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DA Form 638 is a Department of the Army form in the DA series. Title of record: RECOMMENDATION FOR AWARD. Function: recommendation for award. The edition presently published bears the date 04/01/2021, with a status of ACTIVE. Physical extent is 1 page(s) and about 200 fillable fields.
The office of primary responsibility is G-1. Use is prescribed by AR 600-8-22, 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. A more recent edition has been published. This edition is superseded; it remains available for reference and for files already executed against it.
Formats offered: PDF, XFDL, DOC. All are the same published layout in different containers, and the choice between them is a matter of how the entries will be made rather than what appears on the page. The pdf serves as the authoritative rendering. A fillable pdf exposes editable fields on screen; a printable pdf is the blank form as a flat page for handwriting.
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. A doc format is included. Being an editable word file, it lends itself to drafts and template work, but the layout is not fixed and may move as text is added. An xfdl file is available too. The format is IBM Lotus Forms, in use across Army form systems, and it opens only in the Lotus Forms Viewer.
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
- AA_APPRV
- AA_COMM
- AA_DATE
- AA_DISAP
- AA_FROM
- AA_NAME
- AA_RANK
- AA_TITLE
- AA_TO
- ACHVMNT_A
- ACHVMNT_B
- ACHVMNT_C
- ACHVMNT_D
- ADDRESS
- APPRVAWARD
- APPRV_DATE
- BRANCH
- BUTTON1
- BUTTON10
- BUTTON11
- BUTTON12
- BUTTON13
- BUTTON14
- BUTTON15
Completion follows the printed sequence of blocks from the top of the page downward. The heading area takes the identifying particulars — name, identification number, organisation, date of preparation. Retrieval of the record from a file depends on these entries, and they are therefore filled first.
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.
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.
Companion forms are traced by series and number. Within the DA series, documents sharing a proponent or a governing directive are frequently required together, and a form cited on the face of another is generally submitted alongside it. Continuation sheets, covers, and transmittal forms are part of that set and are assembled in advance of submission.
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.
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 638?
- RECOMMENDATION FOR AWARD
- Which edition is current?
- 04/01/2021
- Who is responsible for this form?
- G-1
- In which formats can it be downloaded?
- PDF, XFDL, DOC, PDF