You have arrived looking for DD Form 1553. Before you download, confirm this is the right document: Entry for a Photography Contest. Full title: DD Form 1553, Entry for a Photography Contest, August 1983..
Then look at the edition date: not stated, publisher status not stated. After that, ask whether the form covers your situation. It almost certainly does regardless of your branch — DD forms run Department-wide rather than through a single service.
Once you know the form fits, find out when you file it. not stated sets the requirement, and not stated maintains the form itself. Your own command or agency adds local timing on top of that, so ask your administrative office if the deadline matters to you.
Last in this stage, choose your method: complete it on screen, or print the blank form and fill it out in pen. The sections below take each route step by step.
Start at the header. Complete your identification before anything else, then work through the main entries, then finish at the certification. Skipping around causes contradictions between the top of the form and the bottom.
Before your first entry, look at the corner of the page and compare the printed date with not stated. If they do not match, stop and download again. Old copies circulate in shared drives for years, and a DD form is revised centrally for every service at once, so a superseded blank may not carry the fields your reviewer expects.
For questions about a specific entry, check the form's own instructions, and if that does not settle it, open not stated. The directive controls where they differ.
Download the form
Begin by choosing a file. Available here: PDF. Plan for 2 pages and about 27 entries.
Take the pdf if you are unsure. Then check which kind you have: if the boxes highlight when you click them, you have a fillable pdf and can type straight into it, and your entries save with the file. If nothing highlights, you have a printable pdf — send it to a printer and use black ink.
Go with the typed route whenever the choice is yours. Consider what happens after you submit: the copy gets scanned, forwarded and filed, and each pass costs handwriting some legibility. Block letters help if you are stuck with a pen.
What the form asks for
- Armed service. Press space bar to mark X in first box if Army, second box if Navy, third box if Air Force.
- Military address (organization, unit, installation, base, ship, state, country, P O, A P O, etc.) (include zip code).
- Area code of home telephone number.
- Remaining numbers of home telephone number.
- Duty phone: commercial area code.
- Remaining numbers of commercial duty phone number.
- Permanent home address (include zip code). (If release from service is anticipated before December 31 of the contest year, give approximate date and mailing address).
- Section 1, Contestant information and authorization. Title of entry.
- Name of contestant (last, first, middle initial).
- Rank (by name, for example, Staff Sergeant).
- Social security number.
- Duty phone: DSN.
- Categories of competition. a. Mark X if military life.
- b. Mark X if people.
- c. Mark X if scenic/nature.
- d. Mark X if creative effects.
- Type of entry (group). 1. Mark X if Monochrome print.
- Mark X if Group 2, color print.
- Mark X if group 3, color transparency.
- Signature of contestant.
- Date (year, month, day).
- Signature of model.
- Address (street, city, state and zip code). (or "NA" if not applicable).
- Date (year, month, day).
Now that it is complete, send it where not stated or your local procedure says it goes. Before you do, make yourself a copy — scan it or save the file elsewhere. It costs you nothing and saves you the whole exercise if the original goes missing.
When DD Form 1553 references another form, search on the series and number. Because DD numbers are common to every military department, the number by itself identifies exactly one document.
Watch out for one trap here. If your instructions cite a DA form as well, do not assume the numbers are connected. DA numbering belongs to the Army alone; DD numbering belongs to the Department and is administered by not stated or another Department office. The same number in each system means two unrelated forms, so read the prefix before you download.
Come back and check the edition next time you need this form. Editions change when the prescribing directive is reissued, when the information collected changes, or when the required notice language is updated, and none of those events reaches you directly. Verifying not stated at the moment you download is the whole defence.
Before you go, note what is not covered here. You have the blank form and instructions for completing it; you do not have legal guidance, and no statement on this page determines what any office will do with your submission. Direct those questions to not stated, to the personnel office that serves you, or to the office designated in not stated.
Questions and answers
- What is DD Form 1553?
- DD Form 1553, Entry for a Photography Contest, August 1983.
- Which edition is current?
- Not stated by the publisher
- Who is responsible for this form?
- Not stated
- In which formats can it be downloaded?