USMC Service Records... I know this is the best place to ask this question.

[LuckyDuck]

Hello again Hide-

I have a quick question that I was hoping someone could answer here about USMC service records. I'm inquiring on my mother's father side. Growing up I had always heard that he ended up in a wheelchair due to the Korean War but my mother's understanding of his service was that occurred after 20 years of USMC service and was somehow related to a mortar plate. Whelp- when we were talking about it tonight- the math suggests that there's much more to his story (he died before my mother got into HS) than even she understood and her mother (who passed away in the 90's) never talked about his service either but seemed to collect a widow's pension (what my mother called it at least) until then.

My only question is- should one be looking for a USMC service record (my best guess spanning 1938-1958 or there about) what would be the best approach to find out that information? Nothing that'd be all that important other than bringing some closure to my mother now on what her father did (reckon I opened some old & deep wounds when I mentioned the "math doesn't math" unless he was in both wars) given that he passed away when she was about 12.

Anyway- any tips/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

-LD

 

[Huskydriver]

Bro... Google will quickly tell you the answer.... Put your request in with the national archives and wait

 

[Im2bent]

So you forgot your father's milestone birthday and now you pissed off your mother? You're batting a thousand.

 

[oneshot86]

Bullshit story, some Marine on leave screwed his mom.
He's looking for his daddy

 

[Redlion]

The chance that military records actually still exist describing the details of an injury from that long ago are likely very slim to none. A request to the National Archives will likely only result in some sort of discharge document. Even modern discharge documents like the DD214 are not going to provide detailed events like injuries.

 

[roostercogburn98]

The chance that military records actually still exist describing the details of an injury from that long ago are likely very slim to none. A request to the National Archives will likely only result in some sort of discharge document. Even modern discharge documents like the DD214 are not going to provide detailed events like injuries.

The archives have stuff like that still. I just got my grandfather’s records from his service in WW2 era. It had letters someone sent to the war department looking for my grandfather. Assuming they didn’t get destroyed in the big fire they had. Some of my grandfathers documents are photocopies with burnt edges

 

[Ronws]

@LuckyDuck

Yes and no.

Theoretically, yes, with a number of Marines here, including the host of the site, this would be a great place to ask about finding old Marine records.

And no, not a great place because, as you can see, people just have to get up early and show their asses. Not complaining and I do get a giggle out of all of this. Just saying, and judging by your past experiences here, this might not be the best place to ask regardless of Marines in attendance here.

edited:

I was going to try and help but I could do no better than someone else who already suggested using a search engine.

Call the USMC, if possible. They are going to know better than any of the Marines here, who were likely not working in the records department.

 

[hankpac]

Save your time and effort, do not bother going to any active duty unit. The Marines (In this case) will just tell you to go to NARA. So will the VA.
I do this with some frequency, helping vets tidy up their claims, before seeing the VSO:
Go online to NARA (National Archives, online (https://www.archives.gov/) and make a records request. Specify dd214, 201 file, and all medical records. If there are other ways to describe what you want, do so (“Service Records”). Wait several months. At least.
OR: if you live nearby, visit the National Archives in person, and present at the desk. Have a proof of relationship, and survivorship (his death record, and your relationship or a notarized statement from his remaining next of kin. You may be the next of kin if you are talking three generations separation). In person visit gets your information while you wait. Unless that has changed. Several of my comrades have done their book research at the desk, and it worked pretty quickly. Certain records are intact, and digitized, certain are not yet digitized and are stuffed in boxes, and certain are either lost or unrecoverable due to various reasons.
The catch-all response “burned in the fire”, is mostly bullshit or not heard as often. Strictly limited to a certain small area of 1950’s AirForce, most have been recovered, or restored, with only a very few unrecoverable (one trick was to freeze dry the boxes of records and peel them apart by professional archivists).
We were able to recover records showing my wife’s great (x4) grandfather’s incarceration at Ft Delaware, after he was captured at Gettysburg, and the Unit to which he was assigned (Co G, Gaston Rifles, 42d Mississippi Infantry).
Good luck.

 

[nagantguy]

If you do find anything take what ever records say with a grain of salt - there is some huge hole in my official SRB and in my VA medical records there is piles of paper on the compound fracture - surgery plates and screws in the left leg- only it ain’t my leg and I have no plates and screws - but there is nothing about my broken hip in my records .

Just remembered that my NATO commendation medal wasn’t officially added to my SRB until 11 years after it was awarded .

 

[cgbills]

Locations of Service Records

Note: Personnel records are Archival 62 years after the service member's separation. [accordion classes="" id="71125" expand_first="false"][/accordion]

www.archives.gov

I am a former VA employee and we dealt with this kind of stuff all the time. The table shows USMC enlisted discharged between January 1, 1905 - 1939 and 1940 - December 31, 1963 to contact NPRC (National Personnel Records Center). Regarding the fire, NPRC doesn’t say USMC was affected. Even those in the other services in that date range were dependent on last names. Anything that wasn’t completely destroyed was put into “wet” records storage.
What records were affected by the fire?

• Files of former members of the Army, Army Air Force, and Air Force who served between 1912 and 1963. The Official Military Personnel File–known as an OMPF–is the documentation of a veteran’s military service from enlistment to separation.

Remembering the 1973 NPRC Fire Fact Sheet

July 12, 2023, marks 50 years since the disastrous 1973 fire at the Military Personnel Records Center in St. Louis that destroyed millions of military personnel records, changing the world of records storage and the work of the National Archives for decades to come Where and when did the fire...

www.archives.gov

 

[LuckyDuck]

Bro... Google will quickly tell you the answer.... Put your request in with the national archives and wait

1st off- that's a more than fair response and I do appreciate it. I can google as well as the next fella (and I completely understand the "let me google your question for you" reply).

2nd remark- I anticipated that my question may be a bit more nuanced than your response provided/respectfully- maybe more than your personal understanding of the question. Please allow me to explain-

I can only speak for myself of course but if I saw the very same question posted from a different member here- but with a minor tweak in what I asked about USMC records and instead it was a question about US Army records from a similar time period, I'd be able to provide (what I'd hope to be) some "insider" type of information.

Yes- there's of course the national archives (you weren't wrong with your suggestion) but in my teaching example of reversing the question to change it to US Army specifics- I'd personally know about the US Army Heritage Center in Carlisle, PA (which might not be entirely evident to other members here trying to find out about old service records from the Army side).

Up until either 2022 or 2023 at least- not only would I have been able to recommend directing inquiries to Carlisle (which would have likely yielded much faster answers) I could have also PM'd email addresses of folks that worked there that would have been more than willing to help out a fellow Hide member searching for the same information.

I know, I know- this is the Pit. I got the answers I was anticipating but just wanted to illustrate an alternative version of this same discussion and how I would have been able to help out with the inquiry up until recently. Nobody's growing inches to their dick to swing around later with this topic- they just want to make an effort to learn about their family history that might not have ever been discussed is all.

I get it, I understand that a request can be placed in the national archives (although a good suggestion), just was hoping someone here would have a similar insight like I did with the Army Heritage Center (but from the USMC side of the house is all).

-LD

 

[LuckyDuck]

So you forgot your father's milestone birthday and now you pissed off your mother? You're batting a thousand.

To be fair- I've always pissed off my mother and I didn't "forget" the milestone birthday (or the birthday itself). I don't even know how old I am half of the time these days but to your point- yes, I missed coordinating with my siblings to do something for my father as he entered a new decade.

Not offering excuses there either- I fully admit and acknowledge that much, I even started a thread on it.

All I can offer to your comment is that all families are different. Even if they get along (more or less) my experience is (and what I touched on in the other thread) is that things are just plainly different than they were when I was young and my father/aunts/uncles planned these type of birthday parties for my grandparents.

Again, not an excuse, but just pointing out a difference- all of my grandparents "kids" were within 2 hours of their home. For my siblings, they're several states away and it does tend to change the dynamic a bit. There's some other elements of course I could mention but I don't want to hijack my own thread on that stuff either.

-LD

 

[LuckyDuck]

Bullshit story, some Marine on leave screwed his mom.
He's looking for his daddy

If you actually read the original post- my mom in this story would have been the "love child" from a Marine. But that doesn't jive with what I was talking about with my grandmother being his widow (and she passed away in the early 90's herself) nor does it add up to me asking about service records 60+ years old either.

-LD

 

[LuckyDuck]

@LuckyDuck

Yes and no.

Theoretically, yes, with a number of Marines here, including the host of the site, this would be a great place to ask about finding old Marine records.

And no, not a great place because, as you can see, people just have to get up early and show their asses. Not complaining and I do get a giggle out of all of this. Just saying, and judging by your past experiences here, this might not be the best place to ask regardless of Marines in attendance here.

edited:

I was going to try and help but I could do no better than someone else who already suggested using a search engine.

Call the USMC, if possible. They are going to know better than any of the Marines here, who were likely not working in the records department.

I catch what you're throwing. I do appreciate your response for what it's worth.

-LD

 

[LuckyDuck]

Save your time and effort, do not bother going to any active duty unit. The Marines (In this case) will just tell you to go to NARA. So will the VA.
I do this with some frequency, helping vets tidy up their claims, before seeing the VSO:
Go online to NARA (National Archives, online (https://www.archives.gov/) and make a records request. Specify dd214, 201 file, and all medical records. If there are other ways to describe what you want, do so (“Service Records”). Wait several months. At least.
OR: if you live nearby, visit the National Archives in person, and present at the desk. Have a proof of relationship, and survivorship (his death record, and your relationship or a notarized statement from his remaining next of kin. You may be the next of kin if you are talking three generations separation). In person visit gets your information while you wait. Unless that has changed. Several of my comrades have done their book research at the desk, and it worked pretty quickly. Certain records are intact, and digitized, certain are not yet digitized and are stuffed in boxes, and certain are either lost or unrecoverable due to various reasons.
The catch-all response “burned in the fire”, is mostly bullshit or not heard as often. Strictly limited to a certain small area of 1950’s AirForce, most have been recovered, or restored, with only a very few unrecoverable (one trick was to freeze dry the boxes of records and peel them apart by professional archivists).
We were able to recover records showing my wife’s great (x4) grandfather’s incarceration at Ft Delaware, after he was captured at Gettysburg, and the Unit to which he was assigned (Co G, Gaston Rifles, 42d Mississippi Infantry).
Good luck.

I really/sincerely appreciate you taking valuable time out of your day to share this response to my question.

-LD

 

[LuckyDuck]

If you do find anything take what ever records say with a grain of salt - there is some huge hole in my official SRB and in my VA medical records there is piles of paper on the compound fracture - surgery plates and screws in the left leg- only it ain’t my leg and I have no plates and screws - but there is nothing about my broken hip in my records .

Just remembered that my NATO commendation medal wasn’t officially added to my SRB until 11 years after it was awarded .

My (official) record is likely still a mess too from the Army side. Not looking for the most "perfect" accounting either. As I said- I grew up learning about my maternal grandfather as being in a wheelchair from his time in Korea and him passing away before my mother had completed HS.

It wasn't until this week that my mother mentioned he'd been in the Corps for 20 years by the time he left Korea and I surmised that meant for that to be true he would have also had to been a WWII vet as well and that was something my mother never considered until I mentioned it this week. She's not a dummy either- just her father was in a wheelchair for what little time she knew him and passed away while she was quite young and his service was never something that was openly discussed by her mother ever since.

Call me a liar if you desire (although of all the things I've been called here, a liar is one term that interestingly isn't thrown my often at all) but I'm just trying to find a direct path to answering some old family questions that we didn't know existed before now. The request is that innocent/just looking for a lead to put me in touch with the Army Heritage Center equivalent from the USMC is all.

-LD

 

[LuckyDuck]

Locations of Service Records

Note: Personnel records are Archival 62 years after the service member's separation. [accordion classes="" id="71125" expand_first="false"][/accordion]

www.archives.gov

I am a former VA employee and we dealt with this kind of stuff all the time. The table shows USMC enlisted discharged between January 1, 1905 - 1939 and 1940 - December 31, 1963 to contact NPRC (National Personnel Records Center). Regarding the fire, NPRC doesn’t say USMC was affected. Even those in the other services in that date range were dependent on last names. Anything that wasn’t completely destroyed was put into “wet” records storage.
What records were affected by the fire?

• Files of former members of the Army, Army Air Force, and Air Force who served between 1912 and 1963. The Official Military Personnel File–known as an OMPF–is the documentation of a veteran’s military service from enlistment to separation.

Remembering the 1973 NPRC Fire Fact Sheet

July 12, 2023, marks 50 years since the disastrous 1973 fire at the Military Personnel Records Center in St. Louis that destroyed millions of military personnel records, changing the world of records storage and the work of the National Archives for decades to come Where and when did the fire...

www.archives.gov

I'll see what I can find- a sincere thank you for sharing it and taking the time to be so detailed.

-LD

 

[Ronws]

I catch what you're throwing. I do appreciate your response for what it's worth.

-LD

Another person you might ask is Don Shipley. He catches fake SEALs. Point being, he knows who to talk to at the Navy about these things but I think it starts with a FOIA request.