Nearly a half-million veterans’ record requests are pending before the National Archives, leaving families without benefits, the ability to pursue jobs, or the right to have military burials.
Republican members of two House committees co-authored a letter on Thursday to U.S. Archivist David Ferriero asking for a plan to remedy the problem and conduct a briefing before May 13. The letter was signed by 29 members of the Oversight and Reform and Veterans’ Affairs committees, calling the situation unacceptable.
Some of the requests are more than a year old, the Oversight and Reform Committee said.
The letter comes a month after an almost identical letter was sent by the Veterans’ Affairs Committee to President Joe Biden and Ferriero. The Trump administration had given the archives $15 million to clean up the backlog.
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“The National Personnel Records Center failed to adapt to the pandemic,” Oversight and Reform ranking member James Comer said in a statement. “Holding these records hostage inevitably delays military funerals, benefits payments, access to veteran shelters, decisions on VA claims, and more. Our military men and women and their families deserve far better than these delays. NRPC must clean up its act, address the backlog immediately, and give these families and Congress an explanation and timeline for fixing it.”
The backlog was first exposed when the National Archives issued a March 8 press release that detailed a post-COVID-19 planned phased expansion of the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis. The NRPC stores the personnel, health, and medical records of military personnel — active, discharged, and deceased from all branches.
“The NPRC has struggled to keep up with requests for veterans’ records since operations were impacted by the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic a year ago, and the current backlog of requests is at more than 480,000,” the release said.
The average wait time for requests and the date of the oldest request are unknown. A message left with the NPRC was not returned.
Since March 2020, the NPRC has responded to more than 288,000 requests. This included more than 45,000 that were related to burials, 7,500 for homeless veterans, and more than 18,000 for medical emergencies.
“These efforts have not been enough to keep pace with the new requests received over the same period, and the backlog of unanswered requests has continued to grow to the current number,” the release said.
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“Veterans need answers. The NPRC serves a vital function,” said ranking member Mike Bost of the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. “Congress has provided the resources the NPRC needs to safely resume normal operations. It is unacceptable that we continue to receive mixed messages about when veterans will have timely access to their records. I hope Archivist Ferriero will fix this as soon as possible.”
