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DA Form 3881 belongs to the DA series of Department of the Army publications. Its official title is RIGHTS WARNING PROCEDURE/WAIVER CERTIFICATE, and its stated purpose is rights warning procedure/waiver certificate. Edition in force: 11/01/1989. Publication status: ACTIVE. Length is 2 page(s), with roughly 171 fields available for entry.
Responsibility for content and revision lies with PMG. The prescribing directive is AR 190-30, PAM 27-162, which sets both the trigger for use and the disposition of the completed document. Entry is made by the named party or by the records clerk holding the file, with review and signature applied in the prescribed order.
Available formats: PDF, XFDL. Each is a rendering of the same official layout; the content is identical across them and only the means of completion differs. The pdf is the reference copy. Fillable pdf carries interactive form fields; a printable pdf is the same page image without them, intended for pen entry after printing.
Any modern browser or reader will display a pdf. Interactive fields behave more predictably in a standalone reader than in an in-browser viewer, which sometimes shows fields it cannot store. An xfdl copy is published as well. It is IBM Lotus Forms, the format carried by several Army systems, and it needs the Lotus Forms Viewer; pdf readers and word processors will not open it.
Download of every format is free and requires no account. Files are served as published, without alteration to the page image.
What the form asks for
- ACCUSED
- B1_NAME
- B1_ORGAN
- B2_NAME
- B2_ORGAN
- B_INVEST
- B_ORGAN
- COMMENT
- COMMENT_B
- ContentArea1
- ContentArea2
- DATE
- FILE_NO
- GRADE
- L103
- L104
- L106
- L107
- L108
- L109
- L111
- L115
- L117
- L118
Entry proceeds block by block in the order printed on the page. Identifying particulars occupy the head of the form: name, identification number, unit or organisation, and date of preparation. These fields govern how the record is later retrieved from the file, so they are completed before any substantive block.
Fillable fields accept typing directly. Tab advances from one field to the next in the order the form was built, which is normally the reading order of the page. Check boxes and option buttons are clicked; where a set of options is exclusive, selecting one clears the rest. Fields sized for a single line will not wrap, and text exceeding the width is truncated in print even where it remains visible on screen. Long entries belong in the remarks area or on a continuation, not compressed into a narrow field.
The signature block is the final entry, made by hand or by an authorised electronic method, and without it the document remains a draft. Countersignatures — review, approval, witness — are added in the sequence printed, dated at the moment of signing and not at preparation. Empty mandatory fields lead the list of defects; an inapplicable field is annotated as such, not passed over. Behind it come digit transposition in identification numbers, day-month inversion in dates, and residual entries surviving from a reused copy in place of a blank form.
Forms that collect personal information bear a Privacy Act statement covering authority, purpose, routine uses, and whether the disclosure is required or optional. Reading it precedes completion. Once filled, the document contains personal data and is subject to the handling and storage rules that attach to such records.
Once completed, the form goes where the governing authority directs: to the designated office, along the unit administrative channel, or into the personal file. The preparer retains a copy. The length of retention and the manner of filing are set by the records schedule for the series, not by local arrangement.
Associated documents are located through the series and number scheme. Forms in the DA series with the same proponent or the same prescribing directive tend to be used as a set, and any form named on the face of another normally accompanies it. Continuations, cover sheets, and transmittals fall into this category and are gathered before the package is sent.
Editions are replaced when the proponent revises the content. The edition date printed on the form is the means of telling one version from another, and the date on a downloaded copy is checked against the edition in force before use. Records already executed on a prior edition are not reworked on that account.
The files here are reproductions of published Department of the Army documents, provided for download. This site is not part of the Department of the Army and issues no forms of its own. Nothing on this page is legal advice, and no representation is made as to acceptance of a document by any office. Where an entry, a requirement, or a question of eligibility is in doubt, the proponent or the servicing administrative office answers it.
Questions and answers
- What is DA Form 3881?
- RIGHTS WARNING PROCEDURE/WAIVER CERTIFICATE
- Which edition is current?
- 11/01/1989
- Who is responsible for this form?
- PMG
- In which formats can it be downloaded?
- PDF, XFDL, PDF
Publisher notes
- 14-REQUIRES PRIVACY ACT STATEMENT (AR 340-21)
- 42-ITEM ONLY PRODUCED IN ELECTRONIC MEDIA,