Forty years after a devastating fire destroyed millions of former service members’ military records there, technicians at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis continue to piece together those documents. The July 12, 1973 blaze consumed as much as 80 percent of the 22 million records of those who served in the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps between 1912 and 1959. As a result, many of these veterans lost access to the documentation they needed to prove eligibility for benefits through the Department of Veterans Affairs. With requests for records still flowing into the center at a rate of 200 to 300 each day, a team of 24 full-time employees works constantly to piece together fragments of the charred and fragile documents. Often, they use state-of-the-art scanners to read what little text may remain on the papers. The center now stores records in areas where temperature and humidity are controlled, at a new facility outside St. Louis.
