Locate military members | USAGov (2024)

FAQs

How to locate a military member? ›

Locate someone on active duty or a retiree

The Army and Coast Guard do not offer a way to locate service members. To find someone in the other branches, write a letter to that branch. Your request should include the person's: Full name.

There is no database that you can search to find an active-duty U.S. military member or retiree. But you may be able to contact them through their branch of service.

Please use the Defense Manpower Data Center's (DMDC) Military Verification service to verify if someone is in the military. The website will tell you if the person is currently serving in the military. The site is available 24-hours a day.

Veterans join TogetherWeServed.com to find and re-connect with people they served with, share in the camaraderie of other Veterans, and create a comprehensive legacy of their military service which may live on for their family and future generations.

Without your authorization (or your next of kin's after your death), the government can only release limited information from your official military personnel files. Information it can release includes: Name and photograph. Dates and branch of service.

Contact organizations like the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), Pearl Harbor Survivors Association, or American Ex-Prisoners of War to ask for a veteran's application, or to find people who might have known your veteran. VFW applications include a copy of the discharge papers form DD-214.

Review The DD-214 Form

To find out if someone was dishonorably discharged, you should check the “Character of service” section of the form. This will show the type of discharge the service member received: honorable, general, other than honorable, bad conduct, or dishonorable.

You can explore various methods to obtain a family member's military service records. These include contacting the NPRC, state archives, online databases, SCRA, and other online resources.

Can you find military records free? ›

Some records are only available online and sometimes on more than one website. Some are free to view whilst others are available either via subscription or pay-per-view basis.

If you suspect someone is a scammer, ask them to set up a video call on Google Meet or a similar service. Just like in catfish scams, a romance scammer will avoid showing you their real face — chances are, they don't look like their pictures. If you do have a call, be careful to keep yourself safe.

That sort of information is Privacy Act protected, so you have to work through the base where he is stationed. If you contact the base JAG office, that group can take the information about the soldier, determine who his commander is, and pass the information along to the commander.

The AIR FORCE WORLDWIDE LOCATOR handles official and unofficial requests to locate Air Force personnel. Official requests are those requests received from any government agency, Department of Defense or Active Duty members of U.S. Armed Forces in the performance of their official duties.