Download the form
Use DA Form 4312-R when you need to retention control sheet (lra). Full title: RETENTION CONTROL SHEET (LRA). Everything you need is on this page — the file, the entry rules, the routing. Edition 10/01/1974, status ACTIVE, 1 page(s), roughly unknown fields. Note the supersession: a later edition exists, and this one applies only to records already completed on it.
Two references decide everything about your use of it: G-2 maintains the content, not stated sets the trigger and the routing. Consult the directive when your case is not routine; otherwise the printed blocks tell you enough. The person named in the entries fills it, or the administrative office holding the file does it for them.
Pick by how you will enter data: PDF on offer. Typing means fillable pdf, where the boxes accept keystrokes and hold them on save. Handwriting means printable pdf, a flat page image sent straight to a printer. Neither version changes what appears on the page.
Use a full pdf reader, not the browser viewer. Browser viewers display fields they cannot always save, and the loss shows up only when you reopen the file — type one entry, save, reopen, verify, then fill the rest.
No charge, no account, no email address. The file is the published document, distributed unaltered.
The heading entries carry more weight than the body. Name spelled as in official records, identification number, organisation, date prepared. Retrieval runs on those values, so a transposed digit or a casual spelling costs someone a file search. Fill them before anything else.
Tabbing beats clicking for coverage. The order was set at build time and tracks the page layout, so following it leaves no gaps. Boxes and buttons are clicked; where options are exclusive, one selection cancels another by design. Watch field width on long entries: one-line fields have no wrap, and what runs past the edge disappears in print though the screen still shows it. Move that text to remarks or a continuation. Never leave an inapplicable field empty — enter the nil mark, because a reviewer cannot distinguish a skipped question from a considered answer.
Signature comes after every other entry — ink or an approved electronic means, and without it the document is a draft. Where reviewing, approving or witnessing signatures are called for, take them in printed block order, each dated on the day applied. Before release, one pass from the top. The defects worth hunting are always the same four: mandatory fields left empty, identification digits transposed, dates with day and month reversed, and stale data surviving in a copy reused in place of a blank form.
Privacy Act statement first, personal entries second. The notice covers who is authorised to collect, why, who else routinely sees it, and whether you must answer. After completion the file carries personal data and is stored and sent under the corresponding safeguards.
Routing follows not stated and nothing else — a named office, the unit administrative channel, or the individual's file, according to why the form was raised. Copy it before it leaves. Retention is fixed by the records schedule for the series, which local practice does not shorten or extend.
Related forms are found by series and number. DA series documents under the same proponent or the same prescribing directive are commonly required as a set, and any form named on the face of this one goes forward with it. Assemble continuations, covers and transmittals before submitting, not after the query comes back.
A stored file goes stale silently. The proponent revises, a new edition date is published, and your copy says nothing about it — so compare the printed date against the edition in force before typing into it again. Completed submissions on an earlier edition are not reopened.
These are reproductions of published Department of the Army documents, offered for download. The site is independent, connected to nothing official, and issues no forms of its own. Nothing here is legal advice and no statement is made about acceptance by any office. Questions about an entry, a requirement or eligibility go to G-2 or your servicing administrative office.
Questions and answers
- What is DA Form 4312-R?
- RETENTION CONTROL SHEET (LRA)
- Which edition is current?
- 10/01/1974
- Who is responsible for this form?
- G-2
- In which formats can it be downloaded?
- PDF, PDF
Publisher notes
- 41-ITEM ALSO PRODUCED IN ELECTRONIC MEDIA