---
kind: "section"
citation: "10 U.S.C. § 1041"
title: "10"
title_heading: "Armed Forces"
number: "1041"
heading: "Replacement of certificate of discharge"
release: "119-102"
date: "2026-07-12"
url: "https://uscodex.org/usc/10/1041"
units:
  - "Subtitle A — General Military Law"
  - "Part II — Personnel"
  - "Chapter 53 — Miscellaneous Rights and Benefits"
---

# §1041. Replacement of certificate of discharge


If satisfactory proof is presented that a [person](/usc/10/2700.md?p=2) who was discharged honorably or under honorable conditions has lost his certificate of discharge from an armed force or that it was destroyed without his [procurement](/usc/10/3011.md?p=1) or connivance, the [Secretary concerned](/usc/10/2801.md?p=c-5) may give that [person](/usc/10/2700.md?p=2), or his surviving [spouse](/usc/10/101.md?p=g-5), a certificate of that discharge, indelibly marked to show that it is a certificate in place of the lost or destroyed certificate. A certificate given under this section may not be accepted as a voucher for the payment of a claim against the [United States](/usc/10/101.md?p=a-1) for [pay](/usc/10/101.md?p=a-15), bounty, or other allowance, or as evidence in any other case.


## Source credit

(Added Pub. L. 90–235, § 7(a)(2)(A), Jan. 2, 1968, 81 Stat. 762, § 1040; renumbered § 1041, Pub. L. 96–513, title V, § 511(33)(A), Dec. 12, 1980, 94 Stat. 2922.)