Military service does not begin with a DD-214, and it does not necessarily end with separation. The record begins before entry, changes throughout service, follows the member into veteran life, and can remain important after death for family members and survivors.

Honor service. Navigate the system. Preserve the record.

The site is designed for service members, veterans, families, survivors, researchers, advocates, and citizens who need to understand military programs, benefits, records, claims, forms, systems, and decision pathways. It is educational and independent. MilitaryClaims.us is not the Department of Defense, Department of Veterans Affairs, a military department, or another government agency.

Official agencies remain the controlling source for eligibility decisions, filings, payments, record corrections, and other government action. MilitaryClaims.us helps readers identify the correct system, gatekeeper, form, evidence, deadline, authority, and next step.

The site architecture

• Military Navigation Guides — the public-facing practical layer: how to navigate the current system.
• Claims & Benefits — the stable program, entitlement, correction, payment, claim, and review layer.
• Military Justice — the UCMJ, Manual for Courts-Martial, R.C.M., M.R.E., court-martial procedure, appeals, and public-record layer.
• Forms & Systems — the current form, portal, office, contractor, submission channel, and gatekeeper layer.
• Military Life Record — fifteen chapters organizing the human chronology from before service through survivors.
• Military Records Library — eighteen evidence families explaining what records establish and how to preserve them.
• Official Source Catalog — stable Source IDs, official URLs, revision/effective dates, verification dates, volatility, and review cadence.
• Programs, Benefits & Systems Updates — operational changes to forms, systems, eligibility, benefits, deadlines, and pathways.
• Research — the Records Before Conclusions method.
• History & Collections — people, units, ships, aircraft, operations, and source collections, with context kept separate from individual proof.
• Authorities — statutes, regulations, instructions, official guidance, archival authorities, and other governing sources.

Records before conclusions

The research rule is simple: identify the record before drawing the conclusion. A unit history can establish what a unit reported; it does not automatically establish that every member participated in every event. A recommendation for an award is evidence of the recommendation; a separate order or official record is needed to establish the award itself.

• Preserve original source copies and identify OCR, transcripts, excerpts, annotations, and edited derivatives separately.
• Cite the narrow proposition a source actually supports and separately state its limits.
• Record both event dates and document dates.
• Preserve conflicting evidence instead of silently resolving it.
• Record negative research results without converting “not found” into proof of absence.
• Match rule-dependent statements to the applicable revision or effective date.
• Correct research errors transparently without hiding the earlier mistake.

Evidence status

The site uses a shared evidence taxonomy: D1 direct primary evidence; D2 corroborated primary evidence; S1 authoritative secondary evidence; S2 credible secondary evidence; I inference; C conflict; U unverified; and N negative research result.

The founding collection

The first collection reconstructs the Navy service of Jaye Michael Sullivan, the founder’s father. His record connects a named individual to Fighting Squadron Thirteen, USS Franklin (CV-13), command appointments, reported combat activity, award recommendations, and unresolved later-career questions. The collection is intentionally incomplete where the evidence is incomplete.

That founding record demonstrates the central method: connect person, unit, ship, aircraft, event, medical, pay, claim, authority, benefit, family, property, and legal records without collapsing one record class into another.

Jaye Sullivan Collection · Fighting Squadron Thirteen · USS Franklin (CV-13)

Current scope and maintenance

The current library includes 70 Navigation Guides, 52 Claims & Benefits categories, 15 Military Life Record chapters, 18 Military Records families, a governed official Source Catalog, a Forms & Systems registry, an Authorities directory, operational Updates, and the founding historical collections.

High-volatility official sources are scheduled for frequent review, with lower-volatility material reviewed on longer cycles. Material changes can trigger updates across the Source Catalog, Navigation Guides, Claims & Benefits registry, Forms & Systems records, and Updates section from the same stable source identifiers.

Companion public-interest projects

MilitaryClaims.us	Military service, programs, records, claims, benefits, history, and the questions created across a service member’s lifetime.
FederalClaims.us	Federal authority, government records, claims, and the permanent public record.
VictimsGuide.com	Education about automobile crashes, insurance, claims, records, evidence, and victims’ legal navigation.

From the Oath of Service to the Permanent Public Record.