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Department of Defense form 261. Official designation: DD Form 261, Report of Investigation Line of Duty and Misconduct Status, October 1995. Purpose: Investigation, Report of - Line of Duty and Misconduct Status. Current edition not stated, status not stated.
Issued under not stated, with not stated as proponent. A DD number marks a Department-wide instrument: the same blank form serves every military department and the defense agencies, rather than one service alone.
Users include uniformed members of any branch, DoD civilian employees, contractor personnel where authorized, and the administrative staff who process the completed record.
Timing of submission is fixed by not stated and by the implementing guidance of the submitting organization. What follows describes the blank document, not agency procedure.
Formats offered: PDF. Length: 2 pages. Fillable field count: roughly 64.
Every listed format is free to download. Modern pdf software handles the pdf files, with the caveat that browser-embedded viewers sometimes ignore field properties that a desktop reader honours.
What the form asks for
- 1. Report date (4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day).
- 2. Investigation of: press space bar to mark X in first box if injury, second box if disease, third box if illness, or fourth box if death.
- 3. Status. X first box if regular or EAD, second box if called or ordered to AD, third box if inactive duty training, or fourth box if short tour of active duty for training.
- If called or ordered to active duty: X first box if more than 30 days, or second box if 30 days or less.
- 3.c. Type of inactive duty training.
- Hour.
- Finish date (4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day).
- Hour.
- 4. To (Major Army or Air Force Commander).
- 8. Organization and station.
- d. LOD investigation made: X first box if yes, second box if no.
- 9. Other military personnel involved in the same incident. a. Name (last, first, middle initial), line 1.
- b. Social security number.
- c. Grade.
- d. LOD investigation made: X first box if yes, second box if no.
- a. Name, line 2.
- b. Social security number.
- c. Grade.
- a. Name, line 3.
- b. Social security number.
- c. Grade.
- d. LOD investigation made: X first box if yes, second box if no.
- 10. Basis for findings (as determined by investigation). a. Circumstances. (1) Hour.
- (2) Date (4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day).
The document is filled from the top down. Identification precedes substance, substance precedes certification. Fields lower on the page are commonly keyed to entries made above them.
Edition in use: not stated. Because DD forms are revised at Department level and distributed to all services at once, an obsolete printing may not match the fields an office expects. The date is printed on the form face.
Signature is manual ink on printed copies and digital where the receiving system accepts it. A typed name in a signature field is a name, not a signature. Common Access Card credentials support digital signature in pdf where the form and the reader permit.
Where personal information is collected, a Privacy Act Statement appears on or with the form. It names the collection authority, the purpose, the routine uses of the data and the consequence of withholding it. Reading it precedes filling the form.
Recurring errors: entry on a superseded edition, blanks left in mandatory fields, illegible handwriting on scanned copies, dates in a format other than the one the form specifies, missing signature or missing date beside the signature.
Field-level instructions appear on the form itself and in not stated. The directive is the controlling text.
Once executed, routing follows not stated and the submitting organization's own instruction. Keeping a copy is standard.
Associated forms are traced by number within the series. Because the DD sequence is common to all military departments, no service qualifier is needed to identify a referenced form.
Where a DA form is cited alongside a DD form, the two belong to different systems: DA numbering is Army-specific and administered by an Army proponent, while DD numbering is Defense-wide under not stated or an equivalent Department office. Numbers do not translate between the systems.
Revision occurs when the prescribing directive is reissued, when the data collected changes, or when statutory notice language is amended. Verification of the edition date at download addresses all three.
Scope of this page: distribution of a published form and description of its contents. It offers no legal guidance and no assurance regarding any particular submission. Direct procedural questions to not stated, to the servicing personnel office, or to the office designated in not stated.
Questions and answers
- What is DD Form 261?
- DD Form 261, Report of Investigation Line of Duty and Misconduct Status, October 1995
- Which edition is current?
- Not stated by the publisher
- Who is responsible for this form?
- Not stated
- In which formats can it be downloaded?