Why your in-service record matters#
A record made during your service is often the strongest evidence that a condition started in service. VA also considers other evidence, including written statements from you or people who saw what happened.
VA requests service treatment records from the Department of Defense on its own when you file, but a request is not the same as reading the file. Your own copy is how you see what is documented, what is missing, and what a rater will be looking at.
If you want the wider picture of how that evidence fits a claim, read VA Service Connection Evidence 101. This guide is about one thing: getting the records in your hands.
Still serving? Go to sick call, every single time#
If you are on active duty, in the Guard or in the Reserve, this is the most valuable thing in this guide.
Go to sick call for every injury, every illness and every symptom, every time it happens. Ringing ears. A back that locks up. A knee that gives out. Sleep you cannot get. Go, describe it plainly, and ask for a copy of the note before you leave.
Nobody is grading you for toughing it out. Years later, VA does not see how much you carried. It sees whether there is a note. Untreated and undocumented looks exactly like "never happened." VA can still grant a claim on other evidence, but every visit you make now is evidence you will not have to reconstruct later.
Where your records are, by when you got care or separated#
Care at a military hospital or clinic after it moved to MHS GENESIS
MHS GENESIS is the military health record system. Bases switched over one group at a time: the first go-live was in the Pacific Northwest on February 7, 2017, stateside deployment finished on June 3, 2023, overseas sites followed in September 2023, and the last site went live on March 9, 2024. Your care appears in the portal from after your site switched, not before.
The portal is at my.mhsgenesis.health.mil.
Signing in uses myAuth. The portal made that switch on September 23, 2026, replacing DS Logon. You can sign in with a CAC, with a username and password plus multi-factor authentication, or with Okta Verify. You create a myAuth account at the login page itself, and if you still hold a DS Logon account you can use it to set myAuth up.
To download what is there: open Health Record, then Clinical Notes and Documents, which some views label Clinical Reports, then choose Download (PDF) on the document you want. It is one document at a time. Alongside notes and documents, the portal lists prescriptions, allergies, conditions, lab results, radiology, vitals and immunizations.
Who can sign in: DoD lists active duty members, Guard and Reserve members, retirees, and veterans with a continuing affiliation with the Department of Defense, and TRICARE frames the portal around people who get care at military hospitals and clinics and have registered there. There is no official statement covering a separated veteran with no continuing DoD tie. If you are not sure which side of that line you are on, try the portal. If you cannot get in, use the routes below, which do not depend on it.
You separated or retired on or after January 1, 2014
Your service treatment records were digitized. TRICARE says service treatment records that do not contain sensitive information may be available through the portal, and the page does not define what counts as sensitive, so treat the portal as a maybe rather than a plan.
The reliable copy comes from VA. When you file a claim, VA automatically requests your certified service treatment records from the Department of Defense. To get a copy for yourself, request your personal records with VA Form 20-10206, which you can submit online.
You separated between the early 1990s and December 31, 2013
VA holds your service treatment records. The Department of Defense began retiring these records to VA on different dates by branch: October 16, 1992 for the Army, January 31, 1994 for the Navy, and May 1, 1994 for the Air Force and the Marine Corps, and stopped on December 31, 2013. The Coast Guard window runs from April 1, 1998 to around 2014; sources state the closing date two ways, so treat it as approximate.
Request your copy with VA Form 20-10206, the same form as above.
You separated earlier than that
The National Archives holds your records at the National Personnel Records Center. Request them with the eVetRecs online tool or with a Standard Form 180.
Care from before your site moved to MHS GENESIS
Older records held in TRICARE Online did not transfer to MHS GENESIS when that portal was decommissioned. If the care you need is from before your military hospital or clinic switched systems, contact that facility's records office and ask for it directly.
Personnel records are a separate request
Personnel records are not medical records, and they come from a different place. Use milConnect for your Official Military Personnel File if you were discharged after October 1, 2004 for the Air Force, October 1, 2002 for the Army, January 1, 1999 for the Marine Corps, or January 1, 1995 for the Navy. Use it for personnel records only. For what is in a VA claims file and how to pull it, see How to Get Your C-File and Service Records.
Only .mil for MHS GENESIS#
DoD states that every website related to MHS GENESIS uses the .mil domain. The real entry point is my.mhsgenesis.health.mil, and patientportal.mhsgenesis.health.mil is also linked from official pages. Do not sign in anywhere else. Look-alike addresses such as mymhsgenesis.com are not DoD sites, and handing them your credentials hands over your health record with them.
Put the records to work#
Downloading PDFs and leaving them in a folder is where most people stop. Upload them to your VeteranHQ Vault instead, so they sit with the rest of your records and can be read together: your service treatment notes beside your rating decision, your exam reports and anything you have synced from VA. That is what turns a pile of documents into a picture of your claim.