The honorable discharge certificate provided to a veteran on leaving the service is the most common proof of service in the armed forces. It is a valuable and important document, like a deed or a mortgage, and New York State law provides a way for this valuable document to be recorded at the County Clerk's office, just as deeds and mortgages are.

Once recorded at the Clerk's office, a DD214 is available at any time in the future, even if the original document should be lost by its owner. A certified copy of a discharge certificate is legally as acceptable as the original.

If you know the name of your home county, you can find your County Clerks office in the NYS County Clerk Office Directory. If you're not sure of the county, call the nearest County Clerk's office and ask them to verify that your town or city is in that county. Be careful: sometimes the city shown on your mailing address is actually in another county!

Once you know which County Clerk's office you want to record your discharge in, you can either bring the discharge in to that office in person, or mail it in. You have to bring (or mail) the original document, not a copy. Your original document will be returned directly to you. There is never a charge for this service.

Section 250 of the military law provides for free recording of all veterans' honorable discharges, and now requires that these recorded DD214s be sealed from public view.

This section of this law reads: "No filed certificate or any information contained therein, shall be disclosed to any person except the veteran or parent, spouse, dependent or child of the veteran, representative of the estate of the deceased veteran or a public official, acting within the scope of his or her employment, unless such disclosure is authorized in writing by the veteran."

The best reason to record your discharge certificate is to insure against losing the original. Once recorded, certified copies will be made for you or your immediate family, free of charge, whenever you need them, even if you lose the original.

Discharge papers are the best proof of military service, and these important papers are used to prove eligibility for a variety of benefits, from property tax exemptions to civil service credits.