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Comment by ChrisMarshallNY | Hacker News Reader

My father’s was one of those records.

He got a Silver Star, a Bronze Star, and a Purple Heart. He’s planted in Arlington.

We have no idea how he got the two stars. He never talked about the war.

I'm a veteran, and a couple of years ago I requested a copy of my service record from the US government. The set of medals listed in that was completely different from what it said on my DD214, and both were completely different from what I received in real life. Even if you were able to get that record, I would be very skeptical about using it as any kind of ground truth.

Did you inquire about correcting the information on the record? And would there be any point, aside from sentimental value, in pursuing such and dealing with the inevitable bureaucracy?

Just sincerely curious, since as a common citizen I would nonetheless like for our government to keep accurate records (as practicality and reason allows) of the valiant people who served.

My dad did this, and his record was corrected from 4 decorations to 9.

I think it's worth it and I'm glad he did.

Family lore says my great uncle died in the second wave on Omaha Beach and was posthumously awarded a Bronze Start. And I have no reason to doubt this -- the people transmitting this information are fairly trustworthy in my experience. However, the medal itself has been lost. I was able to find records confirming his death on June 6, 1944, but a few years ago when my father looked into it, he found that the records that would document his award were destroyed in the fire. I don't know if we will ever be able to replace the lost award or find out more about his death. Makes me sad. I wish they had made copies of these records.

There might be a bit you can do if you have a few details, thanks to other documents being digitized and OCR'ed.

My great uncles both died in WWII and their service records were destroyed in this fire. I had been able to piece together a few details by googling their names (somewhat unique) with the services they were in, which lead me to digitized unit yearbooks and eventually other documents. For one of my great uncles, we found a unit report that included a redacted version of the silver star citation he earned.

For high level awards, there are some separate databases that list the recipients and citations. Have you looked at those? E.g. https://valor.militarytimes.com/award/5

I tried. No dice.

Thanks!

We had a friend of the family that is a general, looking, and he couldn't find anything.

The army certainly has records of the award, as he's buried in Arlington, and they sent us new versions of the medals for his flag case.

No records as to why he got the awards, though.

I don't think this db will help for cases where the only existing records were destroyed in the fire -- I don't believe they have independent sources, just the sources that everyone else has access to like government records. (Not 100% sure, though, maybe I missed something.)

If those were the only records, you're probably correct, but there are sources other than the national archives that can be used in some cases such that I'd still do a search, especially for high level awards like silver stars and up.

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