My father in law is elderly, and as part of the process of applying for Medicaid benefits for him, we are being asked to see if he is eligible for any VA benefits. (His mentation is somewhat diminished at this point, so I can’t ask him for any definitive answers on all this.)
The story we had always been told was that he was drafted into the Army, but was never deployed overseas because his eyesight was so bad. (Him being drafted was a sore point for my in-laws and a frequently retold story, because he had just gotten married and had to immediately go off for basic training.) At any rate, we’ve been sorting through his abysmally organized papers and now have his NGB Form 22, indicating he was discharged from the Army National Guard of PA in 1970, after 6 years of service.
So… was he never, in fact, drafted? Could you be drafted into the National Guard back in 1964? I thought enlisting in the NG before your number was called up was one of the ways that people attempted to avoid deployment to Vietnam. Or was it possible that you could get drafted, serve stateside (his eyesight is genuinely terrible, so I don’t doubt that he might have served but not been deployed to combat), and continue on in the NG/Reserves after your initial term was up?
At any rate, aside from the issue of whether he was ever drafted or not, we have the issue of his DD214. He doesn’t have it now, and we don’t know if he ever received it. We were trying to request it, because it seems as though the NGB Form 22 is insufficient to allow him to apply for VA benefits. (Maybe? Another thing unclear about this process…) But we just learned that the PA Dept. of Military and Veterans Affairs has no discharge records for him from 1965-1985. However, they note that his “name and social did appear on our Loss Roster that was printed in 1995,” and that they will continue to search.
So, questions:
did NG members who were discharged in 1970 get a DD214 at all? Or just an NGB Form 22?
can NG members apply for VA benefits? Or do you have to have been active-duty, not NG or Reserve?
if yes to the last, is an NGB Form 22 sufficient?
and could he have been drafted, but then be discharged as NG 6 years later?
and a semantic question: Are NG/Reserve members who were never active duty actually “Veterans”? I’ve seen and heard some people suggesting that, for govt. purposes, they are not, in fact, “Veterans” who would be eligible for the benefits that active-duty members enjoy. (Everyone in my family has only ever served active duty, so I’m not that familiar with NG/Reserve and how the govt. views it.)
A relevant question only you can answer is whether he was an officer or enlisted in the PA NG? Different rules apply in some cases. The terminology you’ve used suggested enlisted, but I’m not sure how much you know enough to use the terminology knowingly.
A DD214 is only issued for active duty time. He should have one that covers basic training and AIT.
No he was not drafted into the National Guard.
If you served honorably in the National Guard you are a veteran. However there are some differences. If you are active duty any injury or illness is considered line of duty. For National Guard you are only covered for things that happened while under orders.
He could have been drafted then gone into the NG when his time was served but that’s unlikely. At that time slots were hard to come by.
I don’t understand about the eyesight. There aren’t tiers. Someone who passes the physical to get in is healthy enough to deploy.
As often happens family lore does not match up with reality
If I didn’t make it clear, all active duty time is on a DD214. I have 4 different ones. One covers my 4 years of active duty. The second one was when I was in the Guard and went to training for 6 months. The other 2 were for wartime deployments. None of my inactive guard time in on a DD214. I did get a NGB 22 when I retired. When applying for VA benefits all they asked for was my DD214s.
You might find this information pamphlet from the VA helpful:
Also, consider the possibility that your father could have been drafted into the US Army, but then got out and joined the National Guard after. Not a guarantee, but as an outside chance you should consider helping him to request his military records from the national archives. You can help him do it online:
However, I would worry that your father’s records, if he did in fact serve in the US Army, might have been among those lost in the St. Louis fire (on the bright side, it looks like the worst losses occurred to records from just before you father’s time). Still, it’s worth looking into.
Finally, in general, VA benefits are going to require either some minimum amount of service on active duty, or else at least a service-connected injury (that would be hard to come by if he was never activated—unless it happened during training).
That’s certainly true of modern DD 214s (they get issued to reservists and national guard members upon completion of training) but as I understand it, that has not always been the case.
But, again, it may be worth it to request his records (or even just his DD 214 for starters) from the national archives through the link above.
The bottom line is you don’t get full time benefits from working part time. Even as a retiree there are major differences I have to deal with. Someone who puts in a few years will get fewer benefits.
If someone was injured while not on active duty orders the unit leadership had to do Line of Duty paperwork to ensure it was covered. It was incumbent on the soldier to keep all those records for the future. You couldn’t rely of the Army to do it. But even if there was some medical issue and it’s been documented he probably would only be covered for issues relating to the original medical problem. If he already had a high VA disability rating that would be different but I’m assuming the OP would have mentioned that if that was the case.
As far as I know all active duty time is shown on a DD214 as long as it’s under Title 10. Any Title 32 time is not put on a DD214. There is about a 6 year period of time in the 1950s when the DD214 existed and Title 10 hadn’t been passed.
That looks like what I mentioned above. His active time for his initial training was on the DD214. January to June 1965 which covered Basic Training and MOS school at Fort Leonard Wood to be a cook. Then he was transferred back to inactive duty with the Pennsylvania Army National Guard.
This is not a complete answer - Guard personnel are only United States veterans if they were called to federal active duty. Or became disabled in boot/AIT or other on-duty training.
My FIL had a strong wish to be buried in a local veteran’s cemetery and we always thought of him as a veteran from his Guard duty, but sadly we found out that’s not how the government looks at it.
It’s certainly not a complete answer if you don’t quote my full answer. I have stated several times some of the differences. Differences I know very well from my own life and the experiences of soldiers I commanded.
If the question is “Are members of the National Guard veterans?” the answer is “Yes” full stop. If you are asking if they are qualified as veterans for certain programs and benefits you have to look further into the particulars of their service and the program. Many federal programs and benefits are not available to those who only served in the guard and did not stay to qualify for retirement. You quoted a program called the Veterans First Contracting Program. To see if you qualify for a program you have to look at the program itself.
As I started off one of my posts above, the bottom line is you don’t get full time benefits from working part time. There are fewer benefit’s available to those who served in the Guard for a few years as opposed to those who spent the same amount of time on active duty. Just like there are fewer benefits available to those who spent a few years on active duty as opposed to someone who is retired military. To navigate the benefits that are available it’s helpful to get a Veterans Service Officer to help.
Anecdote time. I did join the Guard but that was after 4 years of active duty. When I went to take the civil service test I found out that I did not qualify as a veteran. To be a post-Vietnam veteran you had to be in a combat zone. My unit stayed in Germany during Desert Storm. I did 4 years and New Jersey didn’t consider me a veteran. Later after being in the Guard for years I did qualify but it was too late to help me. I believe they have since changed the law but I’m not certain.
In that one response, which I quoted, you did not provide any mincing of words or equivocation. You simply stated that Guardsmen were veterans, full stop.
Sorry to be at odds with you.
I served RA over 8 years, including Desert Storm. Got out in 1991 under the draw-down.
ETA - Should have stayed in (but how was I to know?) until early 1992 when President Clinton started offering, for the first time, severance for enlisted E6 and above.
Lost nearly $90K on that one by getting out in Nov 1991 vs extending into early 1992. Bummer.
