RESOURCES AND EDUCATION FOR SERVICE MEMBERS AND VETERANS
Clear information.
A clearer path forward.
Find the right system, record, form, deadline, and review path.
FIND YOUR PATH
Where are you in the military system?
Choose the situation that is closest to yours. Each path opens the guides, records, forms, deadlines, and review routes that belong to that stage.
01 · SERVING NOW
Pay, family, PCS, health, deployment
Active-duty, Guard and Reserve systems while you are serving.
02 · SOMETHING IS WRONG
Claims, errors, corrections, appeals
Find the record, decision-maker, deadline, and correct review lane.
03 · LEAVING SERVICE
Transition, retirement, DD-214, SkillBridge
Work backward from separation so records and benefits do not fall through gaps.
04 · VETERAN LIFE
VA benefits, health, education, employment
Navigate post-service benefits and the evidence needed to support them.
05 · FAMILY & SURVIVORS
Casualty, survivor benefits, burial, DEERS
Keep each survivor benefit and record system separate while coordinating the whole process.
06 · NOT SURE
Identify your status, event, and objective
Use the system map to determine which agency, record, form, and review path applies.
Understand the people and the work
Explore who serves, what military ranks mean, and the skills a career in service can develop.
Who Serves?
Military demographics by sex, race, and ethnicity, with clear population and date labels.
Ranks, Responsibilities & Career Skills
A family guide to enlisted, warrant, and commissioned service, advancement, duties, and the records that explain a loved one’s contribution.
Choose a starting point
Start with the part of the system that matches your immediate objective. The same record can later connect you to other programs, claims, review paths, and source materials.
Navigation Guides
Practical help organized around status, life event, problem, transition, veteran benefits, and survivor needs.
Claims & Benefits
Find the program, identify the controlling office, assemble the evidence, and choose the correct filing or review path.
Military Records
Understand what a record proves, where it is held, how to obtain it, and how to preserve its provenance and limits.
Military Life Record
Follow the chronology from before service through entry, career, transition, veteran life, death, and survivors.
Military Justice
Navigate the UCMJ, current MCM, rules, evidence, procedures, appeals, service implementation, and public records.
Forms & Systems
Locate the official form, portal, account, office, gatekeeper, and submission channel that controls the next step.
Research & stewardship
MilitaryClaims.us separates practical navigation from the source-control and historical layers that keep the guidance accountable.
Research
Chronology, provenance, corroboration, conflicts, inference, and negative research results.
History & Collections
People, units, ships, aircraft, operations, and source collections—with context kept separate from individual proof.
Authorities
Statutes, regulations, DoD instructions, VA authorities, archival rules, and other governing sources.
Official Source Catalog
The public source-of-trust layer for governed military, veteran, records, forms, systems, and military-justice sources.
Programs & Systems Updates
Dated operational changes to programs, forms, systems, benefits, deadlines, and pathways.
About & Editorial Standards
Mission, stewardship, correction practices, source discipline, and independence standards.
EVIDENCE METHOD
Records before conclusions
An appointment order, flight log, medical entry, pay record, unit history, and benefit decision answer different questions. Read together, they can explain a life in service. Read without their dates, creators, and evidentiary limits, they can produce a mistaken conclusion.
- Start with the source and identify the narrow proposition it supports.
- Separate a person’s history from the history of a unit, ship, aircraft, or operation.
- Preserve original records and identify OCR, transcripts, excerpts, and annotations as derivatives.
- Record conflicts and uncertainty rather than silently choosing a preferred version.
- Match rule-dependent guidance to the version and effective date that actually governs the issue.
MilitaryClaims.us honors Jaye Michael Sullivan, whose surviving Navy records inspired the Military Life Record project and its rule: preserve the source, distinguish evidence from inference, and connect the record across a lifetime.
The founding collection
MilitaryClaims.us begins with the military record of Jaye Michael Sullivan. Primary VF-13 records provide dated anchors for named duties and command appointments while leaving parts of the broader career unresolved. The collection demonstrates the site’s method: preserve what the record establishes, distinguish unit history from individual proof, and identify what remains unknown.
Jaye Sullivan
Personal identity, named duties, command appointments, reported flight scores, and unresolved career questions.
Fighting Squadron Thirteen
Formation, 1944 combat operations, return, reformation, and 1945 training—without assigning unit totals to an individual.
USS Franklin (CV-13)
The ship’s history, with the VF-13 1944 connection kept distinct from Franklin’s later 1945 deployment.
Military service does not begin with a DD-214, and it does not necessarily end with separation.
Independent resource: MilitaryClaims.us is not a government agency. Official agencies and controlling authorities remain the source for filings, eligibility decisions, records, and payments.
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