How to Find a Soldier
How to Find Armed Forces Personnel
Soldiers move from one assignment to the next quite often by civilian standards, so knowing how to find a soldier will help you if you are friends, lovers or family members with a member of the U.S. Armed Forces. Employing the various methods at your disposal, you’ll be able to locate a soldier you used to maintained a relationship with and who is now out of touch.
Various government agencies will be able to help, while online searches and contacts with family members and mutual friends can give you the information you need to find your missing friend. You’ll end up using a combination of these tools to find your friend, whether they’re on an Army base in Afghanistan, on a naval ship in the Persian Gulf or at Ramstein Air Base in Germany.
All you really need is the full name of the soldier you knew, along with their branch of service: Army, Navy, Air Force or Marines. Other vital information, like date of birth, will also speed the search.
Forwarding Address
Send a letter to the last known location you were in contact with your friend. Military bases have a locator office whose job it is to find soldiers in their new posts and forward mail on to them.
If you can learn the phone number of the locator office in the base you plan on contacting, you might be able to get assistance from someone there. Call ahead and ask for assistance, if time is of the essence.
National Personnel Records Center
We have discussed the “National Personnel Records Center” in St. Louis, Missouri before. The NPRC is the recommended place to start looking for records on Army personnel in particular. NPRC is part of the National Archives and it’s useful for ancestry searches or active military personnel.
As described, the National Personnel Records Center is a repository of information for millions of U.S. soldiers, including health and medical records of the discharged and deceased, medical treatment records of retirees. It is especially helpful for veterans, but also houses other information.
Below is the various forms of contact information for this resource.
National Personnel Records Center
Military Personnel Records
9700 Page Ave.
St. Louis, MO 63132-5100
Phone Number: 314-801-0800
Fax Number: 314-801-9195
E-Mail Address: MPR.center@nara.gov
As always, the more information you can provide, the better.
Additional recommended info would be their rank, serial number or social security number. If you are not next-of-kin, you’ll probably have a harder time receiving the information, but if you explain why you need this information and are persistent, you should be able to obtain the information you seek.
Alternately, have a lawyer request the personnel information for you.
Write a Military Letter
Write a letter to the Army soldier you are trying to establish contact with. Send the letter, along with a sealed envelope, to the address provided above. Place your return name on the envelope, so you’ll know if it was never delivered.
Also, place a second envelope inside, with your address and a stamp on it. This will make it easier for your friend to reply to you.
Army Family Liason Office
If you’re a family member of the soldier in question, you can contact the Army Family Liason Office or call them them at 1-800-833-6222. This helps family members find Army soldiers who are deployed anywhere in the world.
Military Dotcom
Another good resource for finding soldiers overseas is Military.com. This not only helps military families with moves and redeployments, but can also be used to learn additional information about where a soldier has redeployed to.
Soldier Social Networking
The Army Well Being website has links to social network sites where you can meet soldiers and the families of soldiers. You’ll be able to meet with people on Facebook and Twitter who might know your friend or share tips and suggestions for finding old friends in the Army.
Finding Military Personnel Online
Once you start thinking about it, there are a hundred different websites you can learn about your Army buddies online. Go to any of the Armed Forces websites and join the communities there. Ask for ideas from the veterans and active soldiers in these forums, or the family and friends of people serving overseas. You can find a soldier overseas on the web with just a little bit of research and networking.
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This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010 at 5:58 pm and is filed under Military Service Records. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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