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:

    The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth. A Galileo could no more be elected President of the United States than he could be elected Pope of Rome. Both posts are reserved for men favored by God with an extraordinary genius for swathing the bitter facts of life in bandages of soft illusion.
    —H.L. (Henry Lewis)

    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)

    We can beat all Europe with United States soldiers. Give me a thousand Tennesseans, and I’ll whip any other thousand men on the globe!
    Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)

    Today’s difference between Russia and the United States is that in Russia everybody takes everybody else for a spy, and in the United States everybody takes everybody else for a criminal.
    Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990)

    Greece is a sort of American vassal; the Netherlands is the country of American bases that grow like tulip bulbs; Cuba is the main sugar plantation of the American monopolies; Turkey is prepared to kow-tow before any United States pro-consul and Canada is the boring second fiddle in the American symphony.
    Andrei Andreyevich Gromyko (1909–1989)