Criteria

The New Jersey Department of Military and Veterans Affairs maintains and archives many military records of current and former members of the New Jersey Army and Air National Guard in accordance with N.J.S.A. 38A:3-6(e).

Additionally, the Department maintains and archives Active Duty DD Form 214's. A DD Form 214 (Certificate of Release or Discharge from Active Duty) is sent to the Department if the Servicemember's Home of Record (HOR) is New Jersey at the time of discharge and the Servicemember elected to have a copy sent to the state. Please note that the Department did not start receiving these discharge records until the 1980's or later.

If your records do not meet the above criteria, we advise you to visit the websites for the National Personnel Records Center or milConnect for your records request.

Authorized to Request Military Records

Current and former Servicemembers of the military or their next of kin may request from the Department copies of their military records.

• Next of kin are defined as the unremarried surviving spouse, father, mother, son, daughter, brother and sister only of the Servicemember.
• Next of kin must provide proof of death (such as a copy of the death certificate; newspaper article (obituary) or death notice; coroner’s report of death; funeral director’s signed statement of death; or verdict of coroner’s jury).
• Next of kin supporting documents must list the requestor's name. If their name is not listed, they cannot sign the Standard Form 180 requesting records.   

For military funerals, the funeral director may act as the next of kin.

All other requests must provide a power of attorney or the Servicemember’s written authorization.

Archival records are open to the public. These are records of Servicemembers who were discharged, retired or died in service 62 or more years ago.

• The Privacy Act of 1974 does not apply to archival records, therefore, written authorization from the Servicemember or next of kin is not required.
• However, in order to protect the privacy of the Servicemember, his/her family and third parties named in the records, the personal privacy exemption under the Freedom of Information Act (5 U.S.C. 552 (b)(6)) and the New Jersey Open Public Records Act (N.J.S.A. 47:1A-1.1 et seq.) may still apply and preclude the release of some information.

Request Procedures

The Department does not normally charge a fee for processing requests for military records and offers it as a free service to all veterans and current service members. Except for military records requests for a military funeral, all records requests are processed in the order received.

To request military records, please fill out a Standard Form 180 (SF-180). Certain identifying information is necessary to determine the location of a Servicemember’s record of military service. Please try to answer each item on the SF-180 to the best of your ability.

If you do not have and/or cannot obtain the information for an item, please mark it as “NA”, meaning the information is “not available”. Include as much of the requested information as possible. Incomplete information may delay the Department’s response time.

You must digitally or manually sign the SF-180. Refer to our digital signing instructions.

A completed SF-180 - in PDF format only - may be emailed to the Department’s Office of Records and Archives at MilRecords@dmava.nj.gov.

You may also fax it to the Office of Records and Archives at 609-530-7193 or mail it to the following address:

NJ Department of Military and Veterans Affairs
Attn: ASB-RALV
PO Box 340
Trenton, NJ 08625-0340

Contact Us

For additional information, please contact the Office of Records and Archives.

Point of Contact:  Rita Hyland at 609-530-6823
Supervisor:  Robert Greco at 609-530-6866