Service Number - United States

United States

The Armed forces of the United States introduced service numbers on February 28, 1918 and discontinued their use in 1974. The first U.S. military member to hold a service number was Arthur Crean.

The following formats were used to denote U.S. military service numbers:

  • 12-345-678: United States Army and U.S. Air Force enlisted service numbers
  • 123-45-67: United States Navy enlisted service numbers
  • 1234-340: United States Coast Guard enlisted service numbers
  • 123456: United States Marine Corps enlisted service numbers
  • 12345: Service number format for most U.S. military officers

Social Security Numbers are today used as the primary means to identify members of the U.S. military. The common format for a social security numbers is 123-45-6789.

Effective June 2011, the US military has introduced a plan to eliminate the use of Social Security Numbers on military and dependent ID cards, and replace them with a service number, in an effort to prevent identity theft against members of the armed services. All members are expected to have been granted the new service number by 2015.

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Famous quotes related to united states:

    I thought it altogether proper that I should take a brief furlough from official duties at Washington to mingle with you here to-day as a comrade, because every President of the United States must realize that the strength of the Government, its defence in war, the army that is to muster under its banner when our Nation is assailed, is to be found here in the masses of our people.
    Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)

    I feel most at home in the United States, not because it is intrinsically a more interesting country, but because no one really belongs there any more than I do. We are all there together in its wholly excellent vacuum.
    Wyndham Lewis (1882–1957)

    In the United States there’s a Puritan ethic and a mythology of success. He who is successful is good. In Latin countries, in Catholic countries, a successful person is a sinner.
    Umberto Eco (b. 1932)

    What makes the United States government, on the whole, more tolerable—I mean for us lucky white men—is the fact that there is so much less of government with us.... But in Canada you are reminded of the government every day. It parades itself before you. It is not content to be the servant, but will be the master; and every day it goes out to the Plains of Abraham or to the Champs de Mars and exhibits itself and toots.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    Some time ago a publisher told me that there are four kinds of books that seldom, if ever, lose money in the United States—first, murder stories; secondly, novels in which the heroine is forcibly overcome by the hero; thirdly, volumes on spiritualism, occultism and other such claptrap, and fourthly, books on Lincoln.
    —H.L. (Henry Lewis)