Nebraska Discharge Records and Free Records for a VA Claim

Two short provisions that solve a problem most veterans meet at the worst possible time. Section 23-1309 requires the county clerk in each county to keep, in a separate book entitled Discharge Record, a copy of all discharges or records of separation from active duty. Section 23-1310 provides for registration on application, which is how a veteran gets their document into that book. Recording a discharge is cheap insurance. A recorded DD Form 214 can be retrieved from the county clerk in days. The alternative is a request to the National Personnel Records Center, which takes considerably longer, and longer still for records damaged in the 1973 fire at the St. Louis facility. Almost everything in this file, from the homestead exemption to the county's duty to bury, needs the discharge document, and a family arranging a funeral is the worst moment to discover it cannot be found. Nebraska has closed the record, and did so for good reason. Section 23-1309(1) states that information contained in the Discharge Record shall be confidential and made available only to the veteran, the county veterans service officer, or a post service officer of a recognized veterans organization. A DD Form 214 carries a social security number, date and place of birth, the character of service and sometimes the narrative reason for separation, which is exactly what an identity thief wants. Several states in this catalog leave the recorded discharge open to public inspection. Nebraska does not, and a veteran deciding whether to record should weigh that. Note who is not on the list. A spouse, an adult child and an executor are not named. A family member seeking a copy after the veteran's death should expect to go through the county veterans service officer rather than the clerk's counter. Subsection (2) allows the county clerk to transfer the Discharge Record to the State Archives of the Nebraska State Historical Society for permanent preservation, but only after the veteran's federal Official Military Personnel File has become a public archival record or after sixty-two years, whichever is later. That is a deliberately long horizon and it keeps a living veteran's paperwork out of a public archive. The second provision is 84-712.02, and it is the one almost no veteran knows about. When a claimant before the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, or their agent or attorney, requests certified copies of any public record for the proper and effective presentation of a claim, the officer in charge of those records shall furnish a certified copy free of charge. Any public record. Not just discharge papers. A certified birth certificate to prove a dependent, a marriage certificate to prove a spouse, a death certificate, a court record, a county record. A claim requiring several certified documents is otherwise an expensive piece of paperwork, and the statute puts the cost on the record holder rather than on the claimant. The request has to be tied to a VA claim, and a veteran should say so when asking, in those words, because a clerk who is not told will charge the ordinary fee. The Department of Veterans' Affairs also operates an online DD-214 request service, and state and county veterans service officers will pursue military records on a veteran's behalf.