If a person is actively serving in the Armed Forces, he or she is then subject to protections under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA). There are many possible reasons why you or someone at your place of employment may need to perform a military record search and find out whether a person is serving currently, or has a status as a veteran.
A Slow and Time-Consuming Process
In the past, people who needed this sort of information often had to write directly to branches of the Armed Forces and inquire about a person’s level of service. Things could get even more complicated in the event that the person seeking the information was unsure about which branch an individual was involved with. In that scenario, the only course of action was to contact each branch separately to make an inquiry.
No Way to Do a Military Record Search Directly Through the Army
Additionally, over the past few years, the United States Army clarified it is no longer able to respond to requests about name searches in regards to a person’s status. That’s because there are so many men and women who serve in the Army, and not enough staff members to handle the number of requests.
A Better Method
A more favorable alternative is to use online resources that offer the ability to do name searches and allow a person to know whether or not a person is or has ever served in the Armed Forces. In many cases, each military record search is assigned a tracking number, and you can receive the results of the searches by e-mail.
Often, people who need information about the status of someone who is involved in the Armed Forces don’t have access to an individual’s full Social Security number. Fortunately, some websites that offer name searches are able to cope with that common problem, and can frequently provide results even with limited information.
Whether you’re an employee of a company that would like to offer work to a service person on a contract basis or are involved with a bank or lending organization that needs to verify eligibility for certain benefits, it should now be easy to see why the Internet is a great place to do a military record search.
Resource Box: Visit the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act Centralized Verification Service website to do a military record search that’s much faster than making direct inquires to branches of the armed forces. Results are sent through e-mail for reasonable rates. Find out more at Servicememberscivilreliefact.com
