Start here if you have been told to submit DD Form 838. First, know what you are filling: Criminal Jurisdiction by Foreign Tribunals Over U.S. Personnel, Exercise of. The document is titled DD Form 838, Exercise of Criminal Jurisdiction by Foreign Tribunals over U.S. Personnel, September 1978.
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.
Then settle the schedule. You are working under not stated, with not stated responsible for the document, and your organization layers its own deadlines on that. Ask before you assume a date.
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.
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.
Check the edition before you type a word. The date appears on the face of the form; it should read not stated. When it does not, discard the file and take a fresh copy from this page. Department-level revisions replace the blank across all services simultaneously, which means an old printout can be out of step everywhere.
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.
Finish with the certification. Print the form and sign in ink, or apply a digital signature with your CAC if the receiving office accepts one. Do not type your name in the signature box and consider it done; that is a name, not a signature. Date the block immediately after signing.
Then check your work against the usual failures: an obsolete edition, empty required boxes, handwriting nobody can read after scanning, wrong date format, missing signature or date.
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 200 fields.
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.
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
- Type of offense.
- Reporting office.
- Type of offense.
- Type of offense.
- Press this Reset button to clear the data from all fields.
With the form finished, route it to the office named in not stated or in your organization's own instruction. Keep a copy first. People rarely regret having one and frequently regret not having one.
When DD Form 838 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.
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 838?
- DD Form 838, Exercise of Criminal Jurisdiction by Foreign Tribunals over U.S. Personnel, September 1978
- Which edition is current?
- Not stated by the publisher
- Who is responsible for this form?
- Not stated
- In which formats can it be downloaded?