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DD Form 397 — a Department of Defense document. Title of record: DD Form 397, " Claim Certification and Voucher for Death Gratuity Payment ". Stated purpose: Claim Certification and Voucher for Death Gratuity Payment. Edition date not stated; status not stated.
Governing directive: not stated. Responsible office: not stated. The DD designation signals joint scope — all military departments, combatant commands and defense agencies draw on a single edition of the document.
Common users: service members regardless of branch, Defense civilian staff, and the offices that file, verify or retain the finished document.
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: 1 pages. Fillable field count: roughly 92.
All formats download free of charge. Pdf files open in any modern reader; interactive fields behave most predictably in a desktop application, less so in browser viewers.
What the form asks for
- ACCOUNT
- AMOUNT
- Add_Delete_Unions
- Add_RowUnions
- BENEFICIARY
- BURVOUCHER
- CERTOFPAYEE
- CERTOFWITNESSES
- CHECKDRAWN
- CHECKNUMBER
- CHILDREN
- Cell1
- Cell2
- Cell3
- CurrentPage
- DATE
- DATEOFCHECK
- DEATH
- DOVOUCHER
- DUE
- Delete_RowUnions
- Footer
- FormNumber_Date
- Frame
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.
The current edition is not stated. Superseded editions of DD forms are frequently rejected at the receiving office, since Department-wide forms change centrally and older layouts lose their field correspondence. Edition date appears in the lower corner of the printed blank.
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.
Frequent defects: obsolete edition, unfilled required boxes, handwriting that fails on reproduction, non-conforming date format, and certification without a corresponding date.
Instructions printed on the form or in not stated govern individual field entries. Where the two differ, the governing publication controls.
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.
A DD number and a DA number may appear in the same instruction without being related. DA forms belong to the Army alone; DD forms belong to the Department and are administered at Department level. The sequences are independent.
Editions change because the underlying directive changes, because collection requirements are revised, or because Privacy Act language is updated. Checking the edition date at the point of download is the practical response.
The material here is descriptive. Nothing on the page constitutes legal or procedural advice, and no statement here determines whether a submitted form will be accepted. Such questions go to not stated, a servicing administrative office, or the authority identified in not stated.
Questions and answers
- What is DD Form 397?
- DD Form 397, " Claim Certification and Voucher for Death Gratuity Payment "
- Which edition is current?
- Not stated by the publisher
- Who is responsible for this form?
- Not stated
- In which formats can it be downloaded?