BOSTON, Massachusetts, April 9 -- The city of Boston issued the following news:

In 1973, a fire at the National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) in St. Louis, Missouri, destroyed the records of 16 million Army and Air Force veterans. After the fire, the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) established a regulatory process for those affected, which allowed veterans whose records were lost to use the next closest medical record or a buddy statement to meet the burden of proof.