Veterans' Disability Benefits: VA Can Improve Its Procedures for 
Obtaining Military Service Records (12-DEC-06, GAO-07-98).	 
                                                                 
The Ranking Democratic Member, House Committee on Veterans'	 
Affairs, asked GAO to determine (1) whether VA's internal	 
assessments indicate its regional offices are complying with the 
requirements of the Veterans Claims Assistance Act (VCAA) of 2000
for obtaining military service records for veterans' disability  
compensation claims and (2) whether VBA could improve its	 
procedures for obtaining military service records for claims	 
involving post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).		 
-------------------------Indexing Terms------------------------- 
REPORTNUM:   GAO-07-98						        
    ACCNO:   A64307						        
  TITLE:     Veterans' Disability Benefits: VA Can Improve Its	      
Procedures for Obtaining Military Service Records		 
     DATE:   12/12/2006 
  SUBJECT:   Claims processing					 
	     Federal regulations				 
	     Medical expense claims				 
	     Military personnel records 			 
	     Post-traumatic stress disorders			 
	     Records management 				 
	     Veterans						 
	     Veterans benefits					 
	     Veterans disability compensation			 
	     Veterans' medical care				 
	     Policies and procedures				 

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GAO-07-98

   

     * [1]Results in Brief
     * [2]Background
     * [3]Internal Assessments Indicate General Compliance, but VBA Ha

          * [4]VBA Quality Reviews Show Regional Offices Generally Comply w
          * [5]Decisions of Board of Veterans' Appeals Show Regional Office
          * [6]VBA Lacks Systematic Quality Review of Research Performed by

     * [7]Potential Improvements in Procedures Could Reduce Time Requi
     * [8]Conclusions
     * [9]Recommendations for Executive Action
     * [10]Agency Comments and Our Response
     * [11]Service Records Are Numerous and Can Originate from Numerous
     * [12]Process for Collecting and Storing Service Records Varies Su
     * [13]Veterans' Service Records Cannot Always Be Found at Expected
     * [14]Fire in 1973 Destroyed the Military Service Records of Many
     * [15]GAO Contact
     * [16]Staff Acknowledgments
     * [17]GAO's Mission
     * [18]Obtaining Copies of GAO Reports and Testimony

          * [19]Order by Mail or Phone

     * [20]To Report Fraud, Waste, and Abuse in Federal Programs
     * [21]Congressional Relations
     * [22]Public Affairs

Report to the Ranking Democratic Member, Committee on Veterans' Affairs,
House of Representatives

United States Government Accountability Office

GAO

December 2006

VETERANS' DISABILITY BENEFITS

VA Can Improve Its Procedures for Obtaining Military Service Records

GAO-07-98

Contents

Letter 1

Results in Brief 2
Background 3
Internal Assessments Indicate General Compliance, but VBA Has Not Assessed
the Quality of Its Research Performed at the National Personnel Records
Center 4
Potential Improvements in Procedures Could Reduce Time Required to Process
PTSD Claims of Some Veterans 11
Conclusions 14
Recommendations for Executive Action 14
Agency Comments and Our Response 15
Appendix I Scope and Methodology 16
Appendix II Overview of Military Service Records 18
Appendix III VA's Disability Compensation Claims and Appeals Process 25
Appendix IV Web Sites Listed in the PTSD Rating Job Aids Section of VBA's
Internal Network 26
Appendix V Types of Records Researched by DOD's U.S. Army and Joint
Services Records Research Center 28
Appendix VI Comments from the Department of Veterans Affairs 29
Appendix VII GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments 32

Tables

Table 1: Decisions of Board of Veterans' Appeals on Compensation Cases,
November 2004-January 2006 6
Table 2: Remand Reasons for 20,191 Issues That the Board Remanded Due to
Regional Office Deficiencies, November 2004-January 2006 7
Table 3: Military Service Records of Individual Veterans 19
Table 4: Dates When Service Branches Changed the Storage Disposition of
Service Medical Records and Service Personnel Records 21
Table 5: Web Sites Listed in the PTSD Rating Job Aids Section of VBA's
Internal Network 26
Table 6: Types of Records Researched by DOD's Joint Services Records
Research Center 28

Figure

Figure 1: Reasons Regional Offices Cannot Always Find Service Records at
Expected Locations 23

Abbreviations

DOD Department of Defense JSRRC Joint Services Records Research Center
PIES Personnel Information Exchange System PTSD post-traumatic stress
disorder STAR Systematic Technical Accuracy Review VA Department of
Veterans Affairs VACOLS Veterans Appeals Control and Locator System VBA
Veterans Benefits Administration VCAA Veterans Claims Assistance Act

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separately.

United States Government Accountability Office

Washington, DC 20548

December 12, 2006

The Honorable Lane Evans Ranking Democratic Member Committee on Veterans'
Affairs House of Representatives

Dear Mr. Evans:

In fiscal year 2005, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) paid about
$24.4 billion in cash benefits to approximately 2.6 million veterans to
compensate them for disabling medical conditions connected to injuries or
diseases they incurred or aggravated during active duty military service.
During that year, VA made decisions on about 198,000 original disability
compensation claims. Under the Veterans Claims Assistance Act (VCAA) of
2000, VA is assigned the duty to assist veterans in obtaining any records
relevant to their claims, provided the veterans adequately identify such
records so that VA is able to request them. In addition to military
service records, relevant records can include, for example, records
related to medical treatment provided by VA or private health care
providers and disability decisions made by the Social Security
Administration. When needed to make a decision, the act also requires VA
to obtain a medical opinion or a current medical examination of the
veteran. VA relies on the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) and its
57 regional offices to meet the requirements of this law. Failure to
comply with the requirements for obtaining relevant records could result
in veterans not receiving benefits they deserve. You asked that we
determine (1) whether VA's internal assessments indicate regional offices
are complying with the law's requirements for obtaining military service
records and (2) whether VBA could improve its procedures for obtaining
military service records for claims involving post-traumatic stress
disorder (PTSD).

To address this request, we obtained and analyzed the federal regulations
promulgated by VA to implement the duty-to-assist provisions of the
Veterans Claims Assistance Act; VBA's written procedures for obtaining
military service records from appropriate custodians, such as the National
Personnel Records Center; VBA's user manuals for automated systems that
regional offices use to request military service records from certain
custodians; VBA's procedures for and data from its reviews of the quality
of regional office decisions; and procedures of and data from the Board of
Veterans' Appeals for its reviews of regional office decisions appealed by
veterans. In the process of collecting and analyzing such documents and
data, we interviewed key officials of VBA and its regional offices, the
board, veterans' advocacy groups, and custodians of military service
records. For more details on our scope and methodology, see appendix I. We
conducted our work during November 2005 to December 2006 in accordance
with generally accepted government auditing standards.

Results in Brief

VA's internal assessments indicate that regional offices generally comply
with the requirements of the Veterans Claims Assistance Act for obtaining
veterans' military service records. The VBA quality review unit has found
that less than 4 percent of regional office compensation decisions contain
errors involving regional offices' failing to obtain military service
records as required by the act. Similarly, data compiled by the Board of
Veterans' Appeals show that when the board remands appealed compensation
cases to VBA for rework, only about 3 percent of the reasons for such
remands involved regional offices' failing to comply with the law's
requirements for obtaining military service records. However, VBA does not
systematically evaluate the quality of research done on behalf of regional
offices by a VBA unit at the National Personnel Records Center, where the
service records of many veterans are stored. Although regional offices
rely on the VBA unit at the National Personnel Records Center to do
thorough and reliable searches and analyses of records and provide
accurate reports on the results, VBA does not have a systematic program
for assessing the quality of this VBA unit's work and, therefore, does not
know the extent to which the information that this unit provides to
regional offices is reliable and accurate.

VBA potentially could improve its procedures and reduce the time required
to process some veterans' claims of PTSD. This disorder may result after a
veteran participates in, or is exposed to, stressful events or experiences
(stressors) occurring during combat, prisoner-of-war detainment, or
noncombat events, such as plane crashes, sinking of ships, explosions,
burn ward duty, and graves registration duty. When verifying the
occurrence of claimed stressors, regional offices sometimes cannot find
needed evidence in the veteran's own service records and must turn to
information contained in the military historical records of the Department
of Defense (DOD). While regional offices are able to directly access and
search an electronic library of such records for many Marine Corps
veterans, they must rely on a DOD research organization to research such
records for all other service branches. The DOD research organization's
average response time to regional office requests approaches 1 year.
However, VBA may be able to build on work already done by several regional
offices to establish an electronic library of DOD military historical
records for the other service branches and greatly reduce the time
required to process the PTSD claims of many veterans.

We are recommending that the Secretary of the Department of Veterans
Affairs direct the Under Secretary for Benefits to (1) implement a
systematic quality review program of records research performed by the VBA
unit at the National Personnel Records Center and (2) assess whether VBA
could improve its timeliness in deciding PTSD claims by systematically
utilizing an electronic library of historical military records to identify
veterans whose PTSD claims can be granted.

Background

Veterans submit their disability compensation claims to 1 of VBA's 57
regional offices. These claims contain, on average, five disabling medical
conditions that the veteran believes are service connected. For each
claimed condition, VA must determine if credible evidence is available to
support the veteran's contention of service connection. VA grants service
connection for an average of three of the five conditions claimed by a
veteran. Key sources of evidence for determining service connection are
veterans' military service medical and personnel records. To determine
service connection in some cases, VA also may need to obtain information
from DOD historical military records for the units in which veterans
served.

VBA's regional offices face a complex task in obtaining veterans' military
service records because (1) service records consist of numerous types of
records that can originate from numerous sources within or outside DOD,
(2) the process for collecting and storing service records has varied
substantially for different groups of veterans over time, (3) service
records cannot always be found at the expected storage locations, and (4)
the service records of many veterans were destroyed by a fire in 1973 at
the National Personnel Records Center, a primary repository for service
personnel and medical records. For detailed information on military
service records, including the types and locations of the records and the
process for collecting and storing them, see appendix II.

Once a claim has all the necessary evidence, the regional office evaluates
the claim and determines whether the claimant is eligible for benefits. If
a veteran disagrees with a regional office's decision on any of the issues
in his or her claim, the veteran may file an appeal with the Board of
Veterans' Appeals, requesting a more favorable decision. In many cases,
the board finds it cannot make a final decision on a veteran's appeal
until VBA does additional work on the case. In such cases, the board sends
(remands) the case back to VBA to perform the necessary additional work.
The additional work required for remands can include making initial or
follow-up attempts to obtain relevant records in accordance with the
requirements of the Veterans Claims Assistance Act.^1 Under the act, if
relevant records--such as military service records--are believed to be in
the custody of a federal agency, VBA's regional offices must continue
requesting the records until either the agency provides the records or the
regional office is reasonably certain the records do not exist or that
further efforts would be futile.^2 VA's regulations state that the
regional office cannot discontinue its efforts unless it has obtained a
statement from the agency advising VA that the records either do not exist
or are not in the agency's possession. For detailed information on VA's
disability compensation claims and appeals process, see appendix III.

Internal Assessments Indicate General Compliance, but VBA Has Not Assessed the
Quality of Its Research Performed at the National Personnel Records Center

VA's internal assessments indicate that regional offices generally comply
with the requirements of the Veterans Claims Assistance Act for obtaining
veterans' military service records. However, VBA does not have a system
for assessing the reliability and accuracy of research done on behalf of
regional offices by a VBA unit located at the National Personnel Records
Center, where the service records of many veterans are stored. The VBA
quality review unit that evaluates the accuracy of regional office
decisions on compensation claims has found that that less than 4 percent
of these decisions contain errors involving regional offices' failing to
obtain military service records as required by law. Similarly, of all the
compensation appeals cases decided by the Board of Veterans' Appeals
during November 2004-January 2006, the board remanded less than 3 percent
of these cases to VBA for rework due to deficiencies in obtaining military
service records. However, because VBA does not systematically evaluate the
quality of the research done on behalf of regional offices by the VBA unit
at the National Personnel Records Center, VBA does not know the extent to
which the information that this unit provides to regional offices is
reliable and accurate.

^1Additional work required in remand orders can also include (1) arranging
for a medical examination or obtaining a medical opinion if needed to make
a proper decision, (2) providing veterans with all notices required by
VCAA to inform them of evidence needed to support their claims, and (3)
providing proper due process.

^2While VCAA established requirements for VA in assisting veterans to
obtain relevant records, it did not establish any requirements regarding
the timeliness of VBA's efforts to obtain such records.

VBA Quality Reviews Show Regional Offices Generally Comply with Veterans Claims
Assistance Act Requirements for Obtaining Military Service Records

VBA maintains a quality review program known as the Systematic Technical
Accuracy Review (STAR) program. VBA selects random samples of each
regional office's compensation decisions and assesses the regional
office's accuracy in processing and deciding such cases. For each
decision, the STAR quality review unit reviews the documentation contained
in the regional office's claim file to determine, among other things,
whether the regional office complied with claims assistance act
duty-to-assist requirements for obtaining relevant records, made correct
service connection determinations for each claimed condition, and made
correct disability rating evaluations for each condition determined to be
service connected. An error in any of these decision elements has the
potential to result in a different decision outcome. One of VBA's fiscal
year 2007 performance goals is that 88 percent of compensation decisions
should contain no errors that could affect decision outcomes, and the
long-term strategic goal is 98 percent.

STAR data from reviews of regional office decisions made during the first
half of fiscal year 2006 showed that less than 4 percent of the cases
reviewed contained any type of error related to the law's requirements for
developing evidence.^3 Because military service records are only one
component in the overall body of evidence that regional offices must
develop, the percentage of cases with errors related to military service
records would be even smaller than the 4 percent error rate. While the
STAR database does not capture statistical data on specific types of
errors in evidence development, it does contain quality reviewers'
narrative comments on the nature of errors found. A VBA analysis of these
narrative comments showed that over half of all evidence development
errors were due to regional offices not obtaining VA medical examinations
or opinions when needed and using inadequate medical examinations. Thus,
on the basis of STAR data, one would conclude that errors related to
military service records account for less than half--or about 2
percent--of all evidence development errors.

^3See appendix I for discussion of the statistical reliability of STAR
data.

Decisions of Board of Veterans' Appeals Show Regional Offices Generally Comply
with Claims Assistance Act Requirements for Obtaining Military Service Records

Since November 2004, when the Board of Veterans' Appeals began tracking
whether remands are the fault of regional offices, it has remanded
relatively few cases--less than 3 percent--because of regional office
deficiencies in obtaining military records.^4 For example, as of January
2006, the board had made decisions on 41,517 compensation cases and had
remanded at least one issue in 44 percent of these cases (see table 1).^5
However, of the 41,517 cases, 25.6 percent contained issues that had been
remanded for reasons considered to be the fault of the regional office,
and only 2.8 percent contained issues remanded specifically because of
deficiencies in obtaining military service records.

Table 1: Decisions of Board of Veterans' Appeals on Compensation Cases,
November 2004-January 2006

                                                          Percentage of total 
Type of board decision                 Number of cases               cases 
Board decided compensation case                 41,517               100.0 
Board remanded at least one                     18,287                44.0 
compensation issue in a case                                               
Board remanded at least one issue in a          10,609                25.6 
case because regional office failed to                                     
meet requirements of law or                                                
regulations                                                                
Board remanded at least one issue in             1,147                 2.8 
case because regional office failed to                                     
meet VCAA requirements for obtaining                                       
military service records                                                   

Source: Board of Veterans' Appeals.

^4To track the outcome of contested issues, VA uses a system known as the
Veterans Appeals Control and Locator System (VACOLS), which contains data
identifying the reason(s) each contested issue was remanded to VBA and
whether the need to remand the issue was the fault of the regional office.
The board would consider the remand to be the fault of the regional office
if, for example, the regional office had failed to make initial or
follow-up attempts to obtain relevant records as required by VCAA,
However, if the board remanded a case because a change in law occurred
after the regional office had sent the veteran's appeal to the board and
additional work was needed to comply with the new law, the board would not
consider the remand to be the fault of the regional office.

^5The board routinely reports the percentage of cases that it allowed,
denied, and remanded. To compute the percentage of cases remanded versus
those allowed, the board classifies cases as remands using a method that
does not necessarily reflect all cases in which at least one issue is
remanded. Under the board's system, if the board allows any issue or part
of an appealed case, the board counts the entire case as an allowance,
regardless of whether the board remanded any other issue in the case.

For each case decided by the appeals board, it also tracks the outcome of
each contested issue in the case--for example, a veteran may have
contested the denial of service connection for a specific medical
condition and also may have asked for a higher disability rating on
another condition for which the regional office granted service
connection. The 41,517 compensation cases decided by the board contained a
total of 88,156 contested issues, of which 39 percent (34,351) were
remanded to VBA. However, of the total contested issues, 23 percent
(20,191) were remanded for reasons considered to be the fault of the
regional offices.

For the 20,191 issues remanded because of regional office deficiencies,
the board identified a total of 36,812 reasons for remanding these issues
(see table 2). Of these remand reasons, only 7.6 percent were related to
inadequacies in obtaining military service records (service medical
records, 3.5 percent; service personnel records, 2.4 percent; and military
unit historical records, 1.6 percent). The predominant reasons for remands
were deficiencies in obtaining medical examinations or opinions and
nonmilitary records and in providing proper due process.

Table 2: Remand Reasons for 20,191 Issues That the Board Remanded Due to
Regional Office Deficiencies, November 2004-January 2006

Remand reasons                           Total reasons Percentage of total 
Board remanded issue because regional                                      
office failed to meet requirements for:                                    
      o Providing proper notification               4,325                11.7 
      o Providing proper due process                7,456                20.3 
      o Obtaining medical exam or medical          13,356                36.3 
      opinion                                                                 
      o Obtaining nonmilitary records               8,884                24.1 
      o Obtaining military service records          2,791                 7.6 
      o Service medical records                     1,305                 3.5 
      o Service personnel records                     894                 2.4 
      o Military unit historical records              592                 1.6 
Total                                           36,812                 100 

Source: Board of Veterans' Appeals.

Focusing only on issues in which veterans asked the appeals board to grant
service connection for a medical condition that the regional office had
denied, the board identified about 12 percent of the reasons for remanding
service connection issues as being related to inadequacies in obtaining
military service records.

VBA Lacks Systematic Quality Review of Research Performed by the VBA Unit
Located at the National Personnel Records Center

To obtain service records stored at the National Personnel Records Center,
regional offices submit requests to a VBA unit located at the center,
asking the VBA unit to provide copies of service records and/or provide
information contained in the records. This unit responded to such requests
from regional offices for about 290,000 cases in calendar year 2005. For
certain types of compensations claims, such as herbicide exposure and PTSD
claims, VBA's written procedures instruct regional offices not to request
a copy of the veteran's entire service personnel record, which can be
voluminous. Instead, regional offices are supposed to rely on the VBA unit
at the National Personnel Records Center to obtain the veteran's files,
perform a physical search of the files for relevant records, provide
copies of only certain specified records, analyze certain types of
records, and provide regional offices with narrative answers on the
results of their research and analyses. Thus, regional offices rely on the
VBA unit at the National Personnel Records Center to do thorough and
complete searches of records, do reliable analyses of records, and provide
accurate and clear narrative reports on the results.

VBA, however, does not have a systematic quality review program that
evaluates the accuracy of the work that the VBA unit at the National
Personnel Records Center performs on behalf of the regional offices. Such
a program is needed as part of an adequate system of internal management
controls for VBA's administration of the compensation program. An example
of why the records research done by VBA employees at the National
Personnel Records Center must be reliable is provided by disability claims
based on exposure to herbicides in Vietnam. Under the Agent Orange Act of
1991, VA presumes that any veteran who had set foot on land in the
Republic of Vietnam at any time during the Vietnam era (January 9, 1962,
to May 7, 1975) was exposed to herbicides such as Agent Orange.^6 If any
such veteran files a claim for certain specified diseases that have been
determined to be attributable to herbicide exposure, VA must presumptively
grant service connection to the veteran for such diseases. If a veteran
claims that he or she was officially stationed on land in Vietnam during
that period, the VBA unit at the National Personnel Records Center should
be able to verify this fact by examining standard personnel forms in his
or her service personnel file. However, if a veteran who was not
officially stationed on land in Vietnam claims that on some occasion he or
she did set foot on land in Vietnam during that period, VBA may encounter
more difficulty obtaining the evidence needed to verify the veteran's
claim because standard personnel forms would not document such occasions.

^6In August 2006, the U.S Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims ruled that
veterans who served in the waters off Vietnam during January 9, 1962, to
May 7, 1975, are entitled to disability benefits on the basis of
presumption of service connection for diseases related to exposure to
herbicides such as Agent Orange, regardless of whether they ever actually
set foot on land in Vietnam. See Haas v. Nicholson, 20 Vet. App. 257 (Aug.
16, 2006).

In such cases, VBA procedures instruct regional offices not to ask for the
veteran's entire service personnel file, but instead, the regional office
must ask the VBA unit at the National Personnel Records Center to search
the veteran's personnel file for any evidence that might corroborate his
or her claim of having set foot on land in Vietnam. One regional office
that we visited provided an example of how the VBA unit at the National
Personnel Records Center could overlook corroborating evidence contained
in the file and cause a significant delay of benefits for a veteran. In
this particular case, an Air Force veteran claimed that he had been
assigned to an aircraft that had landed and spent a short time on the
ground in Vietnam during the presumptive period. The VBA unit at the
National Personnel Records Center did not provide the regional office with
evidence supporting this claim, and the regional office ultimately denied
the claim. However, the veteran appealed the decision to the Board of
Veterans' Appeals, which remanded the case to the regional office and
ordered the regional office to obtain and review the veteran's entire
personnel file. After obtaining the entire file from the National
Personnel Records Center, the regional office found documents in the file
that provided sufficient evidence to conclude that the veteran's claim was
credible. If the VBA unit at the National Personnel Records Center had
found and reported this evidence to the regional office during the initial
claims process, the veteran's claim could have been granted without his
having to go through the appeals process.

Also, for many PTSD claims, regional offices potentially must rely on the
VBA unit at the National Personnel Records Center to do thorough research
of personnel records. PTSD results from personal exposure to traumatic
events (stressors) that can occur during combat events; noncombat
events--such as plane crashes, ships sinking, explosions, burn ward duty,
or graves registration duty--and personal assault. For such claims, if
evidence substantiates that a veteran engaged in a combat event, the
veteran's own testimony is sufficient to substantiate the occurrence of a
claimed stressor associated with that event. If engagement in combat is
not substantiated, then the regional office must seek other evidence
substantiating the occurrence of the stressor claimed by the veteran.

Only for PTSD claims involving personal assault do VBA's procedures
instruct regional offices to request a copy of the entire personnel file
from the National Personnel Records Center. Routinely requesting the
entire file for personal assault cases is permitted because such cases can
involve personal and sensitive incidents that sometimes are not officially
reported. Therefore, the entire file needs to be examined for indications
of changes in behavior or performance that may have been related to the
alleged rape or assault. For all other types of PTSD stressors claimed by
veterans, the documents that regional offices may routinely request from
the veterans' service personnel files do not include performance reports
or written justifications for awards and commendations. According to
regional office officials, however, these documents sometimes can contain
evidence that supports a veteran's PTSD claim. As a result, the regional
offices depend on the VBA employees stationed at the National Personnel
Records Center to read such documents and report any supporting evidence
to the regional office.

Officials of VBA's Records Management Center--which oversees the work of
the VBA unit at the National Personnel Records Center--informed us they
are considering implementing a systematic program for reviewing the
quality of all types of research work performed by this unit. Although a
quality review function is already in place, only one analyst has been
responsible for reviewing a 3 percent random sample of each employee's
work products. Given the volume of work products and limited time because
of other duties, the analyst told us he examined few actual service record
files to assess the accuracy of the work done by the employees. Instead,
the analyst had resorted to using professional judgment to assess whether
the content of the responses that employees provided to regional offices
appeared reasonable in light of the nature of the request to which they
were responding. Only if the analyst thought the response content looked
questionable did he actually obtain the service record files and examine
the records to determine the accuracy of the response. For example, the
analyst told us that in a recent month he had reviewed actual service
record files for only 17 of the approximately 700 responses randomly
selected for review.

According to officials of the VA Records Management Center, they are
considering establishing a team of three or four full-time quality review
specialists that would report to the director of the VA Records Management
Center. If implemented, this team would review the quality of work done by
VBA employees at the National Personnel Records Center and at the VA
Records Management Center. The team would continue to randomly select a 3
percent sample of each employee's completed work products prepared in
response to regional office requests. However, unlike the current review,
to determine accuracy, the new team would be able to review the actual
service record files for all responses selected for review. A quality
review specialist position description has been developed, but at the time
of our review, implementation milestones for the new system had not been
established.

Potential Improvements in Procedures Could Reduce Time Required to Process PTSD
Claims of Some Veterans

VBA potentially could improve its procedures and reduce the time required
to process some veterans' PTSD claims. During fiscal years 1999-2004, the
number of veterans receiving compensation benefits because of PTSD
increased by about 80 percent, from about 120,000 to almost 216,000.^7 VBA
potentially could improve its procedures to reduce the time required to
process some veterans' PTSD claims. To verify the occurrence of claimed
stressors, regional offices sometimes cannot find needed evidence in the
veteran's personal service records and must turn to information contained
in the military historical records of DOD. While regional offices are able
to directly access and search an electronic library of such records for
many Marine Corps veterans, they must rely on a DOD research
organization--the U.S. Army and Joint Services Records Research Center
(JSRRC)--to research such records for all other service branches.^8
JSRRC's average response time to regional office requests for such
research approaches 1 year; by contrast, VBA's average processing time
strategic goal for claims involving disability compensation issues is 125
days. The opportunity may exist for VBA to establish an electronic library
of DOD military historical records for the other service branches and
greatly reduce the time required to process the PTSD claims of many
veterans.

According to VBA's procedures, if the regional office verifies that a PTSD
claimant engaged in combat or was a prisoner of war, the claimant's own
personal testimony is sufficient evidence to verify the occurrence of a
stressor associated with the combat or the prisoner-of-war experience.
Otherwise, the regional office must obtain other credible evidence to
verify the claimed stressor. For Marine Corps veterans from the Vietnam
era and the Korean conflict, the regional office can electronically view
and search a set of compact discs provided by the Marine Corps University
Archives. These discs contain Marine Corps historical records for the
Vietnam era (1960-1975) and the Korean conflict. Officials of regional
offices we visited estimated that, on average, they can perform these
electronic searches of Marine Corps records in less than a day. If the
regional office cannot find the needed corroborative evidence on the
compact disks, the regional office must ask the Marine Corps University
Archives to search its records for any evidence corroborating the
veteran's claim, and only if the Marine Corps University Archives cannot
find corroboration may the regional office deny the veteran's PTSD claim.

^7By contrast, during that period, the total number of veterans receiving
disability compensation grew by about 12 percent.

^8In rape and personal assault cases, because many incidents of personal
trauma are not officially reported, the regional office may need to seek
evidence from other sources, such as military law enforcement, rape crisis
center, center for domestic abuse, counseling facility, health clinic,
family members or roommates, faculty member, civilian police reports,
medical reports of civilian physicians or caregivers who may have treated
the veteran immediately or sometime after the incident, chaplain or
clergy, fellow service persons, and personal diaries or journals.

By contrast, for veterans of armed service branches other than the Marine
Corps, DOD has not created an electronic historical library of records
that regional offices can search when the veteran's service medical or
personnel records do not provide evidence to verify engagement in combat
or to verify the claimed stressor. Instead, VBA's procedures call for
regional offices to ask JSRRC to conduct research of military historical
records of the units in which veterans served in order to provide the
needed corroboration.^9 Many of the records that JSRRC may search are
voluminous, are not stored electronically, and must be searched manually
(see app. V for information on such records). After conducting its
research, JSRRC provides the regional office a summary of its findings but
does not evaluate evidence, render opinions, make conclusions, or decide
the merits of a claim. According to its Director, the center has 13
full-time-equivalent employees and a steady backlog of about 4,000 cases,
of which about 85 percent come from VBA regional offices; the remaining
requests are submitted by individual veterans and veterans service
organizations.

In our visit to VBA's Oakland regional office, we learned that the
regional office recently had begun a local initiative in which the
regional office had designated three employees who--when other
decision-making duties permit--search an electronic library of
unclassified historical military records compiled by the Chicago regional
office's military records specialist. According to the Chicago regional
office's military records specialist, several other regional offices also
have been provided this electronic library. The Oakland regional office
employees doing this research and the Chicago regional office military
records specialist stated that they have been able to find sufficient
evidence in the electronic library to grant service connection for a
substantial portion of PTSD cases that otherwise would have required that
the regional office ask the JSRRC to search for evidence corroborating the
veteran's claim. According to these officials, they can complete these
searches within a few weeks after being asked to do the search. These
regional offices now request searches by JSRRC for PTSD cases only if
sufficient evidence cannot be found in the electronic library to grant
service connection. The Director of JSRRC told us that such research by
regional offices could greatly reduce JSRRC's backlog of research requests
and reduce the average response time, assuming JSRRC's staffing level
remained constant.

^9If adequate evidence of engagement in combat cannot be obtained from
primary sources such as the veteran's service records, the Marine Corps
University Archives, or the JSRRC, the regional office may also use
secondary sources of evidence such as buddy statements, veteran's military
occupational specialty, contemporaneous letters and diaries, newspaper
archives, and military or government Web sites approved by VBA (see
listing of Web sites in app. IV).

A related issue is that some veterans may not be willing to disclose to
regional offices certain details needed to process their PTSD claims
because the claimed stressful event occurred during classified operations.
For example, to alleviate the possibility of such reluctance on the part
of hundreds of thousands of veterans who had participated in classified
atmospheric atomic testing and possibly been exposed to nuclear radiation,
the Secretary of Defense issued a memorandum in 1996 authorizing such
veterans to divulge to VA the name and location of their command, duties
performed, dates of service, and related information necessary to validate
exposure to nuclear radiation. Similarly, in PTSD cases for which regional
offices cannot find sufficient evidence in veterans' service records to
grant the claims, if the veterans, because of concerns about classified
operation, will not provide the regional office with certain minimum
details, the regional office will not be able to submit requests to JSRRC
to search military historical records for corroborating evidence. We
discussed the classified operations issue with the Director of JSRRC, who
stated that he personally had talked with veterans who had directly
contacted his organization and who maintained they could not divulge to
him the details of their participation in classified operations. He said
that after he explained to them that the entire JSRRC staff are DOD
employees and have appropriate security clearances, the veterans were
willing to provide him with the details needed to conduct searches of DOD
records, including any pertinent classified records maintained by DOD.
While the extent of the classified problem is unknown, the Director had no
objections to regional offices advising veterans to directly contact JSRRC
if they are unwilling to disclose sufficient details to the regional
office to process their claims because their disabilities allegedly were
incurred during classified operations.

Conclusions

VA is responsible for providing reasonable assurance that it is complying
with applicable laws and regulations. While VA's internal assessments
indicate that its regional offices generally comply with the requirements
of the Veterans Claims Assistance Act for obtaining military service
records, VA does not have a systematic quality review program for ensuring
the reliability and accuracy of records research done on behalf of
regional offices by the VBA unit located at the National Personnel Records
Center. As a result, VA cannot reasonably ensure the quality of the
research on which regional offices rely to assist many veterans in
obtaining service records relevant to their compensation claims.

PTSD claims have been a growing portion of the claims processed by
regional offices. Many present challenges in obtaining the evidence needed
to process them, resulting in veterans having to wait for long periods for
their claims to be decided. VBA's establishment of a claims-processing
timeliness performance goal demonstrates that high-quality service should
result not only in correct decisions, but also decisions rendered in a
reasonable length of time. The experience of several regional offices
suggests that VBA could improve its timeliness in deciding the PTSD claims
of many veterans nationwide if VBA systematically utilized an electronic
library of historical military records such as the one compiled by the
Chicago regional office. The average time for the Joint Services Records
Research Center to respond to such requests is about 1 year; by contrast,
officials in some regional offices have found that using the online
library compiled by the Chicago regional office enabled them to find
sufficient evidence in a matter a few weeks to grant the PTSD claims of
many veterans.

Recommendations for Executive Action

We recommend that the Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs
direct the Under Secretary for Benefits to take the following actions.

           o To adequately ensure the quality of the records research done on
           behalf of regional offices by the VBA unit at the National
           Personnel Records Center, VBA should move forward in implementing
           a systematic quality review program that evaluates and measures
           the accuracy of the unit's responses to all types of regional
           office research requests.
           o To improve its timeliness in deciding PTSD claims, VBA should
           assess whether it could systematically utilize an electronic
           library of historical military records, such as the one compiled
           by the Chicago regional office, to identify veterans whose PTSD
           claims can be granted on the basis of information contained in
           such a library, rather than submitting all research requests to
           the Joint Services Records Research Center.

Agency Comments and Our Response

In its written comments on a draft of this report (see app. VI), VA agreed
with our findings and concurred with our recommendations. VA stated it had
increased the number of VBA quality reviewers at the National Personnel
Records Center in order to better ensure the quality of responses provided
to regional offices. VA also noted that VBA will determine the feasibility
of regional offices' using other databases to research cases in order to
reduce the number of cases sent to the JSRRC. We believe these are
positive steps toward ensuring the quality of the records research done by
the VBA unit at the National Personnel Records Center and improving
timeliness.

As agreed with your office, unless you publicly announce it contents
earlier, we plan no further distribution until 30 days after the date of
this report. At that time, we will send copies of this report to the
Secretary of Veterans Affairs, appropriate congressional committees, and
other interested parties. The report will also be available at GAO's Web
site at http://www.gao.gov .

If you or your staff have any questions regarding this report, please call
me at (202) 512-7215. Contact points for our Offices of Congressional
Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page of this report.
Other contacts and staff acknowledgments are listed in appendix VI.

Robert E. Robertson Director, Education, Workforce, and Income Security
Issues

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology

To identify Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) procedures for
obtaining relevant military service records, we obtained and analyzed
Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) regulations governing the processing
of compensation claims; VBA's written procedures, user guide for the
automated system for requesting military records, training materials, and
other VBA instructions for directing regional offices' efforts in
obtaining military records; locally written procedures and guides
developed by regional offices to direct their employees in obtaining
military records; and information electronically available to regional
offices through VBA's internal network.

To gain an operational context for the information obtained from these
sources and to obtain stakeholders' views on the effectiveness of VBA's
procedures for obtaining relevant military service records, we interviewed
officials of VA's Board of Veterans' Appeals and Office of Inspector
General; VBA's Compensation and Pension Service, Office of Field
Operations, Appeals Management Center, Records Management Center, VA
Liaison Office at the National Personnel Records Center, and regional
offices located in Atlanta, Georgia, Baltimore, Maryland, Oakland,
California, and St. Petersburg, Florida; custodians of military records
and organizations that research military records on behalf of VBA's
regional offices, including Department of Defense (DOD) U.S. Army and
Joint Services Records Research Center, Defense Threat Reduction Agency,
DOD Joint Requirements and Integration Office, and National Personnel
Records Center, which is operated by the National Archives and Records
Administration; and veterans' advocacy groups, including Disabled American
Veterans, American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Paralyzed Veterans of
America, AMVETS, National Veterans Legal Services Program, and state and
county veterans service agencies.

As part of our review of the results of VA's internal assessments of
regional offices' compliance with Veterans Claims Assistance Act
requirements for obtaining military service records, we assessed the
reliability of fiscal year 2006 data compiled by VBA from its Systematic
Technical Accuracy Review (STAR) program for regional office decisions
involving compensation issues. In earlier GAO work on STAR data reported
for fiscal year 2004, we reported that regional offices had failed to send
any case files to the STAR unit for hundreds of cases randomly selected
for quality review, which meant the possibility existed that if the STAR
unit had actually been able to review the files for these cases, the
accuracy scores for some individual regional offices could have been lower
than those reported for fiscal year 2004.^1 Subsequently, the STAR unit
began tracking the receipt of cases randomly selected for review. For our
current work, we followed up with the STAR unit to determine the extent to
which regional offices now send to the STAR unit all cases selected for
quality review. We obtained data from the STAR unit and concluded that the
numbers of cases requested, received, and reviewed for the first half of
fiscal year 2006 provided nationwide data that were sufficiently reliable
for our reporting purposes. Even so, the STAR unit did not receive about 6
percent of the cases selected for review during the first half of fiscal
year 2006; therefore, because the STAR unit might have found additional
VCAA development errors if it had had the opportunity to review these
cases, the percentage of cases actually containing Veterans Claims
Assistance Act (VCAA) development errors may have been larger than
indicated by the fiscal year 2006 data reported by the STAR unit.

Also, as part of our review of VA's internal assessments of regional
offices' compliance with VCAA requirements for obtaining military service
records, we assessed the reliability of data recorded in the Veterans
Appeals Control and Locator System (VACOLS) by the Board of Veterans'
Appeals on the results of its reviews of veterans' appeals on compensation
decisions made by regional offices. We obtained data as of January 31,
2006, on all compensation cases decided by the board since November 1,
2004, when the board began recording in VACOLS whether its remands of
decisions to VBA for rework were due to regional office deficiencies. To
assess the reliability of the VACOLS data, we interviewed knowledgeable
board officials, performed electronic testing of pertinent VACOLS data
elements, and reviewed existing information about the data and the system
that produced them. We determined that the data were sufficiently reliable
for the purposes of this report. We analyzed these data to create summary
statistics on the disposition of compensation cases and issues decided by
the board.

^1GAO, Veterans' Benefits: Further Changes in VBA's Field Office Structure
Could Help Improve Disability Claims Processing, [24]GAO-06-149
(Washington, D.C.: Dec. 9, 2005).

Appendix II: Overview of Military Service Records

VBA's regional offices face a complex task in obtaining veterans' military
service records because (1) service records consist of numerous types of
records that can originate from numerous sources within or outside DOD,
(2) the process for collecting and storing service records has varied
substantially for different groups of veterans over time, (3) service
records cannot always be found at the expected storage locations, and (4)
the service records of many veterans were destroyed by a fire in 1973 at
the National Personnel Records Center, a primary repository for service
personnel and medical records.

Service Records Are Numerous and Can Originate from Numerous Sources

The cumulative service medical records and service personnel records of
individual service members contain numerous types of records that can
originate in varying organizations and geographic locations of DOD's
activities as service members migrate from assignment to assignment during
their military service (see table 3).

Table 3: Military Service Records of Individual Veterans

Category          Type of record                                           
Medical records      o Physical examination reports, including entrance    
                        and discharge exam reports                            
                        o Medical history                                     
                        o Dental examinations and records                     
                        o Inpatient clinical record cover sheets and          
                        summaries                                             
                        o Entries from outpatient medical and dental          
                        treatments                                            
                        o Physical profiles                                   
                        o Medical Evaluation Board proceedings in DOD's       
                        disability evaluation process                         
                        o Prescriptions for eyeglasses                        
                        o Prescriptions for orthopedic footwear               
Personnel records    o Entry                                               
                        o Training                                            
                        o Education                                           
                        o Performance                                         
                        o Discipline                                          
                        o Decorations and awards                              
                        o Assignments                                         
                        o Duties                                              
                        o Casualty status                                     
                        o Separation or retirement from the military          
                        o Certain health records (usually limited to          
                        entrance/separation physical exam reports but may     
                        include physical profiles and medical evaluation      
                        board proceedings)                                    

Source: VA.

Process for Collecting and Storing Service Records Varies Substantially
for Different Groups of Veterans

Historically, when service members separated from active duty, all DOD
service branches forwarded all service medical records and service
personnel records to the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis,
Missouri. However, beginning in the early 1990s, separation point military
installations began sending service medical records to VA's Records
Management Center, also located in St. Louis. The timing of this
changeover varied among service branches, but as of May 1998, all branches
had begun sending service medical records to the VA Records Management
Center for service members who are discharged from active duty and have no
remaining military reserve or National Guard obligation (see table 4, col.
2).^1 Also, in 1996, the Navy became the first DOD service branch to store
service personnel records electronically in optically imaged files, which
permitted the Navy to discontinue sending these records to the National
Personnel Records Center. As of November 2005, all DOD service branches
were storing service personnel records electronically and had discontinued
sending such records to the National Personnel Records Center (see table
4, col. 3).

^1The Coast Guard began sending service medical records to the VA Records
Management Center in May 1998.

Table 4: Dates When Service Branches Changed the Storage Disposition of
Service Medical Records and Service Personnel Records

                                                    (3) Active duty release   
                (2) Date when service branch began  date of veterans for whom 
                sending service medical records to  service branch stores     
                the VA Records Management Center    service personnel records 
(1) Service  rather than to the National         electronically as         
branch       Personnel Records Center ^a         optically imaged files^b  
Army         October 16, 1992                    October 1, 2002           
Navy         January 31, 1994                    January 1, 1996           
Air Force    May 1, 1994 (active duty only)      November 2005             
                                                                              
                June 1, 1994(reserves/National                                
                Guard)                                                        
Marine Corps May 1, 1994                         January 1, 1998           

Source: VA and DOD.

^aAlthough the service medical records sent to the VA Records Management
Center include military inpatient clinical record cover sheets and
summaries, these records do not include detailed clinical records, such as
daily treatment records and nurses' notes. Military medical facilities
maintain these detailed clinical records until a preset period of
inactivity has elapsed and then forward such records directly to the
National Personnel Records Center. Civilian medical facilities that treat
active duty service members do not forward any medical or mental health
records for storage and destroy such records after a period of inactivity.

^bEach service branch also electronically stores service personnel records
as optically imaged files for veterans who were released from active duty
before the date in column 3 but whose reserve obligations did not expire
until after this date.

When service members have military reserve or National Guard obligations
remaining at the time of their release from active duty, the service
branches may not route their service records in the same way that they
route the records of those who do not have such an obligation when
released from active duty. For service members who still have reserve or
guard obligations at the time of their release, the disposition of their
service records varies depending on their service branch, whether their
obligation is a reserve versus guard obligation, and whether or not they
are assigned to an active unit at the time of release from active duty.

VA and DOD jointly initiated a Benefits Delivery at Discharge program that
enables service members still on active duty to file disability
compensation claims within 6 months before separating from active military
duty. Under this program, VBA arranges for a physical examination of the
claimant, and the service branch provides a VBA liaison with a copy of the
claimant's service medical records. The liaison sends these records to one
of the two VBA regional offices (Winston-Salem and Salt Lake City) that
process all claims filed under this program. The regional office prepares
a rating decision prior to the claimant's discharge from active duty, and
after the claimant's discharge, the service branch sends the regional
office a copy of the claimant's DD Form 214 (Report of Release from Active
Military Service), and the regional office immediately authorizes
benefits. As of April 2005, 141 military installations worldwide were
participating in the Benefits Delivery at Discharge program, and in fiscal
year 2004, and VBA processed 39,000 claims under this program.
Additionally, if a service member not participating in this program
submits a VA disability claim form to his or her service branch before
separating from active duty, the service branch retains the claim form
until the individual separates from active duty and then forwards his or
her claim form, DD Form 214, and service medical records to the regional
office having jurisdiction over the individual's permanent address.

Veterans' Service Records Cannot Always Be Found at Expected Storage
Locations

To request veterans' service records, regional offices rely primarily on a
VBA system known as the Personnel Information Exchange System (PIES). This
system provides regional offices with a menu of record request codes, each
of which is defined in terms of the types of service records and/or
information being requested by the regional office. On behalf of the
regional offices that input such requests into the PIES system, the VA
Records Management Center prints and mails requests to custodians of
records maintained in paper form, and the PIES system electronically
routes requests to custodians of service personnel records maintained in
optically imaged files. However, for a variety of reasons, the custodians
whom regional offices expect to be in possession of requested records
cannot always provide the records (see fig. 1).

Figure 1: Reasons Regional Offices Cannot Always Find Service Records at
Expected Locations

Fire in 1973 Destroyed the Military Service Records of Many Veterans

The service records of many older veterans were destroyed by a fire in
1973 at the National Personnel Records Center. The fire destroyed the
records of approximately 80 percent (16 million to 18 million) of the Army
veterans who served during November 1912 through January 1, 1960, and the
records of 75 percent of the Air Force veterans with surnames Hubbard
through Z who were discharged between September 25, 1947, and January 1,
1964, and were not in a retired or reserve status at the time of the fire.
For some of these veterans, the National Personnel Records Center has
resources that can help reconstruct some of their service medical
information. For example, the center has Army morning (sick) reports for
November 1912 to December 1974 and Air Force morning reports for September
1947 to June 1966. Also, in 1988, the National Personnel Records Center
obtained magnetic tapes containing limited information extracted by the
Surgeon General's Office from about 10 million hospital admission records
for veterans admitted to military hospitals during 1942-1945 and
1950-1954.

Another alternative is for VA to ask the veteran's service branch to
search sick logs, morning reports, and records of military organizations,
hospitals, and infirmaries. Other alternative sources for medical
information can include statements from service medical personnel; buddy
certificates or affidavits; state or local police accident reports;
employment physical examinations; medical evidence from hospitals,
clinics, and private physicians that may have treated the veteran during
or soon after separation; letters written by the veteran during service;
photographs taken during service; pharmacy prescription records; and
insurance examinations.

Appendix III: VA's Disability Compensation Claims and Appeals Process

Appendix IV: Web Sites Listed in the PTSD Rating Job Aids Section of VBA's
Internal Network

Table 5: Web Sites Listed in the PTSD Rating Job Aids Section of VBA's
Internal Network

U.S. Air Force  Site                                                                                
Air Force       [25]http://www.au.af.mil/au/afhra/                                                  
Historical                                                                                          
Research Agency                                                                                     
Air Force       [26]https://www.airforcehistory.hq.af.mil/                                          
Historical                                                                                          
Studies Office                                                                                      
U.S. Army                                                                                           
Korean War      [27]http://korea50.army.mil/history/factsheets/index.shtml                          
history page                                                                                        
1st Infantry    [28]http://www.1id.army.mil/                                                        
Division Web                                                                                        
site                                                                                                
Center of       [29]http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/default.htm                                          
Military                                                                                            
History                                                                                             
Army Engineers  [30]http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/Vietnam/Engineers/index.htm                    
Vietnam                                                                                             
Studies,                                                                                            
1965-1970                                                                                           
Human Resources [31]https://www.hrc.army.mil/indexflash.asp                                         
Command,                                                                                            
Military Awards                                                                                     
Branch                                                                                              
Military        [32]http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usamhi/                                            
History                                                                                             
Institute, Army [33]http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usamhi/dl/chron.htm                                
War College,                                                                                        
Carlisle                                                                                            
Barracks, MHI                                                                                       
Digital Library                                                                                     
Chronological                                                                                       
List                                                                                                
Unit Citation   Regional offices can access an electronic copy of Army Pamphlet 672-3 stored on     
and Campaign    VBA's internal network.                                                             
Participation                                                                                       
Credit Register                                                                                     
(January 1960-                                                                                      
September 1987)                                                                                     
U.S. Coast                                                                                          
Guard                                                                                               
Coast Guard     [34]http://www.uscg.mil/hq/g-cp/history/collect.html                                
Historian's                                                                                         
Office                                                                                              
Coast Guard Web [35]http://www.uscg.mil/USCG.shtm                                                   
site                                                                                                
U.S. Marine                                                                                         
Corps                                                                                               
Database Search [36]https://lnweb1.manpower.usmc.mil/manpower/mm/mmma/AwardsVerification.nsf/search 
for Combat                                                                                          
Action Ribbon                                                                                       
History and     [37]http://hqinet001.hqmc.usmc.mil/HD/Home_Page.htm                                 
Museums                                                                                             
Division                                                                                            
Marines Web     [38]http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/mcn2000.nsf/frontpagenews                        
site                                                                                                
U.S. Navy                                                                                           
Navy, Naval     [39]http://www.history.navy.mil/                                                    
Historical                                                                                          
Center                                                                                              
Navy Hospital   [40]http://navymedicine.med.navy.mil/bumed/index.cfm?docid=10324                    
Corps and                                                                                           
Dental                                                                                              
Technician                                                                                          
History Page                                                                                        
Navy Service    [41]http://www.history.navy.mil/medals/index.html                                   
and Campaign                                                                                        
Medals                                                                                              
Navy Web site   [42]http://www.navy.mil/                                                            
Department of                                                                                       
Defense                                                                                             
Office of the   [43]http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/                                                    
Special                                                                                             
Assistant for                                                                                       
Gulf War                                                                                            
Illness,                                                                                            
Gulflink                                                                                            
Official U.S.   [44]http://www.dior.whs.mil/mmid/casualty/castoptest.htm                            
Military                                                                                            
Casualty                                                                                            
Information                                                                                         
POW/Missing     [45]http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo/                                                       
Personnel                                                                                           
Office                                                                                              
Other           Site                                                                                
Dictionary of   [46]http://www.hazegray.org/danfs/                                                  
American Naval                                                                                      
Fighting Ships,                                                                                     
DANFS Online                                                                                        
John C. Thorn,  [47]http://www.thorn.pair.com/thorn/links/military.html                             
Links to                                                                                            
Military Web                                                                                        
Sites                                                                                               
National        [48]http://www.archives.gov/veterans/research/online.html                           
Archives,                                                                                           
Online Veterans                                                                                     
and Military                                                                                        
Documents                                                                                           
National Center [49]http://www.ncptsd.va.gov/index.html                                             
for PTSD                                                                                            
National        [50]http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/query.asp                                              
Transportation                                                                                      
Safety Board                                                                                        
Aircraft                                                                                            
Accidents                                                                                           
No-Quarter.Org, [51]http://www.no-quarter.org/                                                      
Vietnam                                                                                             
Casualty Search                                                                                     
Page                                                                                                
VBA Denver      [52]http://vbaw.vba.va.gov/ro/west/denvr/awards.htm                                 
Regional                                                                                            
Office,                                                                                             
Military                                                                                            
Awards,                                                                                             
Decorations,                                                                                        
Campaigns                                                                                           
Vietnam         [53]http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/vietnamarchive/index.htm                             
Project/Virtual                                                                                     
Vietnam Archive                                                                                     

Source: VBA.

Note: In an introductory note regarding the Web sites listed above, the
PTSD Rating Job Aids Section in VBA's internal network states that the
information found at these Web sites--as well as any other government Web
sites (.gov or .mil)--may be used to verify stressors and the claimant's
involvement in the stressful event. The note also states that while many
nongovernment Web sites may contain additional supporting documentation,
information from those Web sites--including any links to nongovernment Web
sites found within the approved sites listed above--cannot serve as the
sole basis for verification.

Appendix V: Types of Records Researched by DOD's U.S. Army and Joint
Services Records Research Center

Table 6: Types of Records Researched by DOD's Joint Services Records
Research Center

Army      Daily journals: These daily logs of a unit's activities record   
             names, locations, times, and specific incidents and operations.  
             These are the most useful records for verifying stressors, but   
             because they are so voluminous, it is imperative that the        
             regional office provide a specific date span, preferably 7 days  
             or less.                                                         
                                                                              
             Operational reports-lessons learned:These are quarterly reports  
             documenting a unit's major operations and activities and often   
             include unit locations, strengths, operations and results of     
             operations, casualties, statistical reports, and recommendations 
             for improvement.                                                 
                                                                              
             Unit and organizational histories: These documents describe the  
             general activities of Army units for a particular period of      
             time--normally 6 months or 1 year. The quality of these          
             histories varies greatly from unit to unit and may contain       
             everything from extremely detailed descriptions of battles to    
             changes in command and flag-raising ceremonies.                  
                                                                              
             Morning reports DA Form 1: Morning reports contain a daily       
             accounting of personnel actions at the company level. More       
             specifically, they list the transfer, arrival, and departure of  
             individual service members. They also contain the name and       
             status of service members wounded in action, killed in action,   
             and missing in action. The Army ceased using morning reports in  
             1974.                                                            
                                                                              
             Casualty records: Casualty records contain information on the    
             type of casualty, location, type of attack, cause and type of    
             injury, and possible prognosis. They also contain the service    
             member's unit, rank, military occupational specialty, date of    
             casualty, date of report, name of individual making the report,  
             witnesses, and place of treatment. These records are arranged    
             alphabetically by last name. In order to research effectively,   
             complete last names are required; complete last and first names  
             are preferred. In order to identify the correct individual,      
             service numbers and Social Security numbers may be required.     
Navy      Deck logs and ship histories: Deck logs record all unusual or    
             significant enemy action. The Officer of the Deck records the    
             information at a minimum of once each 4 hours. Deck logs are the 
             only ship logs sent to the Naval Historical Center for           
             archiving. A deck log is a daily chronology of certain events    
             specified in Office of the Chief of Naval Operations Instruction 
             3100.7 (OPNAVINST 3100.7). Deck logs are bulky, voluminous       
             documents that track a ship's location and movements daily. In   
             cases of deaths and injuries suffered on board, the log should   
             contain the simple fact of the death or injury and note whether  
             medical treatment was given, but it does not specify the         
             treatment or contain reports on medical matters, such as sick    
             bay visits or injuries not suffered on board ship.               
                                                                              
             Navy shore station histories and ship histories - These          
             documents are a compilation of significant events for the year.  
                                                                              
             Muster rolls - These rolls record assignments of individuals to  
             and from ships and stations.                                     
                                                                              
             Other records - The Navy Military Personnel Command maintains a  
             centralized listing of all Navy combat casualties. Other Navy    
             records include war diaries. The Navy does not publish combat    
             after-action reports, daily journals, and situation reports of   
             operations reports-lessons learned.                              
Air Force Quarterly historical reports: Quarterly historical reports are   
             divided into functional areas such as supply, aircraft           
             maintenance, civil engineering, and personnel. Major units       
             maintain these records. The information maintained is largely    
             useless for the purpose of verifying specific stressful events.  
             This makes it imperative that Air Force veterans provide         
             detailed descriptions of their claimed stressors.                
                                                                              
             Other records: Morning reports have not been maintained by the   
             Air Force since 1964. The Air Force Military Personnel Center,   
             Randolph Air Force Base, Texas, maintains Air Force casualty     
             information. The Air Force does not publish combat after-action  
             reports, daily journals, situation reports, or operations        
             reports-lessons learned.                                         

Source: VBA.

Appendix VI: Comments from the Department of Veterans Affairs	

Appendix VII: A Appendix VII: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments

GAO Contact

Robert E. Robertson, Director, (202) 512-7215

Staff Acknowledgments

The following individuals made important contributions to the report:
Irene Chu, Assistant Director; Marta Chaffee; Martin Scire; Ira Spears;
Vanessa Taylor; and Walter Vance.

(130430)

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Highlights of [61]GAO-07-98 , a report to Ranking Democratic Member,
Committee on Veterans' Affairs, House of Representatives

December 2006

VETERANS' DISABILITY BENEFITS

VA Can Improve Its Procedures for Obtaining Military Service Records

The Ranking Democratic Member, House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, asked
GAO to determine (1) whether VA's internal assessments indicate its
regional offices are complying with the requirements of the Veterans
Claims Assistance Act (VCAA) of 2000 for obtaining military service
records for veterans' disability compensation claims and (2) whether VBA
could improve its procedures for obtaining military service records for
claims involving post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

[62]What GAO Recommends

GAO recommends that VA take the following actions.

To ensure the quality of research done on behalf of regional offices by
VBA's records research unit at the National Personnel Records Center, VBA
should implement a systematic quality review program to evaluate and
measure the accuracy of the unit's responses to regional office research
requests.

To improve timeliness in deciding PTSD claims, VBA should assess whether
it could systematically utilize an electronic library of historical
military records to identify veterans whose PTSD claims can be granted on
the basis of information contained in such a library, rather than
submitting all research requests to DOD's Joint Services Records Research
Center.

VA concurred with our findings and recommendations.

The Department of Veterans Affairs' (VA) internal assessments indicate its
regional offices generally comply with VCAA's requirements for obtaining
military service records for veterans' compensation claims. For example,
of the decisions made by regional offices on compensation claims during
the first half of fiscal year 2006, Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA)
quality reviewers found that less than 4 percent contained errors
involving failure to obtain military service records. Similarly, of the
appealed compensation cases decided by the Board of Veterans' Appeals
during November 2004-January 2006, the board remanded less than 3 percent
to VBA for rework due to deficiencies in obtaining military service
records. However, VBA does not systematically evaluate the quality of
research done on behalf of regional offices by a VBA unit at the National
Personnel Records Center, where the service records of many veterans are
stored. Regional offices rely on this unit to do thorough and reliable
searches and analyses of records and provide accurate reports on the
results. Without a systematic program for assessing the quality of this
unit's work, VBA does not know the extent to which the information that
this unit provides to regional offices is reliable and accurate.

VBA potentially could improve its procedures and reduce the time required
to process some veterans' claims for PTSD, which may result after a
veteran participates in, or is exposed to, stressful events or experiences
(stressors). Regional offices sometimes must turn to information contained
in the military historical records of the Department of Defense (DOD) to
verify the occurrence of claimed stressors. While regional offices are
able to directly access and search an electronic library of such records
for many Marine Corps veterans, they must rely on DOD's U.S. Army and
Joint Services Records Research Center (JSRRC) to research such records
for all other service branches. The JSRRC's response time to regional
office requests approaches an average of 1 year. However, by building on
work already done by several regional offices to establish and use an
electronic library of DOD military historical records for the other
service branches, VBA may be able to greatly reduce the time required to
process many veterans' PTSD claims.

References

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  30. http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/Vietnam/Engineers/index.htm
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  47. http://www.thorn.pair.com/thorn/links/military.html
  48. http://www.archives.gov/veterans/research/online.html
  49. http://www.ncptsd.va.gov/index.html
  50. http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/query.asp
  51. http://www.no-quarter.org/
  52. http://vbaw.vba.va.gov/ro/west/denvr/awards.htm
  53. http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/vietnamarchive/index.htm
  61. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-07-98
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