What specific deployment information is included in Official Military Personnel Files (OMPF) and when are those records publicly accessible?
Executive summary
Official Military Personnel Files (OMPF) routinely record deployment-related data such as duty stations, unit assignments, dates of service, and related personnel actions including DD Form 214; these files are maintained by service repositories or the National Personnel Records Center depending on era and format (paper vs electronic) [1] [2]. Access is governed by a rolling 62‑year archival rule—records of veterans who separated 62 or more years ago are archival and open to the public, while more recent OMPFs remain non‑archival and largely restricted to the veteran, next‑of‑kin, designated representatives, or authorized agencies, with limited releasable elements under FOIA/Privacy Act for the general public [3] [4] [5].
1. What deployment and assignment details appear in an OMPF
OMPFs are administrative career files that typically include date and type of enlistment or appointment, duty stations and assignments (which capture where a service member served and with which units), training and qualifications, performance evaluations, awards and decorations, disciplinary actions, administrative remarks, and separation documentation such as the DD Form 214—all of which together provide a direct paper trail of deployments and service history [1] [6].
2. How deployment dates and locations are recorded and where gaps can appear
Deployment-relevant items—unit designations, duty station listings, effective dates for assignments, and citations for combat-related awards—are standard entries in personnel and assignment records within the OMPF, but those details are sometimes reconstructed from alternate sources when original files were lost or damaged (notably after the 1973 NPRC fire that destroyed millions of Army and Air Force records) or when records were retained electronically by service departments after the mid-1990s [7] [1] [8].
3. Who controls access to deployment information and what the public can obtain
For veterans who separated less than 62 years ago, the Department of Defense and service repositories retain legal custody of non‑archival OMPFs; the National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) releases full records only to the veteran, next‑of‑kin, or authorized representatives, while the general public can obtain only limited information without consent and can pursue specific items under FOIA and the Privacy Act [4] [5] [9].
4. When deployment records become publicly accessible (the 62‑year rolling rule)
A rolling 62‑year rule governs archival access: when a record reaches 62 years after separation it is accessioned as archival and becomes open to the public through NARA; this means records with discharge dates 62 or more years prior are generally accessible, and NARA has been incrementally accessioning and publishing these OMPFs [3] [10] [11].
5. Modern complications: electronic repositories, service retention, and agency access
Since the mid‑1990s most services began keeping personnel records electronically and many no longer routinely transfer files to NPRC, so requests for recent deployment information may be routed to the specific service repository or handled via services’ systems (e.g., DPRIS/eMilRecs for authorized users), complicating public access and central searches for post‑1995 separations [1] [9] [2].
6. Caveats, privacy tensions, and practical advice for researchers
Public interest in deployments must be balanced against privacy protections: FOIA and the Privacy Act limit what can be released for non‑archival records and require written, signed requests, while veterans and next‑of‑kin receive broader access and usually no basic copy fees from federal holdings; researchers should be mindful of the 1973 fire’s impact on documentation and that not all deployment details survive in a single file or are under NARA custody if the service retained electronic OMPFs [7] [5] [12] [8].