SPRINGFIELD – The government shutdown has stopped the National Archives from fulfilling requests from veterans and their families for copies of discharge paperwork.

The discharge form — called the DD-214 — is the key that unlocks veterans benefits from health care to housing and — in the case of recently deceased veterans — burial at Massachusetts Veterans Memorial Cemetery at Agawam, said Gumersindo Gomez, executive director of Bilingual Veterans Outreach Centers of Massachusetts. Workers at the centers usually rely on the National Archives in St. Louis to replace the DD-214 when a veteran or a family needs one but the documents cannot be located.

“I can’t do anything,” said Gomez, known as “Sarge,” who founded in 1987 the organization that would become the Bilingual Veterans. “Ju

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