Download the form
DA Form 7404 handles one job: escort briefing checklist. The official title is ESCORT BRIEFING CHECKLIST. Download it below, fill it in, sign it, send it where your directive says. The edition on this page is May 1999, status not stated, running 1 page(s) with about 161 fields to complete.
DCS, G-1 is the proponent, PAM 638-2 the prescribing authority. Read the directive only if something about your situation departs from the standard case. Otherwise the form is filled by the individual it describes, or by the records clerk keeping the file, and reviewed through the printed signature blocks.
PDF, XFDL are available and the decision takes one second. Type your entries: fillable pdf. Write them: printable pdf. The published layout is common to both, so the format governs your method and nothing more.
A standalone reader is the safe choice for fillable work. Browser viewers vary in whether entered data survives the session, and there is no warning when it does not; a one-field save test settles it in seconds. Xfdl means IBM Lotus Forms. The Lotus Forms Viewer opens it; pdf readers and word processors do not.
Free, unregistered, unmodified. What arrives is what the publisher released.
What the form asks for
- ContentArea1
- DATE
- DATE_A
- FORMS
- FORMS_1
- FORMS_2
- FORMS_3
- INFORM
- INFORM_1
- INFORM_2
- INFORM_3
- INFORM_4
- INFORM_5
- INFORM_6
- INFORM_7
- INFORM_8
- INFORM_9
- OTHER
- OTHERA
- OTHERA_1
- OTHERA_10
- OTHERA_11
- OTHERA_2
- OTHERA_3
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.
Move between fields with tab; the build-time order follows the page and misses nothing. Click check boxes and option buttons, and expect an exclusive group to release the old choice when you set a new one. The trap is field width. Single-line fields do not wrap, so an overlong entry displays complete on screen and prints cut at the margin — put it in remarks or on a continuation instead. Mark inapplicable fields rather than leaving them blank, since an empty box carries no information about whether the question was read.
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.
The prescribing directive names the destination; office custom does not. Depending on the case that means a specific office, the unit administrative channel, or the personal record. Keep a copy first, because the original does not come back. Retention runs on the applicable records schedule.
Companion documents come from the same series and number scheme. Within the DA series, a shared proponent or a shared directive usually means shared use, and a form cited on the face of another accompanies it. Gather the whole package first — continuation sheets, cover sheets, transmittals.
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.
What is distributed here are reproductions of published Department of the Army documents. Independent site, no official standing, no forms of its own. Nothing on the page constitutes legal advice, and acceptance by any office is outside what can be stated. Put questions about entries, requirements or eligibility to DCS, G-1 or your servicing administrative office.
Questions and answers
- What is DA Form 7404?
- ESCORT BRIEFING CHECKLIST
- Which edition is current?
- May 1999
- Who is responsible for this form?
- DCS, G-1
- In which formats can it be downloaded?
- PDF, XFDL