Sources and methodology.

Source and claim standards

1. Prioritize the U.S. Code, Manual for Courts-Martial, official DoD instructions, agency materials, court decisions, CRS, GAO, and official congressional records.
2. Separate documented findings from policy arguments and open research questions. A source's availability alone does not establish a claim.
3. Record issuing organization, publication date when known, reference, and a verification date only after reviewing the relevant source. Unknown dates remain unverified, not invented.
4. Keep proposed statutory text traceable to the uploaded bill's section and page. The uploaded bill is a discussion draft, not a verified current-law baseline.
5. Compare like calendar years and components; distinguish report publication years, revised editions, confirmed and suspected cases. The 2,252 figure remains provisional.
6. Exposure estimates are not military-specific, unique-person counts, or evidence of equal grief or psychological harm.
7. Participation is voluntary. Intake remains closed until privacy, safeguarding, retention, secure handling, and spam controls are approved. No preview form sends or stores contact information.