after his death in 1950. As you know, the Government records everything in triplicate and saves everything, so much of it was trivial or duplicate information, but it answered so many questions, some things I wasn't aware of. With the information on the Berlin Airlift, I was able to prove he was entitled to two awards that they didn't give him credit for.
Wow! That's an amazing amount of information. Did you request these records based on you being his NOK, or was it a FOIA request, or both? I presume the VA does not have the same "Archival" designation for older records as the NARA does.
You know, I believe it was NOK. I wasn't charged anything for these records as I probably would have with FOIA. I don't know how the VA handles the archival thing. We are lucky because we have a branch office of NARA in Seattle that I used to frequent when I was into genealogy, and after showing them the letters giving me the runaround he picked up the phone and called the VA archives and verified the records. They sent them on my next request.