If you have a question not answered here, please open a Support Ticket from the above menu (login to your account is required). The Touchstone support team monitors new posts and are on hand to provide their expertise, and if necessary, investigate your issue more closely. They respond to most tickets within 48 hours. We add to this FAQ, too, primarily from the questions posed to us through our Support Ticket System. So, your question may help us to help other clients as well.

No one can get you your DD214 faster.

Why? The majority of our researchers are former federal military records center personnel, and base spouses, which gives us unsurpassed and unprecedented access to military records centers, several of which are on bases closed-to-public-access.

Status Definitions

Preparing - You have set up your account, but we have not yet received payment.

Pending - You have set up your account and made payment, but we have not yet received your Request Form. (The Request Form is your signed authorization and is required by the Privacy Act in order for us to be permitted to access your records in-person.)

Deficiency - Your case requires additional information. You'll receive an email of what is needed. Once we receive the required information, your case will be reset to Processing status.

Processing - Your case has been assigned to a researcher and submitted to the appropriate Record's facility(ies).

Delivered - Your record is immediately available for download and has been shipped. Your shipping details are also provided so that you can one-click and track your hardcopy shipment.

More Help!

You may still have questions as a result of problems with your particular case. Remember, all cases are unique. Military record keeping is not always consistent, and not always thorough. If you have issues not addressed in your case's annotations or answered within our FAQ, or you have a comment or concern about your general experience with Touchstone - we are always striving to improve - please open a Support Ticket from the above menu. Please give us 48 hours to respond so that we may review your case, make the appropriate inquiries, and provide a hopefully thoughtful and thorough response.

Pursuant to the provisions of the Privacy Act of 1974 (Public Law 93-579), Government records repositories cannot release personal information without the prior written consent of the individual to whom those records relate. Consequently, unlike our Express Service where we act on your behalf as your agent, an employee of Touchstone cannot discuss the details of your Request with the Government records repository under our Guided Service. Therefore, after Touchstone has submitted your Request, you must undertake any follow-up or status check directly with the facility(ies) itself/themselves.

If you were discharged before 1994, your record is most likely at the National Personnel Records Center, the "NPRC." Here are NPRC's instructions on how you can check your order's status:

"Once you have allowed sufficient time for us to receive and process your request (about 10 days), you may check the status of your request by e-mail through our NPRC Customer Service Center at https://www.archives.gov/st-louis/forms. Please provide the request number if you have one, the name, address and phone number of the requester, and the veteran's branch of service to aid us to finding your request in our system. You will receive a return e-mail from us with a projected completion date for your request.

You may also telephone the NPRC Customer Service Line (this is a long-distance call for most customers): 314-801-0800

Note: Our peak calling times are weekdays between 10:00 am CST and 3:00 pm CST. Staff is available to take your call as early as 7:00 am and as late as 5:00 pm cst.

This number will allow you to hold until a technician is available to help you."

One difference in records facilities which will affect the amount of time in which your record is returned is the type of record maintained by that facility. More recent military records (generally from about 1995 and forward - but will vary by branch of service. See chart below.) are kept in digital format and these facilities can generally return the record to our researchers same day. All we need is access to a computer at the facility, and the record can be accessed by any number of persons simultaneously.

Older records are kept in physical format, i.e. paper, microfilm and microfiche. The request has to first be entered into the Government's computer system, and then a "puller" assigned to retrieve the record off the shelf. Depending on how quickly the request can be entered into the system (are there few or a lot of requests to be entered that day), the efficiency of the data entry clerk, how quickly a "puller" is assigned to retrieve the record, the "puller's" workload and efficiency, the record's physical location within the facility, and how thick the chart in which to manually locate the separation document, and then to copy it - all are variables that will effect retrieval times. And, since only one person can access one physical record at one time, if the record is off the shelf, it cannot be accessed until its return.

For records facilities which hold records in physical format, they will prioritize requests based on exigent circumstances, emergencies, etc. Funeral requests, for example, can be fulfilled generally same day (if submitted before 10 am Eastern), sometimes next day. You should indicate any immediate need on your Request Form for the Government's consideration.

We have a Record Retrieval Estimator on the individual service description pages. You should take these Government internal delays into consideration when you place your order.

Other Delay Issues.

There are other issues that may make the location of your record difficult and possibly add delay to your record's retrieval:

1. If you had a Service/Serial Number as your military ID, rather than your Social Security Number, and did not provide it, this will sometimes delay our retrieval of your record. Social Security Numbers began their use as military ID only in the late 1960s to early 1970s. If you had a Service/Serial Number as your military ID, generally there is no cross-reference from your Social Security Number. A Service/Serial Number becomes particularly important when your surname is not uncommon. A Service/Serial Number number will greatly increase the likelihood of a successful record retrieval.
2. The NPRC, the single largest records repository, suffered a catastrophic fire in 1973. For more on the fire, visit: http://dd214.us/nprc_73fire.html. If your record was affected by the fire, additional time will most likely be required to locate your record, if it can be found at all. If your record cannot be found, NPRC will attempt to do a reconstruction of your record based on other available sources - all of which will add time to your record's retrieval.
3. If your record is at NPRC, a physical record facility (generally pre-1995 separations), if you've placed a prior order with that facility, the retrieval of your record will most likely be delayed. Your record is then pulled off the shelf making it inaccessible to us until its return. After the NPRC has finished with the chart, it will be placed in a re-shelving area where it may languish another week or two before we can access it.
4. Again, for records at NPRC, a government agency may have requested the chart. If the you have filed a VA claim, for example, the chart may have been pulled. Again, we can't access the record until it is re-shelved.
5. The information provided to us by you may have been incomplete and/or incorrect.

In Summary

All things being equal, we guarantee that no one can get you your record faster!

Our Processing Procedure/Times

Our processing day cutoff for all requests is 10 am Eastern. Requests received before that time will be assigned to a researcher and submitted to the appropriate records facility that day.

When you order our Same Day, Next Day, Three or Seven Day service, that is the time in which you are allowing us to submit your request. You should add any facility delay to our time in order to determine approximately when your record download will be available, and add further your shipping method's time to determine when you'll receive your hardcopies. For example, here's the optimal delivery: you order Same Day Service, we receive your Request Form before 10 am Eastern, and your record is at a digital records facility (where the facility will make your record available to us within hours), you'll have your record that same day. However, if your record is at the NPRC (a physical records facility), although we do get some records there same day, most come in 2-4 days on average from that facility. So that facility delay should be added to the service you've selected.

The day we submit your request to the facility is Day Zero. The next day is Day One, and so on. Only business days are counted, days the records facilities are open and available to process requests.

Also, you must apply for this refund BEFORE we deliver to you your record.

Our Guarantee applies only to records which are in existence. If your record was created by the Government AFTER you had placed your order with us, we cannot be expected to retrieve a record which was not even in existence at the time you placed your order.

In order to qualify, you would simply have to provide a copy of your record and the details of your acquisition - when and with whom did you request your record and when did you receive it, and we'll then confirm. This information allows us to improve our service, so a refund, once we have the details, is an investment for us.

In brief, Touchstone has researchers at all of the major records repositories, nationwide, who will submit your request on your behalf in-person. We act as your agent, as if you yourself were there in-person, to request your record.

Your DD214 is perhaps the most important document you can acquire. It substantiates your military service and is used to establish your eligibility for benefits such as VA Home Loans, tuition assistance, VA medical care, employment preference, retirement, spousal benefits, additional Social Security payments, membership in veterans' organizations, and many others.

The term "DD-214" is often used generically to mean "separation papers" or "discharge papers," no matter what form number was used to document active duty military service. The term has, also, a specific technical meaning: it is a Report of Separation from Active Duty. For non-active duty, Reservists are issued either an Order of Separation or a Letter of Separation. The NGB22 is the standard National Guard separation document.

The report of separation form issued in most recent years for separations from active duty is the DD Form 214, Certificate of Release or Discharge from Active Duty. Before January 1, 1950 (the creation of the Department of Defense, August 10, 1949), several similar forms were used by the military services to denote military separations including the WD AGO 53, WD AGO 55, WD AGO 53-55, NAVPERS 553, NAVMC 78PD, and the NAVCG 553. WD - War Department. AGO - Adjutant General's Office. NAVPERS - Navy Personnel. NAVMC - Navy - Marine Corps. NAVCG - Navy - Coast Guard.

If you have come to our site out of frustration because you ordered your DD214 from the government weeks or even months ago and you still haven't received it, PLEASE DO NOT try to order it from us now. You have only one chart. Once the government receives your order, at some stage they will remove your chart from the shelf. Your chart then becomes inaccessible to anyone else until its return - which could be additional weeks later. In other words, once you've made your decision to acquire your DD214 from the government, you will most likely not be able to later change your mind and expedite the order through us - unless you want to gamble that we can still get to your chart before the government.

If you'd like to take the risk, fine. However, even only a day or two's prior submission may cause the record to be pulled from NPRC's shelves - then it will sit on some clerk's desk until processed - making it unavailable to us until its return to the shelf.

If the service member requires another copy, then he/she can acquire a copy of only one of the other remaining originals, usually a copy of the original maintained by the service branch itself, usually a copy of Service 2, Service 7 or Service 8. Rarely will the service branch keep a Member 4 or Member 1 copy, since they have their own copies. If it's there, that's the copy we'll provide.

All of the eight original DD214s are identical, except for Member 1 - the "short" or "deleted" form. The remaining seven long forms includes another 1.5 inches at the bottom which provides information concerning the service member's characterization of service, narrative reason for separation, legal reference (authority) for separation, separation and re-entry codes. The short form does NOT contain this important information - hence employers want the long form (which are all identical original DD214s EXCEPT for Member 1).

For more detailed information on DD214 issuance, the DoD and Army Regs can be found at http://dd214.us

The eight copies are distributed as follows:

• Copy 1 - Service Member
• Copy 2 - Service Personnel File
• Copy 3 - United States Department of Veterans Affairs
• Copy 4 - Member (if initialed in Block 30)
• Copy 5 - United States Department of Labor
• Copy 6 - State Director of Veteran Affairs
• Copy 7 & 8 - Distributed in accordance with Military Service Dept directions

Anyone who has worked with DD214 for any appreciable amount of time knows this. If a member loses his Member 4 for whatever reason, or never received it in the first place, what is he to do? Well, he comes to us and we get him a certified copy of one of the other remaining originals. These copies have the full legal force and effect as the original Member 4.

Be forewarned, though. Any employer who is familiar with DD214 will always request the undeleted report of separation (the long form). If you give them the deleted version, that will suggest that you are trying to hide something. If you do have something that you may wish wasn't noted, generally you'll be better off explaining the situation rather than trying to conceal it.

http://dd214.us

I'm now quoting from the DoD regs:

"The term "Military Services," as used here, refers to DODI 1336.1, January 6, 1989 2 the Army, Navy, the Air Force, the Marine Corps and, by agreement with the Department of Transportation, to the Coast Guard."

and, specifically:

"2.2. Its provisions include procedures on the preparation and distribution of DD Forms 214, 214-ws, and 215 (enclosures 1, 2, and 3) which record and report the transfer or separation of military personnel from a period of active duty." (Emphasis supplied.)

DD214s are NOT issued, generally, for separations for reserve service.

Different branches of the military reserves issue separation documents that are titled something other than DD-214. Reserve separation documents are commonly in the form of either Orders of Separation or a Letter of Separation. The USMCR will issue a Points Summary to substantiate service. National Guard separation documents are called NGB22.

Our researchers will retrieve your chart and copy and ship ALL separation documents found therein.

You might consider your DD256 as your Diploma, the item that you frame and hang on your wall, and your DD214 as your transcript - the document that indicates in greater detail what you've achieved in your military career.

The DD256s (the wall certificates) are no longer re-issued by the military.

However, if you never received your Discharge Certificate, it may be located within your 201 file. Originally your Discharge Certificate was mailed to you at your Home of Record. If the Post Office returned it, then the military may retire it, placing it with your personnel file. If you place an order for a DD214, or a copy of your complete file, we will also automatically send you your original Discharge Certificate, if it is within your file.

Unlike a DD214, the DD256 has no legal authority. Touchstone, however, will generate a new VERIFIABLE DD256 for you from the information contained within your DD214 including Rank, Grade, Discharge Date, and the name of the officer who signed your DD214.

Simply add it to your DD214 order.

One of our competitors advertises a Money Back Guarantee if they cannot locate your record within 7 days. However, not all records are at the National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) in St. Louis. We have researchers at numerous facilities nationwide. We even go to the unit level, if necessary, to retrieve a record. And, when we determine that a DD214 was lost by the NPRC or military branch (more common than you would think) or never created in the first place (ditto), we will assist you in the administrative process to have your record re-created. Will our competitors do the necessary work to acquire your DD214 after they have given you a refund? Unlikely. Ultimately, which would you prefer, your money back or your record?

Your record can be at located at any one or more of more than a hundred Federal and State records repositories. However, your Official Military Personnel File will be filed at a specific repository based on your service branch and date of separation. If we locate your OMPF and no separation document can be found within it, we cannot retrieve a document which is not in your chart. Nor can we guess as to why it is not there. Nor can we create an official document.

In this case, we will advise you on the method that you are required by law to use in order to have your DD214 administratively re-created.

It is even more rare that we cannot locate any record whatsoever for a client.

In brief, we actually exert more time, effort and expense in attempting to locate records which are not where they should be, or that are missing key documents - than we use in standard requests where the record is easily found and it contains the requested documents. So, unfortunately, a refund is not possible.

There is, however, one exception: if your record exists and you can acquire your record but we couldn't, we do GUARANTEE that "No one can get you your military record faster!" See how our guarantee works, FAQ No. 6, above.

If the veteran is deceased, then the law permits the next-of-kin to access the veteran's records. Next-of-kin is statutorily defined as father, mother, brother, sister, son, daughter or un-remarried surviving spouse. You will also have to provide proof of death such as a copy of the death certificate, an obituary or a letter from your funeral director.

If you are not the next of kin of a deceased veteran, or the veteran him/herself, you can still obtain certain information concerning a veteran through our Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) service.

If the separation occurred more than 62 years ago, the record falls into the public domain and no specific permission is required in order to access the record. However, even if a file meets archival dates, if the record is to be used for "Benefits", the signature of the next-of-kin will be required.

Your username is your e-mail address including the @domain.com part, all lower case.

If you've forgotten your password, you can use the forgotten password feature and our system will send you a new password.

In order to download your record, go to:

https://touchstoneresearchgroup.com/catalog/login.php

Log into your account.

At Previous Orders, click View order.

On your Invoice page, you'll see a section Download Links.

Click Your Separation Documents, and your record should open on your computer. The document is a PDF file and requires Adobe Reader. Adobe Reader is usually preloaded on almost all computers. If your computer does not have Adobe Reader, that software is free on the Internet and can be acquired at:

http://get.adobe.com/reader/

Once opened, click first the Disk icon at the top of the page to Save the image to your computer (remember where on your computer you save the PDF file), AND then click the Printer icon to print out a hard copy.

If you receive an error along the lines: the file is damaged and irreparable, you are most likely using an older version of Adobe Reader and should upgrade. See the Adobe Reader link above.

If all else fails, we can fax you a copy and, of course, you can expect your hardcopy shipment soon.

The most common OMPF container is a stiff 12-by-9½-inch brown file folder. Many of the folders from the past quarter-century contain microfiche images of the personnel documents that were sent to NPRC either in place of the original paper records or with them. OMPFs held by NPRC, a physical records facility, reside in hundreds of thousands of cubic-foot cardboard boxes on 11-foot-high shelves in immense storage areas.

OMPFs will vary widely in their contents, sometimes containing information in minutia, other-times missing vital documents. It may contain medical records such as physical evaluations and outpatient records. It may also contain personal information such as home of record, and awards documents. They typically contain such documents as enlistment contracts, duty locations, performance evaluations, award citations, training records, and the especially important Report of Separation (DD Form 214 or earlier equivalent).

Typically, an OMPF contains one or more of the following:

A typical U.S. Air Force OMPF from recent years.

• Promotion Orders
• Mobilization Orders
• DA 1059s, Service School Academic Evaluation Reports
• MOS Orders
• Awards
• Transcripts
• SGLV 8286, SGLI Election and Certificate
• NCOERs and OERs, Evaluation Documents
• DD-214

Your OMPF is an important document for former service members to maintain, as the documents contained within it are important for access to benefits such as the VA Loan and the GI Bill.

On July 12, 1973, a disastrous fire at NPRC (MPR) destroyed approximately 16-18 million Official Military Personnel Files. The affected record collections are described below.

• 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%

To read more about the fire, visit: http://www.dd214.us/nprc_73fire.html

Your records may have been included in the affected group. NPRC will also issue a Certification of Military Service whenever the original record - for whatever reason - is unavailable or unusable and when the veteran's basic service information can be verified through other official sources.

In such circumstances, NPRC will issue the Certification of Military Service - the document which we provided.

But, once we have your signed Request Form and retrieve your record, we'll make your record available to you for download from our secure server - and ship you two certified hardcopies as well.

We know you have questions about how, internally, we keep your information safe. After all, we’re requesting your most personal information including your Social Security number. We understand, too, that completing an online transaction requires a great deal of trust. We take this trust very seriously and make it our highest priority to ensure the security and confidentiality of the information you provide. Touchstone uses industry-standard SSL (secure socket layer) technology to protect every interaction you have with us. For example, when we make your record available online, it is available only from our secure server for your download. Our competitors say they’ll email you your documents; we would NEVER send your information over the Internet in an unencrypted form. This is just one example of how we go the extra measure to protect your personal information.

Touchstone also uses strict physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard the confidentiality and security of the Personal Information you provide to us. Touchstone is certified compliant under the Payment Card Industry’s Data Security Standards, and is tested daily for security vulnerabilities by ConrolScan. We conduct background checks on all of our employees.

Your personal information is stored on our servers and heavily guarded, both physically and electronically. All data is stored offsite in a secure data center. All of our facilities are built with the latest biometric security access as well as state-of-the-art surveillance and alarm systems. To further shield your information, we do not directly connect our firewall-protected servers to the internet.

Several of our competitors claim that they use PayPal as their credit card processor for “your� security. While we, too, accept PayPal payments, we can also process your payment directly and securely through our own merchant account. Almost anyone can establish a PayPal account, but the standard of credit-worthiness, reputation and trust is much greater in order to establish a merchant account.

Furthermore, your transactions with Touchstone are Bonded and Insured through BuySafe. BuySafe provides, also, an identity theft program as a part of your purchase – to further ease your concerns.

None of our competitors offers this level of protection.

Finally, Touchstone processes more military record requests per week than all of our competitors combined. We have grown through our care and concern for our clients, satisfying our clients’ needs for the security of their personal information, and the efficient, expeditious delivery of their military records.

For older separations, the government has microfilmed/microfiched the original documents. We copy off that copy. If the quality of microfilm/microfiche is poor, the copy will be exact - a precise copy of a poor microfilm/microfiche. Since we cannot improve the original, you are getting the best available copy.

The NPRC is well aware of this issue but has no control over the quality of the documents provided to them by the military branches. The fact that they have certified your copies attests to the fact that they are, indeed, the best available copies.

However, if the copies are entirely unusable for a particular purpose - and some records will qualify, you will have to write a letter to the NPRC and explain the issue. They have the capacity to make an administrative correction, generally issuing a Certification of Military Service which will substantiate only your dates of service and characterization of service.

We can review morning reports, unit histories and diaries, and other sources depending on the nature of the inquiry, but that is custom research. We charge $65/hour, and generally 5-6 hours is needed for most cases. But, as in all research, no guarantees can ever be given for a successful result. We are paid to search, with the hope that we may find.

For custom research, we bill in 3 hour increments in advance, with an initial $200 retainer. This service can be ordered online at our website, or through one of our Client Services Representatives at 800-At-DD214 (800-283-3214).

Your "whitelist" is your indication to your service provider or email application that you wish to receive email from certain specified sources.

The method to whitelist us will vary by your Internet Service Provider and the program you use for your email. The most common way to whitelist an address is to add our return email address to your address book, white list, or safe list. There is no universal way to whitelist an address, so if this is not an option, you will have to consult the help section associated with your email application or your ISP's instructions. They should have instructions on how to whitelist an address there.

You can find How-To-Whitelist instructions for the most popular internet service providers and email applications here: http://www.aweber.com/blog/how-to-whitelist-us

Simply use our domain touchstoneresearchgroup.com

If your company uses a commercial spam blocker, they will provide details on how to whitelist important email senders. One such service is Barracuda. Their whitelist instructions can be found at:

https://campus.barracuda.com/product/emailsecuritygateway/doc/93197312/allow-list-and-block-list/

We recommend that you take this simple step to help ensure that our mailings actually reach you. Even if you are currently receiving our mailings, we still advise you to follow this recommendation - to whitelist our return address - as a way to prevent future problems.

We've included two papers on the subject:

How To Upgrade Your Discharge, and

Discharge Upgrade Memo.

The form to commence the process is at DD Form 293.