After winning a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the Reclaim the Records organization has launched a search engine for the Beneficiary Identification Records Locator Subsystem (BIRLS) database. Basic biographical information on more than 18 million deceased America veterans can be found free online at https://www.birls.org.

Background on this development is available here, in a December Reclaim the Records newsletter.

What's immediately available appears to be the veteran's name, dates of birth and death, and branch of service. To retrieve more information, you can submit an FOIA request for the V.A. to do a physical search of their records, at no cost.

I imagine a flood of FOIA requests being sent to the V.A. To respond in any kind of timely fashion, the V.A. may have to redirect its resources to administrative tasks related to genealogy rather than to helping veterans. As the daughter of a WWII veteran who needed (and, in fact, did receive) significant assistance from the V.A., I have mixed feelings. 

If you have an Ancestry.com subscription, you are already able to retrieve the basic information found at the new BIRLS mini-website, plus an Ancestry query gives the veteran's SSN and dates of enlistment and discharge. Yes, one may find additional interesting correspondence through FOIA about a veteran's circumstances, e.g., benefits provided or treatments delivered. However backlogs at the V.A. seem likely, given the sudden increase in demand. 

I hope researchers will use good judgment about pursuing an FOIA request.