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DA Form 4873 is a Department of the Army form in the DA series. Title of record: CERTIFICATE OF APPOINTMENT TO COMMAND SERGEANT MAJOR. Function: certificate of appointment to command sergeant major. The edition presently published bears the date 01/01/2000, with a status of ACTIVE. Physical extent is unknown page(s) and about unknown fillable fields.
The office of primary responsibility is G-1. Use is prescribed by AR 614-200, which defines when the form is raised and where it goes afterward. The form is normally completed by the subject of the entries or by administrative personnel maintaining the record, then reviewed and signed as the governing authority directs.
Distributed formats: none published here. The layout is common to all of them; what varies is the method of entry. The pdf is the reference version. In the fillable pdf the entry areas are live objects that accept typing; in the printable version the same areas are inert and are filled by hand after printing.
The pdf displays in current browsers and in any reader application. For fillable use a full reader is preferable to a browser viewer, since viewers vary in whether entered data is retained.
Every format is available at no charge and without sign-up. Files are distributed exactly as published, with no changes to the page.
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.
Interactive fields are filled by typing into them. Movement between fields is by tab, following the order established when the form was constructed, which usually tracks the page layout. Check boxes and radio groups are set by clicking, and exclusive groups permit one selection at a time. A one-line field has no wrap: text beyond its width prints truncated even when the screen shows it. Overlong content is placed in remarks or on a continuation, not forced into the field.
The signature block is completed last and by hand or by an accepted electronic means. An unsigned form is a draft. Where a second signature is called for — reviewing official, approving authority, witness — each is applied in the order the blocks appear and dated as of application, not as of preparation. Blank mandatory fields are the most frequent defect; a nil entry is marked as such rather than left empty. Other recurring faults: transposed digits in identification numbers, dates in the wrong order of day and month, and stale copies retaining prior data because a working file was reused instead of a fresh 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.
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.
Revision by the proponent supersedes an edition. Version is read from the edition date printed on the form itself, and a stored copy is compared against the current edition before it is used again. Documents already executed under an earlier edition are not redone because of the change.
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Questions and answers
- What is DA Form 4873?
- CERTIFICATE OF APPOINTMENT TO COMMAND SERGEANT MAJOR
- Which edition is current?
- 01/01/2000
- Who is responsible for this form?
- G-1
- In which formats can it be downloaded?
- No file published here