The US Army Records Now (from an army website)
Bud entered the US army in 1943, through the Armed Forces Entrance Examination Station (AFEES) Butte, Montana. I went through the same portal in 1969 during the Vietnam era. I stayed in a seedy hotel, ate a meal at government expense with a coupon, then got a bus ride. For me it was to the Butte airport. For Bud, it was probably to the train station. The following is information about Carl’s records from the army these days.
Appendix G
On July 12, 1973, a disastrous fire at the National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) destroyed approximately 16-18 million Official Military Personnel Files (OMPF). The records affected:
|
Branch |
Personnel and Period Affected |
Estimated Loss |
|
Army |
Personnel discharged November 1, 1912 to January 1, 1960 |
80% |
|
Air Force |
Personnel discharged September 25, 1947 to January 1, 1964 (with names alphabetically after Hubbard, James E.) |
75% |
No duplicate copies of these records were ever maintained, nor were microfilm copies produced. Neither were any indexes created prior to the fire. In addition, millions of documents had been lent to the Department of Veterans Affairs before the fire occurred. Therefore, a complete listing of the records that were lost is not available. However, in the years following the fire, the NPRC collected numerous series of records (referred to as Auxiliary Records) that are used to reconstruct basic service information.
insearchofbud 