MREC-16 · MILITARY RECORDS LIBRARY
Casualty, Death, Burial & Honors Records
MREC-16: Records documenting death, military casualty processing, cause evidence, final compensation, notification, burial, cemetery eligibility, honors, and survivor transition.
What this record can establish
Death/casualty facts; notification and assistance; cause evidence; final pay processing; burial/honors actions; survivor documentation depending on the record.
What it does not establish automatically
Casualty, medical, insurance, VA, SBP, burial, and estate systems make separate decisions. One record does not automatically establish entitlement under another program.
Preservation package
Death certificate; casualty report; medical/cause records; casualty-assistance file; final pay documents; burial/cemetery records; honors requests; survivor submissions.
Minimum source metadata
- Stable source ID and record class
- Creator or issuing office
- Document date and covered period
- Subject identifiers
- Repository and exact locator
- Provenance or acquisition note
- Proposition supported and express limits
- Evidence-status code and derivative/OCR/transcription lineage
Evidence testing
- Identity: Is the record tied to the correct person, unit, platform, or event?
- Chronology: Separate document date, effective date, event date, and covered period.
- Institutional purpose: Understand why the record was created and what it was designed to record.
- Corroboration: Seek independent records; copies and derivatives from one source do not create independence.
Evidence status key: D1 direct primary; D2 corroborated primary; S1 authoritative secondary; S2 credible secondary; I inference; C conflict; U unverified; N negative research result.
Connected Life Record chapters
Related navigation guides
- Immediate Steps After A Service Member Or Veteran Dies
- Casualty Assistance Survivor Support
- Burial National Cemetery Military Honors
Retrieval and authority status
This page defines the evidence family and preservation method. Repository-specific access rules, privacy limits, request forms, retention schedules, service/era differences, and governing authorities must be verified for the particular record before treating retrieval instructions as final. Start with current official repositories and the linked Navigation Guides.
