Rep. Angie Craig Pushes National Archives’ National Personnel Records Center to Speed up Processing of Military Personnel Records to Ensure Veterans Receive Their Benefits

This week, U.S. Rep. Angie Craig and 232 colleagues sent a letter urging the National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) to address the growing backlog of veterans' service records. Due to the significant reduction of staffing and services during the COVID-19 pandemic, veterans across the country have been waiting months to receive the records they need to access the benefits they have earned. The letter asks the NPRC to implement new policies so that they may resume processing military personnel, health and medical records requests. The letter also underscores that all agency policy changes should continue to consider the health and safety of NPRC's workforce.

"We write to strongly encourage you to work to implement new policies and procedures that can both protect the NPRC's workforce and ensure our nation's veterans are getting the records they need and deserve in a timely fashion," wrote the Members. "We also ask that you provide our offices with a working plan including a timeline for how your agency intends to address the growing backlog of military personnel records requests. As many of our constituents have already been waiting for months to obtain their records, providing a plan and a timeline would offer a needed level of certainty in these difficult and uncertain times."

Personnel records are needed for veterans and their dependents to qualify for a range of benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Defense. The full text of the letter can be viewed here.