Military Status Verification and National Guard Members

I’ve posted before (here, here, and here) about how to verify military status (required in some court documents) and now, thanks to a law librarian on our uber-lawlib listserve, have information on verifying the status of National Guard members. Here’s the scoop, lightly edited:

“A person who is in the National Guard will be listed as not “currently on active duty.” They are not currently deployed. The results won’t differ from a civilian; there is no indication that the name searched is a member of the National Guard unless they have been deployed. Once deployed the status will be listed as active and you won’t be able to tell them apart from other (regular/enlisted?) military.

I talked to someone from the military and the key is Title 32 status. When in Title 32 status the guard member is under Federal Jurisdiction and becomes part of the active forces and would be listed as active by this site. This differs from performing state or training duties. If the guard member is performing state duties (helping part of his/her state recover from flooding for example, he/she is not active under Federal Jurisdiction and would not be listed as active by this web site).

A guardsman can be on Title 32 status and not be (in Iraq or wherever) they could be working at a stateside base.

I hope this helps, you might want to check 50 USC 510, 511, 516 and 522.”

Thanks to the law librarian who did the research and to any others who can add information or corrections!