Veterans still battling 1973 fire that wiped out millions of service records

FoxNews.com ^ | June 04, 2014 | by Christina Corbin

[US Navy Vet]

While the Veterans Administration struggles to repair the damage caused by shoddy -- and in some cases fraudulent -- handling of health care for American service members, benefits for millions who served their country in four wars were wiped out in a fire more than 40 years ago, leaving many battling to this day to collect their due.

The blaze that ripped through the National Personnel Records Center in a St. Louis suburb shortly after midnight on July 12, 1973, consumed 16 million to 18 million official military personnel files long before computers kept such records safe from harm. Few could have predicted the harm it would visit on the veterans who were denied VA benefits -- some to this day -- because they could not reconstruct their military service files.

Tom Morrow, a 67-year-old Vietnam veteran, suffered a head injury while training at Fort Benning, Ga., prior to his deployment to Saigon in 1967 at age 20. The side effects that followed were debilitating for Morrow: seizures and cold sweats followed later by panic attacks and symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.

[Little Bill]

I got out in ‘68, two tours, bought my first house on a VA loan, went to school on the VA, I am now in the VA medical system but I still can’t get an audit of my finance records, not paid for many months.

[conservative cat]

I will try that. He was Army.

[virgil]

My dad (WWII vet) lost his hearing and his teeth during or after the war. He mustered out of the Army at Jefferson Barracks in Missouri. I wonder if his records were in that fire. He still was able to collect his pension. There must have been some record of his service for that. It seems like he should have been able to get disability too.