What This Field Means
Whether the organization was standing, provisional, temporary, task-organized, or known only for a particular historical period.
This describes whether the organization was intended to endure, existed provisionally, was assembled for a task, or is known only within a historical period. It prevents temporary and standing organizations from being treated as though they had the same constitutional life.
How to Read It Correctly
Permanence is not Current Status. A temporary organization can be current, and a permanent organization can be historical or inactive; the fields answer different questions.
Example
Permanent; Temporary task-organized; Historical source-period organization.
Technical Specification
The database column is [USMIL-Unit].[Unit].[UnitPermanence]. Evidence-derived statement about duration and constitutional continuity. It is not a simple current-status field and presently contains narrative variants.
Use a statement supported by orders, rosters, histories, or other retained evidence. Do not infer permanence solely from how long a name appears or from whether the organization still exists today.
| Property | Definition or current value |
|---|---|
| Database column | UnitPermanence |
| Column order | 6 |
| SQL data type | nvarchar(64) |
| Kind of information | Evidence-derived text |
| Cardinality | One stored value per Unit row. |
| Required | Yes |
| Database default | No database default |
| Key or relationship | None |
| Database check constraint | ([CurrentStatus]=N'Planned' OR [CurrentStatus]=N'Status unknown' OR [CurrentStatus]=N'Historical' OR [CurrentStatus]=N'Inactive' OR [CurrentStatus]=N'Current') |
| Live population | 9341 of 9341 Unit records (100%) |
| Distinct nonblank values in the live table | 304 |
| Live profile measured | September 2, 2026, 20:43 UTC |
Allowed Values and Definitions
No preset menu applies to this field. It stores an identifier, relationship, measurement, date, timestamp, or evidence-derived narrative. Valid content is governed by the SQL type, key relationship, nullability, retained evidence, and the field-specific recording rule above. A list of observed contents would be data, not a list of allowed options.
Missing, Unknown, and Conflicting Information
This column cannot be NULL in the Unit table. When the underlying fact is incomplete, the record must use an allowed explicit disposition or a supported evidence-derived statement. Required storage does not mean that every historical fact is known, and it never authorizes a guessed value.
Connections to Other Fields
- Current Status — Whether the unit is currently operating, belongs to history, was formally inactivated, is planned, or has an unresolved present status.
- Constitution Status — What is known about how the unit was constituted, organized, activated, commissioned, or otherwise formally brought into being.
- Activation or Commission Date — The documented date the unit was activated or a ship or cutter command was commissioned.
- Inactivation or Decommission Date — The documented date the unit was inactivated or a commissioned command ended.
- Operational Context — The operation, campaign, exercise, contingency, or standing plan in which a command relationship or unit activity applies.