Daily Staff Journal & Officer Logs

These are hour by hour journals of what the whole battalion is doing on any given date. Although names aren't mentioned, lots of info such as the weather and also what the other companies in the division are up to.

You can order the journals for a whole month at a time or just a few days. I think you must order at least ten pages though.

There is a charge for these records. A minimum of ten pages must be ordered at a cost of $.50 per page.

To obtain these records, complete form DA 1594 and SF180 (Request For Records), mail to:

Textual Archives Services Division
Modern Military Records Unit
ATTN: Archives (Vietnam War)
8601 Adelphi Road
College Park, Maryland 20740-6001
Click on the form to print a copy of DA Form 1594

Click the Adobe PDF icon to download the Form DA-1594 in Adobe Portable Document Format.

Morning Reports and Unit Rosters

Morning reports and unit rosters are created by military organizations as part of their personnel and payroll functions. These records are used by the National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) to verify events or assignments which may not be documented in an individual's Official Military Personnel File (OMPF). This is especially important when trying to reconstruct service information when the OMPF has been damaged or destroyed in the 1973 fire. A brief explanation of both types of records and the date span of our collections is listed below.

MORNING REPORTS are created each morning, as the name implies. They are an "exception based" system, only containing information on those individuals who are not "Present and Accounted for". Among the reasons for being listed on a morning report are:

Promotion or demotion
Being killed, wounded or missing in action
Being assigned to a unit, or leaving a unit
Going to a hospital for treatment, or to another activity for training

UNIT ROSTERS are created monthly, quarterly or semi-annually. During certain time periods, separate rosters were created for officers and enlisted personnel. At other times, consolidated rosters listed both officers and enlisted personnel. Some units created rosters only for enlisted personnel. The rosters typically list the members of a particular unit for the last day of the month in which the roster was created.

NOTE: Neither morning reports nor unit rosters contain historical information concerning battles or engagements.

The NARA website pertaining to these records is> HERE.

These records must also be ordered using the SF-180 Form which is completed by the veteran or a member of their family, requesting information to be used in filing claims with the Department of Veteran Affairs (DVA) or for personal information files.

Requests must be in writing and sent to the following address:

National Personnel Records Center
Military Personnel Records
9700 Page Avenue
St. Louis, MO 63132-5100

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