The BIRLS Database

Reclaim the Records, a non-profit group of genealogists, historians, and researchers identify important genealogical record sets and try to get them moved to the public domain. One of the record groups that they were successful in getting access to is the Beneficiary Identification Records Locator Subsystem (BIRLS) database that was originally created by the US Department of Veterans Affairs. It provides an index to basic biographical information on more than 18 million deceased American veterans who received benefits from the VA in their lifetime. It includes all branches of the military. On their website you can make a free Freedom of Information Act request for a copy of the file for a deceased veteran. Here is the link to the page to make the FOIA request.