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DA Form 4657 belongs to the DA series of Department of the Army publications. Its official title is STATEMENT OF RETIREMENT - ELIGIBLE SOLDIER - REMAINING SERVICE OBLIGATION, and its stated purpose is statement of retirement - eligible soldier - remaining service obligation. Edition in force: August 2010. Publication status: not stated. Length is 1 page(s), with roughly 72 fields available for entry.
Responsibility for content and revision lies with DCS, G-1. The prescribing directive is AR 635-200, 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.
Every format is available at no charge and without sign-up. Files are distributed exactly as published, with no changes to the page.
What the form asks for
- Branch
- ContentArea1
- CurrSrv_A
- CurrSrv_B
- CurrSrv_C
- CurrSrv_D
- Date_A
- Date_B
- Date_C
- Date_D
- Grade_A
- Grade_B
- Name_A
- Name_B
- Page1
- R58
- R59
- R60
- R61
- R62
- R63
- R64
- R65
- R66
The blocks are worked through in the order they appear on the sheet. At the head sit the identifying entries: name, identification number, unit, date. Because the filed record is indexed on these, they precede everything substantive.
Typed entry is made straight into the interactive fields. The tab key moves through them in the order set at build time, generally matching the reading order of the page. Boxes and buttons respond to a click; in an exclusive group, one selection cancels the others. Single-line fields do not wrap, and anything longer than the field width prints cut off although it may still display in full on screen. Extended text goes to remarks or a continuation sheet rather than into a narrow box.
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.
A Privacy Act statement appears on the form where personal information is collected. It sets out the authority for collection, the purpose, the routine uses, and whether disclosure is mandatory or voluntary. The statement is read before entry, not after. Completed copies carry personal data and are handled and stored under the safeguards applicable to that data.
Disposition of the completed document follows the prescribing authority — delivery to the office it names, transmission through the unit administrative channel, or placement in the individual's record, according to circumstance. The preparer keeps a copy. Retention is governed by the applicable records schedule, not by office custom.
Related forms are found by series and number. Documents in the DA series sharing a proponent or a prescribing directive commonly travel together, and a form referenced within the body of another is usually filed with it. Continuation sheets, cover sheets, and transmittal documents belong to this group and are collected before submission rather than after.
An edition stands until the proponent issues a revision. The printed edition date identifies the version, and a copy held locally is checked against the edition now in force before reuse. Prior executions under a superseded edition are not reopened for that reason.
The documents on this page are reproductions of published Department of the Army forms, offered for download. This is an independent site with no connection to the Department of the Army and no authority to issue forms. Nothing stated is legal advice, and no assurance is given regarding acceptance by any office. Doubts about a specific entry, requirement, or eligibility are resolved by the proponent or by the servicing administrative office.
Questions and answers
- What is DA Form 4657?
- STATEMENT OF RETIREMENT - ELIGIBLE SOLDIER - REMAINING SERVICE OBLIGATION
- Which edition is current?
- August 2010
- Who is responsible for this form?
- DCS, G-1
- In which formats can it be downloaded?
- PDF, XFDL