President Trump signed a new executive order on September 8 directing the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of War to share a service member’s personnel and medical records starting the day that person enlists. For decades those records have typically moved between the two departments only after separation, often taking months to arrive in a form a veteran can use to support a disability claim. The order does not create a new benefit or change what counts as a service-connected condition. It targets the paperwork trail that decides whether an existing claim moves forward or stalls.
Executive Order 14426: Records Follow a Service Member From Enlistment Onward
The order, formally numbered Executive Order 14426 and titled “Accelerating Access to Veterans’ Benefits and Employment Opportunities,” directs the Secretary of War and the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to build permanent systems for sharing a service member’s Official Military Personnel File and Service Treatment Records, in the order’s own words, “from the moment an individual enters into military service” through however long that person draws VA benefits. The order does not, on its own, hand anyone a new dollar amount or a new eligibility category.
Section 4 of the order also spells out its own limits: it creates no enforceable right a veteran could sue over if a deadline slips, and it runs “subject to the availability of appropriations,” meaning Congress still funds the systems work behind it. The full text is published in the Federal Register.
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Why a Missing Service Treatment Record Can Sink a Disability Claim
A VA disability claim generally needs three things to succeed: a current diagnosis, evidence that something happened during service, and a medical opinion linking the two. The middle piece almost always comes from the Service Treatment Records the military kept during that person’s time in uniform. When those files arrive at VA incomplete or late, examiners cannot confirm the in-service event, and the claim gets developed further, sent back for more evidence, or denied outright for lack of proof rather than lack of merit.
Federal law already puts a duty on VA to help gather this evidence on a veteran’s behalf, codified at 38 U.S.C. 5103A. What the new order changes is the supply side: instead of VA requesting records from the Department of War case by case after someone files a claim, the goal is a records pipeline that starts filling in from the day a person enlists, so the file is largely complete before a claim is ever submitted.
Veterans who run into this gap today typically request paper backups from the National Archives’ National Personnel Records Center, track down former unit members for buddy statements, or pay a private service to chase down what the government already has on file somewhere. None of those routes gets more expensive because of the executive order, but a working records pipeline is the difference between filing one complete claim and refiling a partial one that comes back from VA marked as needing more evidence.
The 30-, 120- and 180-Day Deadlines Written Into the Order
The order sets three clocks. Within 30 days of the September 8 signing, the Department of War must start sharing personnel, health and treatment records with VA immediately whenever a current service member is discharged or released. Within 120 days, the two departments, working with the Office of Management and Budget and the Department of Health and Human Services, must review existing technology contracts so record systems can actually exchange data with each other. Within 180 days, they are required to stand up the permanent, ongoing sharing that covers a person’s entire time in service, plus a single set of digital tools meant to let veterans apply for benefits earned through military service in one place.
None of those deadlines have passed as of this writing, and a veteran who separated years ago is not directly reached by the day-one sharing requirement — that piece is prospective, covering people entering or currently in service, not a retroactive rebuild of files for those who already left.
What the VA’s Own Numbers Say a Faster Handoff Is Worth
According to the VA’s September 8 announcement, average disability-claim processing time has already dropped 46% during the current administration, from 141.5 days to 76.1 days. VA Secretary Doug Collins said continuous access to military records “will eliminate weeks of waiting for Veterans applying for VA healthcare and financial benefits,” and the agency projects the records-sharing change could shave another 20 to 30 days off processing time specifically for people recently separated from service.
Separately, the White House fact sheet on the order puts a number on the problem it is meant to fix: under the system now in place, transferring a service member’s records between the two departments takes an average of 90 to 180 days.
What Stays the Same for a Claim Already in Progress
Nothing in the order changes disability ratings, income limits or the appeals process, and it explicitly does not create a new right a veteran can enforce in court. For a household with a claim moving through VA today, or with a service member separating before the systems work is finished, the practical advice has not changed: keep personal copies of the DD-214, service treatment records and any private medical evidence rather than assume a records pipeline still being built will move fast enough to help a claim already on file.
Service Records Are Only Half of a Pension Claim
The executive order’s system upgrades run on 30-, 120- and 180-day clocks, but none of that helps a household with a claim moving through VA right now. The specific form for pension-level benefits, the documentation examiners actually want to see, and the warning signs of people who charge veterans to file paperwork that is free rarely show up in a press release, and those are exactly the gaps that turn a straightforward claim into a stalled one.
The Veterans Benefits Action Kit lays out how to file for free using VA Form 21P-527EZ and flags the pension-poacher warning signs a household should recognize before paying anyone for help.
Read how to file for free using VA Form 21P-527EZ in The Veterans Benefits Action Kit.
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