infobong.com

My mom just called me on behalf of my Uncle Jim, who served as a Marine in Vietnam during the mid-1960s. Apparently Jim has misplaced his discharge papers and wondered if my mom would know where to find them. My mom assumed that they would have been lost years ago, but told Jim that I would know how to retrieve them from the government.

Mom told me that Jim replied in disbelief, "He can do that?" When she said that, I sort of chuckled, and said, "Well, I've spent most of my adult life as journalist or graduate student," but, frankly, I didn't know where to look. A quick search revealed that military records can be obtained by filling out an SF-180 or "Standard Form 180," but I later found that the National Archives (which maintains veteran data) actually has a site, vetrecs.archives.gov, specifically for veterans who want copies of their military records. Here's a nice page describing how to retrieve military records.

It turns out that anyone can use an SF-180 to request military records. I immediately thought it might be fun to fill out an SF-180 about Uncle Jim, my dad, and the president, although I doubt I'll learn anything new about Bush. But Uncle Jim lives in South Austin, and I'd probably learn a lot more if we just chatted about his service over a cup of coffee.