Veterans Alliance is privately owned and operated to serve veterans. We are not affiliated with the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Veterans Alliance — Veterans Alliance
← All Vermont benefits
otherstateYou appear to qualify

200,000 Discharge Records, Held in Montpelier Since the First World War

The state veterans office keeps roughly 200,000 discharge records going back to the First World War, and provides discharge verification documentation from them. If a discharge document has been lost, this is a route that does not involve writing to a federal records centre and waiting — and it is the route almost nobody is told about.

Verified August 23, 2026

What this benefit is

The state veterans office keeps roughly 200,000 discharge records going back to the First World War, and provides discharge verification documentation from them. If a discharge document has been lost, this is a route that does not involve writing to a federal records centre and waiting — and it is the route almost nobody is told about.

What it's worth: Discharge record retrieval and verification documentation from a state-held archive of roughly 200,000 records dating from the First World War onwards

  • The office states it maintains approximately 200,000 discharge records from the First World War onwards.
  • The office states it provides discharge verification documentation from those records.
  • The office does not state a fee for the service on the page read.
  • The office does not state on the page read whose records are held — whether by state of entry, residence, or filing by the veteran or a town clerk.

Who is entitled to it

  • You are in this state.

Not sure whether that describes you?

Answer a few questions about this benefit specifically — we only ask what this one actually depends on, and we stop as soon as we know.

From what you have told us so far, you appear to qualify.

How to claim it

  1. 1Try this BEFORE the federal records route if the veteran has any connection to this state. The federal centre is the standard answer and it is slow; a state archive that already holds the record is faster by an order of magnitude.
  2. 2Ask for verification documentation, not just a copy. That is the phrase the office uses, and it is what an agency asking for proof of service usually needs.
  3. 3Give as much identifying detail as you can: full name at the time of service, dates, branch, and the town. An archive of 200,000 records is searched on those.
  4. 4This reaches back to the First World War, so it is a genuine option for a family researching a grandparent's service where no paperwork survives in the family.
  5. 5Ask the office whether they hold the record before you pay anyone to search for it. Commercial record-retrieval services charge for what this office does as part of its job.
  6. 6Keep the town clerk in mind as a parallel route — discharge documents were historically recorded locally as well, which is why a state office can hold so many.
Form
A request to the office
File with
The state Office of Veterans Affairs, Montpelier
No renewal
Once granted it does not need renewing.
Worth knowingAlmost every state benefit in this corpus is gated on a discharge document. An office that can produce one is therefore not a minor administrative service — it is the thing standing between a family and everything else.
Known gapThe office does not publish which veterans' records it holds, what proof of identity a requester needs, or how long a search takes. Ring before assuming your record is among the 200,000.

Sources

Why only one source type: The office's own list of programmes it administers states the size of the archive, its date range and the verification service. No statutory section could be read: the legislature's statute server refused a connection this session.

This finder provides an informational match, not a government eligibility determination. The responsible agency decides your application.