You need DD Form 3, and this page gives you the blank plus the steps for handling it. Start with what the form does: Application for Gold Star Lapel Button. Its official title is Application for Gold Star Lapel Button.
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.
After that, turn to timing. The requirement comes from not stated; the form is maintained by not stated. Local implementing instructions fill in the dates, so check with the office that will receive your copy.
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.
Now fill it in. Work from the top of the page downward, and do not jump ahead — the identifying block comes first, the substance of your entry second, the certification last. Later boxes often depend on what you put at the top.
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 Old copies circulate in shared drives for years, and a DD form is revised centrally for every service at once, so a superseded blank may not carry the fields your reviewer expects.
If a particular field puzzles you, read the instructions printed on the form first, then go to not stated. When the two disagree, follow the directive.
Download the form
First, look at what you can download. The set covers PDF, the form runs 1 pages, and you will complete roughly 30 fields.
Download the pdf first. After it opens, test a field with your cursor. Fillable means you type, tab to the next box, and save your work inside the file. Printable means the page is a flat blank, so print it and write your answers in ink.
Type when you can. Printed entries stay legible after the form is scanned, copied and forwarded, and handwriting often does not survive that trip. If you must write by hand, use block capitals and press firmly.
What the form asks for
- AirForce
- Army
- CheckBox1
- CheckSub
- CoastGuard
- CurrentPage
- DateField1
- Draft
- Footer
- FormNumber_Date
- Frame
- MarineCorps
- Navy
- Page1
- PageCount
- Pages
- Sample
- SecessionNotice
- SignatureField1
- Text1
- Text2
- Text3
- Text4
- TextField1
Submit the completed form through the channel not stated or your local guidance specifies. Save a copy for yourself before it leaves your hands, whether that means a scan, a photograph or a duplicate file.
If the form points you to another document, you can find it by number alone. DD numbering runs across the whole Department, so you do not need to work out which service issued it — one number, one form, everywhere.
Here is where people go wrong. They see a number in an instruction and download whichever form matches it. But DA and DD are separate systems — Army-specific in one case, Department-wide under not stated in the other — so check which series you were sent to before you take the file.
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.
Finally, understand the limits of what you have read. This page distributes a published Department of Defense form and describes how to fill it out. It does not give legal or procedural advice, and it cannot promise any outcome for your particular case. For that, contact not stated, your administrative office, or the authority identified in not stated.
Questions and answers
- What is DD Form 3?
- Application for Gold Star Lapel Button
- Which edition is current?
- Not stated by the publisher
- Who is responsible for this form?
- Not stated
- In which formats can it be downloaded?