Start here if you have been told to submit DD Form 804-2. First, know what you are filling: Officer Recruiting Manpower Data. The document is titled DD Form 804-2, Officer Recruiting Manpower Data, Jun 2000.
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.
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.
Begin at the top and move down. Enter your identifying data first, then the body of the form, then the signature block. The sequence is printed in that order because entries below frequently follow from entries above.
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 Old copies circulate in shared drives for years, and a DD form is revised centrally for every service at once, so a superseded blank may not carry the fields your reviewer expects.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 1 pages and about 200 entries.
Choose pdf as your default. Next, click inside a box. A fillable pdf responds by outlining the field and letting you type; the text stays in the document when you save it. A printable pdf does not respond, which tells you to print the page and complete it by hand.
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.
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.
Whichever you pick, you pay nothing — every format here is a free download. One last tip: open your pdf in a desktop reader rather than in a browser tab, because browser viewers sometimes drop the interactive fields you need.
What the form asks for
- A. Component.
- B. Date reported (4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day, no dividers).
- C. Fiscal years reported. From:
- Fiscal year to:
- Actuals: fiscal year.
- Appropriated (enlisted): fiscal year.
- Authorization: fiscal year.
- President's budget: fiscal year.
- President's budget: fiscal year.
- 1. Headquarters. a. Officer. Actual fiscal year. (1) End strength.
- (2) Work years.
- (3) Dollar amount (in thousands) without retirement.
- (4) Dollar amount with retirement.
- Appropriated (5) End strength.
- (6) Work years.
- (7) Dollar amount without retirement.
- (8) Dollar amount with retirement.
- Authorized: (9) End strength.
- (10) Work years.
- (11) Dollar amount without retirement.
- (12) Dollar amount with retirement.
- First President's budget year: (13) End strength.
- (14) Work years.
- (15) Dollar amount without retirement.
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.
When DD Form 804-2 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 804-2?
- DD Form 804-2, Officer Recruiting Manpower Data, Jun 2000
- Which edition is current?
- Not stated by the publisher
- Who is responsible for this form?
- Not stated
- In which formats can it be downloaded?