You need DA Form 3950, and this page gets you to the file and through it. Start with what the form is: FLOWSHEET FOR VITAL SIGNS AND OTHER PARAMETERS, used to FLOWSHEET FOR VITAL SIGNS AND OTHER PARAMETERS. Check next that you have the right version — the edition dated 06/02/1991 is the one published here, and its status is ACTIVE. Then look at the size before you begin, because unknown page(s) and roughly unknown fields tell you how long this will take.
Now decide who does the writing. Normally you enter your own particulars, then hand the sheet to the unit administrative office for review. If you work in that office, you enter what the individual brings you. From there the path is the same for everyone: TSG is responsible for the form, and AR 40-66 tells you what triggers it and where it ends up. Look at the directive first whenever your case departs from the ordinary.
Start at the top of the page and work down. The heading blocks come first: write your name as it appears on your official records, then your identification number, then your unit or organisation, then the date you are preparing the form. Do not skip ahead to the interesting parts and come back — these heading entries are how your form is found in the file afterwards, and a form filed under a misspelled name is a form nobody can locate.
Now for the body. Use tab to advance through the fields; the order was set when the form was built and following it keeps you from leaving gaps. Check boxes and option buttons take a click. Where the options are mutually exclusive, choosing one will clear another, which is how the group is meant to behave. As you type longer entries, watch the field edge. One-line fields do not wrap, and anything past the edge prints missing even when you can still read it on screen — when that happens, put the text in remarks or on a continuation sheet. Leave nothing blank because it does not apply; enter the mark that means it does not apply, so the reviewer knows you read the question.
Leave the signature until everything else is done. Sign by hand or by an approved electronic means, and remember that a form without a signature is a draft, however complete the entries. Where a second and third signature are required — reviewing official, approving authority, witness — go in the order the blocks appear, and each signer dates the form on the day of signing. Then go back to the top and read what you wrote. Look first for a mandatory field you passed over, then for transposed digits in your identification number, then for a date with the day and month inverted. If you started from a file you had used before, look also for entries left from that earlier use; nothing removes them but you.
At some point while filling the form you will meet a Privacy Act statement, and you should read it when you reach it rather than after you finish. It tells you who is authorised to collect the information, what it will be used for, who else may see it, and whether you are obliged to answer or may decline. Once you have entered your details, treat the file accordingly: it now holds personal information about you, so store it and send it the way your office handles such records.
Download the form
Now pick your file. You have PDF to choose from, and the choice depends on one thing: whether you will type the entries or write them by hand. Choose the fillable pdf when you want to type, tab between fields and keep a clean copy on your computer. Choose the printable pdf when you intend to print the blank first and write on paper. The pages look identical either way, so you are not giving anything up by picking the wrong one — you are only choosing how you work.
After you download, open the file the right way. Double-click a pdf and your browser may take it, which is fine for reading but risky for filling: some browser viewers show you the fields, let you type, and then lose the text when you close the tab. Save the file to your computer first, then open it in a full pdf reader, and check that your entries survive a save before you type the whole form.
One last point before you move on: every format is free. No registration stands between you and the file, and what you download is the published form, unaltered.
Once you have signed, route the form. The prescribing directive names the destination: an office, your unit administrative channel, or your personal file, according to the case. Make yourself a copy first, because you will not get the original back. After that, retention is out of your hands — the applicable records schedule fixes how long the document is kept, whatever the practice in a particular office.
When another document has to travel with this one, find it by series and number. Forms in the DA series sharing a proponent or a governing directive are commonly used in combination, and anything cited on the face of your form generally goes with it. Assemble continuation sheets, covers and transmittals before you send the package rather than in response to a query.
The next time you open this form from your own files, check the edition date first. Revisions come from the proponent without warning to you, so the only reliable step is to hold your copy against the current edition before filling it in again. Records you already completed under a superseded edition stand, and you do not go back to rework them.
Read this before you go. The file you download is a reproduction of a published Department of the Army document, offered as it was published. We are an independent site with no connection to the Department of the Army and no authority to issue anything, and we make no statement about whether your completed form will be accepted anywhere. Treat what you read here as information, not legal advice. Take real questions — about an entry, a requirement, or your eligibility — to TSG or to your servicing administrative office.
Questions and answers
- What is DA Form 3950?
- FLOWSHEET FOR VITAL SIGNS AND OTHER PARAMETERS
- Which edition is current?
- 06/02/1991
- Who is responsible for this form?
- TSG
- In which formats can it be downloaded?