Veterans Administration, NARA Complete Digitization of Archived Vietnam-Era Deck Logs
From the VA:
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) announced today completion of an interagency effort with the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to digitize declassified deck logs to process claims faster for eligible Vietnam-era Veterans.
The U.S. Navy and Coast Guard deck logs within NARA contain helpful information being used to validate claims for Blue Water Navy (BWN) Veterans who served in the offshore waters of the Republic of Vietnam, to establish presumption to herbicide exposure for service-connected disability benefits.
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Data contained in deck logs is used when deciding VA benefit claims. Also known as ship logs or captain’s logs, information was manually inputted to chronologically document the daily activities of a navy ship or unit.
VA provided the digital images of deck logs to NARA, available in the National Archives Catalog.
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Filed under: Archives and Special Collections, Data Files, Digital Preservation, News

About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.