DD-214 Decoder — What Every Block Actually Means
The DD-214 is the most consequential single page of your career and nobody walks you through it. It gates VA benefits, state benefits, employment preference, and burial honours — and errors are far harder to fix once you've signed. Read it before you sign it, not after.
Your legal name at separation and which service and component you served in. A later legal name change does not update this automatically.
Rank and pay grade at separation. If you were reduced or promoted late, check this matches what you expect.
Wrong dates here cause problems with VA and state benefit systems that match on identity.
Your MOS/AFSC/rating with the time served in it. This is the single most useful block for civilian job translation. Translate your specialty →
Dates of entry and separation, total active service, foreign service, and prior service time. Drives GI Bill tier and retirement calculations.
If an award is missing here it effectively does not exist for VA, employment, or state benefit purposes. Worth correcting.
Formal schools with course length. Often supports civilian credentialing or college credit.
Catch-all. Frequently carries deployment periods, terminal leave dates, and sell-back statements. Read it closely.
Discharge, release from active duty, retirement, and so on. Distinct from character of service.
Honorable, General (under honorable conditions), Other Than Honorable, Bad Conduct, or Dishonorable. This is the block that gates VA benefits.
The regulation the separation was executed under.
A short alphabetic code describing the specific reason for separation. Service-specific and periodically revised — ask your transition office or the VA what yours means rather than trusting an unofficial list online.
Whether you are eligible to reenter service. Matters if you may want Guard, Reserve, or a return to active duty later.
Plain-language version of block 26. This is the one a reader understands immediately, so make sure it says what you think it says.
The four blocks that actually decide things
Block 24 — Character of Service. Honorable and General (under honorable conditions) preserve access to most VA benefits, though General can affect GI Bill eligibility. Other Than Honorable, Bad Conduct, and Dishonorable bar most benefits. If yours is in that last group, a discharge review board can sometimes upgrade it — that process is worth starting before you write off your benefits.
Blocks 26 and 28 — the separation codes. Block 26 is a short code; block 28 is the plain-language version. These are the blocks people are most surprised by, because the narrative reason can be blunter than expected. Read block 28 carefully and query anything that misrepresents what happened, before you sign.
Block 27 — Reentry code. This determines whether you can come back, including into the Guard or Reserve. People who are certain they're done often change their minds in year three.
A note on codes you find online
There are many unofficial SPD-code lookup tables floating around. They are frequently out of date and differ by service. We deliberately don't reproduce one here — an incorrect code interpretation on a page like this could lead someone to a badly wrong conclusion about their own record. Ask your transition office, your service's personnel command, or the VA what your specific code means.
Which copy to give an employer
The DD-214 is issued in several copies and they don't all show the same detail. Copy 4 typically includes the full separation and reentry codes; other member copies omit them. For a civilian job application you generally want a copy that proves your service dates and character of service without exposing separation codes. Keep the full version for VA and benefit claims, where it's needed.
Fixing an error
- Factual errors — wrong dates, missing awards, incorrect specialty — go to your service's Board for Correction of Military Records via DD Form 149.
- Character of service or narrative reason — go to the Discharge Review Board via DD Form 293.
- Both are free, and you can file them without paying anyone. Be wary of services charging large fees to submit these forms on your behalf.
Sources
- Requesting military service records and DD-214 copies — National Archives (NPRC)
- Discharge upgrades and review boards — VA
- How character of service affects benefit eligibility — VA