For a PACT Act presumptive claim, VA must confirm that you served in a listed place during listed dates, as a separate finding from your diagnosis. VA checks its own data first: a covered-veteran flag built from shared VA and Defense Department service data, and your Individual Longitudinal Exposure Record (ILER). If those do not show the service, your personnel file, orders, pay records showing hostile fire or imminent danger pay, travel vouchers and, for sailors, ship deck logs can. Each exposure program draws its own map, so start by matching your service to the right one.
Which map are you proving?
The programs overlap, but their places, dates and rules differ. A location on one list is not automatically on another.
Burn pits and other toxic exposure (PACT Act). There are two groups: service on or after August 2, 1990, and service on or after September 11, 2001, each in listed countries including the airspace above them. Claim Raven's burn pit presumptive conditions guide lists the countries and the conditions. One detail matters for sailors. VA's claims manual, reproduced on Claim Raven's M21-1 burn pit page, and VA's February 2026 presumptive eligibility fact sheet also count the Gulf of Aden, the Gulf of Oman, the Persian Gulf, the Arabian Sea, the Red Sea and the neutral zone between Iraq and Saudi Arabia in the August 2, 1990 group. Those locations come from the fine particulate matter regulation, 38 C.F.R. 3.320, and the manual tells claims processors to use the statute's and the regulation's locations together. The shorter list on VA's PACT Act page names only the countries. The manual adds that there is no minimum length of exposure.
Gulf War undiagnosed illness. 38 C.F.R. 3.317 defines the Southwest Asia theater of operations as Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the neutral zone, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, the same five bodies of water and the airspace above them. VA's fact sheet adds Afghanistan, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Turkey and Syria for undiagnosed illness, without their airspace. Unless it appeared during service in the theater, the condition must reach 10 percent by December 31, 2026, under the current regulation.
Agent Orange. VA's Agent Orange locations page covers Vietnam from January 9, 1962, to May 7, 1975, including service aboard a U.S. military vessel on inland waterways or not more than 12 nautical miles offshore; any U.S. or Royal Thai military base in Thailand from January 9, 1962, to June 30, 1976; and Laos, Cambodia at Mimot or Krek, Guam or American Samoa including their territorial waters, Johnston Atoll including ships that called there, and the Korean demilitarized zone, each with its own dates. For Thailand, the manual says the presumption does not require a particular job or duty on the base perimeter, and it extends to ships that called at the port of Sattahip. For ship-based claims, a centralized VA team uses a Ship Locator Tool built on Navy and Coast Guard deck log coordinates. Conditions are listed in Claim Raven's Agent Orange presumptive conditions guide.
Radiation. VA presumes certain cancers for participants in the radiation-risk activities listed in 38 C.F.R. 3.309(d), including atmospheric nuclear tests, the occupation of Hiroshima or Nagasaki, and three PACT Act additions: the Enewetak Atoll cleanup (January 1, 1977, to December 31, 1980), the response off Palomares, Spain (January 17, 1966, to March 31, 1967) and the response near Thule Air Force Base, Greenland (January 21, 1968, to September 25, 1968). VA asks the Defense Threat Reduction Agency to confirm participation.
Records that prove where you served
| Record | What it can show | Where it comes from | Watch for |
|---|---|---|---|
| VA's covered-veteran flag and your ILER Individual Deployment History | Deployments the Defense Department recorded | VA checks these itself | The manual says a missing flag "should never be construed to mean that no qualifying service exists" |
| DD 214 and other separation documents | Service dates, and sometimes theater service or awards | Your copy; VA also requests it | Often names no exact place |
| Personnel file: assignment history and deployment entries | Units, duty stations and deployment dates | The National Archives, or the Defense Department's milConnect site for more recent separations | Theater-level entries can be broader than the list |
| Orders, amendments and temporary duty orders | Destination and dates | Your copies, your unit, the personnel file | Canceled or amended orders |
| Pay records: leave and earnings statements showing hostile fire or imminent danger pay, or the combat zone tax exclusion | Months you received special pay or excluded pay for service in a designated area | Your old statements; the Defense Finance and Accounting Service | They show a month and a designated area, which may not line up exactly with VA's list |
| Travel vouchers | Where you traveled and when, including short stops | Personnel or finance records | Keep the voucher with the orders it settles |
| Ship deck logs | Where the ship was, by date | VA's centralized team for Agent Orange ship claims; Navy and Coast Guard records | Your records must also put you aboard on those dates |
| Defense Threat Reduction Agency confirmation | Participation in a radiation-risk activity | VA requests it | Your unit and dates help the search |
Sources for this table: the manual's burn pit development section, reproduced on Claim Raven's M21-1 page, names the covered-veteran flag, service records and ILER. The combat zone tax exclusion depends on serving in a designated combat zone during the month, according to the IRS. In one Thailand appeal, the Board told VA to obtain travel orders, "pay stubs that reflect special pay status, travel vouchers" and temporary duty orders to document the veteran's Thailand service (Board Decision 1801977, January 10, 2018, a remand decided before the PACT Act changed the Thailand rule). In another, the Board noted a VA memorandum conceding qualifying deployments and that the veteran had received "fire, imminent danger, and/or hazardous pay" during that period (Board Decision 23057012, October 19, 2023).
If no record shows the place: the toxic exposure risk activity route
If you cannot prove a listed location, or your condition is not on a list, the claim can still proceed as direct service connection. A toxic exposure risk activity (TERA) is an activity that requires an entry in an exposure tracking system such as ILER, or that VA decides qualifies (38 U.S.C. 1710(e)(4)). If you submit evidence of a disability and of a TERA, and that evidence is not enough to decide the claim, 38 U.S.C. 1168 requires VA to give you an exam and get a medical opinion on the link, unless VA finds no indication of an association. The manual tells claims processors to handle non-presumptive conditions claimed from burn pit exposure under these TERA procedures. Claim Raven's TERA guide covers the details. A fellow service member's statement about where you served is lay evidence VA must consider together with the official records.
A real appeal: the location and the diagnosis were separate findings
In Board Decision A25094856, decided October 31, 2025, service personnel records confirmed active service in Iraq from April 2006 to July 2007, and VA had already found qualifying service and burn pit exposure. VA still denied chronic sinusitis in April 2023 because its February 2023 exam did not diagnose it. A December 2023 VA exam did. The Board found every element met and granted service connection for chronic sinusitis under the PACT Act presumption. The location record and the diagnosis record each did separate work, and the claim stalled until both were in the file.
Build a location-and-date proof table
Copy one row for each deployment, temporary duty trip or ship assignment.
| Program and rule being checked | Location and dates the rule requires | Your actual location, including airspace or waters if relevant | Your dates there | Record and page | What the record proves | Gap or conflicting record |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Then add a separate medical row: the exact diagnosis in the clinician's record, its date, any test or pathology report, and current severity evidence. A symptom or screening result is not a diagnosis, so link the page where a clinician names the condition.
Fictional example: A veteran remembers a short stop in a country on VA's post-2001 list. The ILER history shows a broader theater but not that stop. Temporary duty orders and a travel voucher show the itinerary, and a later personnel entry gives a different month. The worksheet keeps both sources and the date conflict visible, with a note to ask VA to reconcile them, and a separate clinician's note documents a named respiratory diagnosis.
When the place or date is missing
Ask for the specific record that answers the gap, giving VA or the custodian the unit, the period and the record type. For federal records, including military records, VA must make as many requests as necessary until it concludes they do not exist or further efforts would be futile (38 C.F.R. 3.159(c)(2)). Keep copies of every request and response. If VA denied a burn pit condition before the PACT Act, see corrective reviews for burn pit denials. A VA toxic exposure screening is a health care visit, not a claim; file the claim through VA's disability application.
Claim Raven, which sells claim-preparation tools, offers the free one-document review on this page to read the place and dates on one record you already have.
Sources and scope
Checked September 23, 2026: VA's PACT Act page (updated June 2, 2026), Agent Orange locations page (updated September 16, 2025) and presumptive eligibility fact sheet (February 4, 2026); 38 C.F.R. 3.159, 3.309, 3.317 and 3.320 (eCFR, current through August 27, 2026); 38 U.S.C. 1119, 1168 and 1710(e)(4); M21-1, Part VIII, as reproduced on Claim Raven's M21-1 pages; the IRS combat zone tax exclusion page; and Board decisions A25094856, 1801977 and 23057012. The short-stop example is fictional. Condition lists live on the linked burn pit and Agent Orange guides; this page is about proving location.
Burn Pit Presumptive Conditions: PACT Act List and Records
VA Asthma Claim Denied: PACT Act Presumption, Direct, or Secondary?
The PACT Act Wave: How the VA Handled the Biggest Claims Surge in History