If you have been unable to get your military personnel, health, and/or medical records from the National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) please tell your story.
Missing Military Personnel, Health, and Medical Records
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I am a child who was born at George AFB in 1984. My parents met in the Navy. My mother left the service when my older sister was born, and went to live in Victorville with my aunt and uncle who were stationed at George. My dad visited sometimes on leave. My mother ended up pregnant with me, and lived in Victorville for the entire pregnancy, going to the base hospital for all her checkups since it was 14 minutes away. After I was born the family moved and so I went to other base hospitals as a child for checkups, immunizations, etc. In 1992 I was briefly hospitalized at one base for a small incident. …
When I put in the request with the NPRC it took them several months to complete. They took longer than the time they were supposed to spend retrieving the records.
When the envelope arrived in the mail I immediately looked through the few sheets that were sent to me and was very frustrated – the only things sent were records pertaining to that incident in 1992 that I mentioned. There was absolutely nothing sent to me from before then.
I called the phone number that was on the letter included, and spoke with someone who told me that “what we sent you is everything that is in your file”. When I asked her why the first 8 years of records were missing, she replied with “I cannot say that your records are missing or they don’t exist, all that I can tell you is that we sent you everything that we have on hand under your file”. And that was the end of that.
Considering I went to a hospital on another base after George, and those records are ALSO missing, it very strongly feels like there is something purposely being kept from me.
Sounds like Dependent Outpatient Records. Those are often given to the parents in the original only and are not retained as permanent files, unless at the time there was an effort to do so. A lot of people blame NPRC for this, but it goes back to the original time the records were created and is really no fault of the records storage facility decades later.
Medical records only have to be kept for 10 years by law or until the patient reaches the age of 19 if a minor. It is hard to believe in 2018 where everything is computerized but medical records were still mostly paper until the late 1990s. Therefore, it is not surprising that medical records are missing or destroyed. Hardly a conspiracy.
Thanks for the feedback. Military and their family members medical records are covered by different rules than civilian medical records.
The extension of the retention period from 25 to 50 years
for nonmilitary health records is justified for cogent and
compelling medical and humanitarian reasons.
There are potentially major issues facing the Department of
Defense in the future on possible adverse health effects in
military dependents and other civilian personnel as a result of
their exposure to hazardous chemicals and agents known or
suspected to be present on Defense installations. Examples of
such hazardous materials in the modern military environment
include asbestos, chlordane contamination of family housing,
chlorinated hydrocarbon contaminants in installation water
supplies, and certain pharmaceuticals such as the synthetic
estrogen diethylstilbestrol (DES) administered to women during
pregnancy. The potential latent effects of these chemicals,
especially in children, are not well known. Records are
essential should questions arise concerning these latent effects.
1988-09-14 DoD NARA – Nonmilitary Health Records – contamination of family housing (PDF – 89KB)
My name is Trayvon Veal. I was stationed at George AFB January 1988 to December 1988. I was a munitions systems specialist. I have been diagnosed with fibroids, depression and anxiety. I also suffer back and sleep issues. I have made repeated requests for my medical records and am told they can not be found.