A candidate tells you they served eight years in the Army. The resume says sergeant. The interview went great. You have already read the resume closely. Now you have to confirm it before you make the offer. So what do you actually do?

Most hiring teams freeze here. They are not sure what they can ask for. They are not sure how to read the paperwork. And they are scared of crossing a privacy line they do not fully understand.

This guide fixes that. You will learn what military service you can verify, how to read a DD-214, which copy to request, and how to confirm a record is real. You will also learn what you are allowed to ask a candidate and what you are not. The goal is simple. Verify the service, respect the law, and move the hire forward.

At BMR we add over 1,000 new veteran profiles every month and have built more than 60,000 resumes. We see what real records look like every day. Here is how to read one.

What Can You Actually Verify About Military Service?

Start with the right expectation. You can verify the core facts of someone's service. You cannot pull their full file like a background check on a credit score.

The basic facts of service are public record in most cases. The National Archives can release limited information to the general public without the veteran's consent. That limited set usually covers the facts you care about for a hire.

Here is what tends to be confirmable about a former service member:

• Name and service number: Who they are in the record.
• Branch of service: Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, or Space Force.
• Dates of service: When they started and when they separated.
• Rank at separation: The grade they held when they left.
• Duty assignments: Where they were stationed.
• Awards and decorations: Medals and badges earned.

What you usually cannot get without the veteran's written consent is the deeper file. Things like medical records, the narrative reason for a discharge, or disciplinary actions need the veteran to sign off. The Archives is clear that anything beyond the public-release basics requires the veteran or next of kin to authorize it in writing.

So the practical move is easy. Ask the candidate for their DD-214. It holds the facts you need, and the candidate is the fastest source.

How Do You Read a DD-214?

The DD Form 214 is the discharge document every service member gets when they leave. It is the single best snapshot of someone's military service. Once you know which boxes to read, it takes about a minute.

The form uses numbered blocks. You do not need all of them. Focus on the handful that confirm the facts a candidate put on their resume.

The blocks that matter for hiring

• Name: Match it to the candidate.
• Branch and component: Active duty, Reserve, or National Guard.
• Pay grade and rank: This is the real rank, like E-5 Sergeant. If the resume says they were a sergeant, this box proves it.
• Dates of service: Net active service and total service. This confirms the years claimed.
• Primary specialty: Their military job. This maps to the skills on the resume.
• Decorations and awards: Medals earned. A quick honesty check against what they listed.
• Character of service: The type of discharge, such as honorable.

That last one, character of service, is the box people obsess over. Read it carefully but read it fairly. An honorable discharge is the most common type. But other discharge types do not automatically mean a bad employee. A general discharge under honorable conditions is still a service member who completed their duty. Look at the whole person, not one box.

One more note. The DD-214 is a separation document. It is not a resume. It tells you the facts of service. It does not tell you how good they are at the job. That part still comes from the interview and the resume. We cover that gap in our guide on why a DD-214 does not work as a resume.

Which DD-214 Copy Should You Ask For?

This trips up a lot of hiring teams. The DD-214 comes in more than one copy. Some copies leave out the details you want to see. So the copy you ask for matters.

For years, the form was issued in several member copies. The short copy, called the Member 1, leaves out the character of service and the reason for separation. The long copy showed everything. If a candidate hands you a short copy, the discharge box may simply be blank.

The DD-214 is issued in two main versions: a short form (Member 1 copy) and a long form (Member 4 copy). The short form omits character of service, separation authority, and reason for separation. The Member 4 copy includes all of that. Per a U.S. Department of Labor advisory, the Member 4 copy can be used to validate dates and character of service.

So here is the simple ask. Request the copy that shows character of service. If the candidate is not sure which copy they have, ask them to look at the discharge box. If it is filled in, you have the version you need.

How Do You Verify a DD-214 Is Real Without Overstepping?

Most candidates hand you a true document. But sometimes you need to confirm a record on your own. Maybe the offer is high-trust. Maybe the copy looks off. Here is the legitimate way to check.

The official source for military records is the National Personnel Records Center, run by the National Archives. As a third party, you request records using the Standard Form 180 (SF-180). Federal law requires these requests in writing.

What you get back depends on consent. Without the veteran's signature, the records center releases only the limited public-record facts. To get more than that, you need the candidate's written authorization. That is the clean way to do it. Ask the candidate to sign a release so the records center can confirm the details to you directly.

The smarter play for most hires is to build consent into your process. Add a short military-service verification release to your offer paperwork, the same way you handle a standard background check release. Then you are verifying with permission, not behind the candidate's back.

A simple verification flow

Can You Check If Someone Is Currently on Active Duty?

Sometimes the question is different. You are not checking past service. You want to know if a candidate is on active duty right now. There is a free, official tool for that.

The Defense Manpower Data Center runs the SCRA verification site. SCRA stands for the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act. The tool tells you if a person is or was on active duty on a specific date. Lenders and financial firms use it most, but it is public.

Know its limits. The SCRA site confirms active-duty status on a given date. It does not give you a full service history. It does not show rank, awards, or discharge type. So it answers one narrow question. Is this person currently serving? For most veteran hires, that is not the question you have. For a candidate who says they are transitioning out now, it can help.

The law behind it sits in 50 U.S.C. Chapter 50. The point of SCRA is to protect active members, not to vet job applicants. Use the tool for what it is built for, and do not lean on it as a background check.

What Can an Employer Legally Ask For?

This is where teams get nervous, and for good reason. You can verify service. But you have to do it without crossing federal hiring lines. Here is the plain version.

First, do not confuse military verification with your I-9. The Form I-9 confirms someone can legally work in the United States. A U.S. military card is one acceptable I-9 document. But you cannot demand a specific document. Per the Department of Justice, employers may not require a worker to show a particular document or more documents than the law asks for. So you cannot make a DD-214 a condition of the I-9. The worker picks from the accepted list.

Second, keep service verification separate from your E-Verify process. E-Verify checks work authorization. It is not a military records tool. Asking a veteran for a DD-214 inside the E-Verify step mixes two things that should stay apart.

Third, do not ask about protected topics. A discharge connected to a disability, or a medical condition tied to service, can touch disability law. The safe move is to verify the facts of service and stop there. You do not need the medical story to confirm the job history.

The clean approach looks like this. Ask for the DD-214 to confirm service the same way you would ask any candidate to confirm a past role. Get a signed release if you verify on your own. Keep the medical and the discharge narrative out of it unless the candidate brings it up. That keeps you on the right side of the line.

How Do You Spot Stolen Valor Without Making It Your Job?

Stolen valor is rare, but it happens. Someone inflates a rank. Someone claims a unit they never joined. Someone adds a medal they never earned. You do not need to become an investigator. A few simple checks catch most of it.

Read the DD-214 against the resume. If the resume says Special Forces but the specialty block says a clerk role, ask about it. If the resume claims a high award but the awards block is empty, ask about it. People misremember small things. Big gaps between the form and the story are the flag.

Watch the document itself too. A real DD-214 has consistent formatting and matching dates. If the font shifts mid-page, or the dates do not add up, slow down. You can always ask for a clean copy or request a signed release to confirm with the records center.

And keep perspective. Most veterans understate their service, not overstate it. They will list a job title that sounds smaller than what they did. That is the opposite of stolen valor. So lead with trust, verify the facts, and only dig deeper when the document and the story do not line up. If you want a tighter screening process overall, our recruiter checklist for screening veteran applicants walks through it step by step.

What This Means for Your Hiring

Verifying military service is not the hard part once you know the steps. Ask for the right DD-214 copy. Read the four blocks that matter. Get a signed release if you need to confirm on your own. Keep medical and discharge details out of it. And read the document fairly, because most veterans understate what they did.

Done right, this is faster than a standard reference check. A DD-214 gives you dates, rank, job, and awards on one page. That is more confirmed history than most civilian candidates can hand you. It is one of the reasons veteran hires are easy to vet.

If you want a steady flow of veteran candidates whose records are already in good shape, that is what we do. BMR adds over 1,000 new veteran profiles every month and has built more than 60,000 resumes. Many of these candidates also have related civilian career pages, like our guide for 92Y unit supply specialists moving into logistics, so you can see how their service maps to your roles.

Want access to that talent pool? Partner with us and reach veterans who are ready to work, with service records you can verify in a minute. For more on building a veteran hiring program, see our talent acquisition playbook and how to evaluate a veteran candidate with no civilian degree.