You have arrived looking for DD Form 261. Before you download, confirm this is the right document: Investigation, Report of - Line of Duty and Misconduct Status. Full title: DD Form 261, Report of Investigation Line of Duty and Misconduct Status, October 1995.
Your second step is the edition, not stated, listed as not stated. Your third is scope. Because the number carries a DD prefix, you use the same blank as every other military department and defense agency; no service-specific version exists for you to hunt down.
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.
Before you download, pick your approach — editable file or printed page. What follows covers the formats first, then the entries, then what you do afterward.
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 Old copies circulate in shared drives for years, and a DD form is revised centrally for every service at once, so a superseded blank may not carry the fields your reviewer expects.
Fill every box as you come to it. If an item does not apply, enter N/A — an empty field looks like an oversight, and the form comes back to you. Watch the date fields especially: use the format the form specifies, not your habitual one.
When you reach a Privacy Act Statement, read it before you continue. It tells you the legal authority for collecting your information, what the Department does with it, who else may see it, and whether you have to answer at all. That last point is worth knowing before you supply personal identifiers, not after.
Sign only after every other entry is complete. Use ink on a printed copy, or a credentialed digital signature — CAC-based, in a reader that handles it — on an electronic one. A typed name satisfies neither method. Enter the date next to it before you close the file.
Review before you submit. Look for a superseded edition, blank mandatory fields, illegible writing, dates in the wrong format, and an unsigned or undated certification.
Look up an unclear item on the form face before anywhere else, then in not stated. Should the two texts conflict, the directive is the one you follow.
Download the form
Begin by choosing a file. Available here: PDF. Plan for 2 pages and about 64 entries.
Check your software before choosing xfdl. That format belongs to IBM Lotus Forms, long used for Defense form distribution, and it needs the matching viewer. Get the viewer installed, then come back for the file.
All of it downloads free. When you are ready to work, do this: save the file locally, then open it in a full pdf application. Browsers often ignore field properties, and you can lose everything you typed.
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).
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 261 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.
Be careful when a procedure pairs this form with a service form. Read the prefix, not just the digits. Service forms answer to a service proponent, while DD forms answer to not stated or an equivalent Department office, and the two sequences were never aligned. Grabbing the wrong prefix gets you a form that has nothing to do with your task.
Plan to repeat this step whenever the form comes up again. Revisions follow directive changes, changes in what data is collected, and updates to notice language. Since nobody notifies you, check not stated at download and you have covered it.
One thing this page does not do: tell you whether your submission will be accepted. We publish the document and explain how to complete it, and that is where our role ends. Nothing here is legal advice. Take questions about eligibility, applicability or procedure to not stated, to your servicing personnel office, or to the office named 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?