# Military Records Strategist — How To Use

**Skill:** `military-records-strategist`
**Category:** Nonprofit
**Author:** YourVisionYourCreation LLC
**Version:** 1.0
**License:** CC BY 4.0

---

## What This Skill Does

Military Records Strategist turns Claude into a records-correction and
discharge-upgrade strategist for veterans and their advocates — covering the
full path from a first Discharge Review Board application (DD-293) or Board
for Correction application (DD-149) through every successor forum: BCMR/BCNR,
U.S. District Court under the APA, the Court of Federal Claims under the
Tucker Act, the Federal Circuit, and SCOTUS.

It was distilled from YVYC's real-world records-correction advocacy work,
generalized so any veteran or advocate can use it. It is verification-first:
no citation ships unverified, and no forum is ever asked for relief it has no
jurisdiction to grant.

---

## The Problem It Solves

Records-correction cases are lost on process, not merits:

- Relief requested from a board that has no jurisdiction to grant it (e.g.,
  asking a Discharge Review Board for medical retirement)
- Statutes and memos cited from memory — and cited wrong
- Liberal consideration treated as a favor to request instead of the
  mandatory duty that 10 U.S.C. §§ 1552(h) and 1553(d)(3) make it
- Personal statements that read like a chatbot wrote them
- Statute-of-limitations clocks discovered after they've run
- Board records built without thinking about the federal court that may
  review them later

This skill enforces the discipline that prevents every one of those.

---

## The Six Working Modes

| Mode | Use For |
|---|---|
| **Theory-of-the-Case** | Building the narrative that unifies record, injustice, and relief |
| **Evidence Inventory** | Cataloging what exists, what was inspected, what's missing |
| **Drafting** | Applications, briefs, personal statements, rebuttals, congressional letters |
| **War-Game** | Arguing the government's side to find and patch weaknesses before filing |
| **Forum-Mapping** | Which board or court, in what order, with which deadlines |
| **Out-of-the-Box** | Novel but legally grounded vectors the standard playbook misses |

Every non-trivial response opens with the active mode, scope, evidence
status, controlling authority, and a single recommendation with risks.

---

## Example Prompts

```
Forum-map my case: OTH discharge, 12 years ago, PTSD diagnosis from the VA.
Where do I file first and what does that preserve?
```
```
War-game my DD-149 draft. Argue the government's side, then patch the holes.
```
```
Draft my personal statement from these notes — my voice, first person,
no legal filler.
```
```
Evidence inventory: here's what I have. What's missing for a liberal
consideration argument?
```

---

## Key Doctrine Baked In

- **Forum discipline** — a jurisdiction table maps every type of relief to
  the only forum that can grant it, before a word gets drafted
- **Liberal consideration is mandatory** — for PTSD, TBI, MST and related
  conditions, framed as a duty owed under statute and the Hagel/Kurta/Wilkie
  memoranda, never as a discretionary favor
- **Citation verification** — every authority is verified live or labeled
  `Citation needs verification`; nothing ships on memory
- **SOL tracking** — deadlines are computed and stated, including the
  six-year Tucker Act clock
- **Record preservation** — every board filing is built knowing a federal
  court may one day review the administrative record it creates

---

## What This Skill Is Not

- It is not a lawyer, and it says so — it is a strategist and drafting
  partner. Complex cases warrant licensed counsel or an accredited VSO
  representative, and the skill will say when.
- It never invents facts, records, or diagnoses to strengthen a case.
- It never files anything — the veteran stays in command of every submission.

---

## Installation

1. Copy the `SKILL.md` file from this folder
2. Place it in your Claude skills directory
3. It activates automatically on any records-correction, discharge-upgrade,
   or military records task

**Privacy note:** keep your case specifics (case numbers, hearing dates,
personal documents) in your private project files or a private companion
file — not in the skill itself. The skill is the doctrine; your case data
stays yours.

---

*Part of the YVYC Claude Skills Library — Nonprofit Category*
*YourVisionYourCreation LLC — [yourvisionyourcreation.com](https://www.yourvisionyourcreation.com)*
*Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — Free to use with attribution to YourVisionYourCreation LLC*