Download the form
DD Form 1797 is a Department of Defense form, not a service form: DD Form 1797, Personal Property Counseling Checklist, September 1998, used to Personal Property Counseling Checklist. The DD prefix is the operative fact. It means one blank serves every military department — Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Space Force, Coast Guard under Defense jurisdiction — plus the defense agencies and combatant commands. No branch variant exists.
Authority: not stated prescribes it, not stated maintains it. Those two names settle most disputes about why the form is being asked for. Local commands add timing on top; the requirement itself comes from above them.
Edition not stated, status not stated. That comparison is the first thing worth making, because a DD form supersedes centrally and an old copy in a shared drive is out of date for every office, not just yours.
Formats: PDF. Length 2 pages, approximately 106 entries.
Skip xfdl unless the viewer is already installed. It is the IBM Lotus Forms format, adopted Department-wide for electronic forms and still present in the set for that reason; ordinary pdf software reports it as unreadable.
All formats are free. One operational note: save the file locally and open it in a desktop reader. Browser-embedded viewers drop field properties and lose typed data without warning.
What the form asks for
- 7 Checklist, Part I Household Goods. 1. Mark X for entitlements under the order described above (number of shipments, authorized destination, et cetera)
- 2. Mark X for weight allowances.
- Weight allowance for P. C. S.
- Weight allowance for T. D. Y.
- 3. Mark X for weight restriction at new duty station, if any
- 4. Mark X for member's responsibility to reimburse the Government for any excess costs occasioned by this shipment or shipments
- 5. Mark X for pickup date and required delivery date as determined by requirements of the member.
- Pickup date.
- Required delivery date.
- 6. Mark X for mode or method of shipment, including name of carrier if known
- 7. Mark X for unauthorized items and disposal of useless items
- 8. Mark X for professional books, papers, and equipment
- 9. Mark X for member's responsibility to prepare and submit a complete DD form 1701, Inventory of Household Goods
- 10. Mark X for servicing or deservicing appliances
- 11. Mark X. for temporary storage, contractual or in transit
- 12. Mark X for checking inventory at origin and destination, noting discrepancies on reverse of P. P. G. B. L.., D D Form 619, and carrier's inventory prior to signing
- 13. Mark X for checking DD form 619 prepared by carrier at origin for complete accuracy of information recorded thereon
- 14. Mark X for member's responsibility to sign delivery documents and release them to carrier immediately upon delivery of property and completion of delivery services and annotation of discrepancies
- 15. Mark X for member's responsibility to contact the destination I. T. O. immediately upon arrival to give a point of contact for the I. T. O. when property arrives
- 16. Mark X for member's responsibility to contact origin and destination I. T. O. if there is any change in orders or there are other factors that could affect delivery of the shipment
- 17. Mark X. for extra pickup or delivery charges, when applicable
- 18. Mark X for procedure to designate agent to release property or accept property in absence of member and use of Power of Attorney or informal letter of authority
- 19. Mark X for what documentation given to member and its importance to him
- 20. Mark X for member's responsibility to complete and turn in quality control form
Verify the edition before the first keystroke. The date on the form face should read not stated. If it does not, discard the file. Field numbering shifts between editions, and on a DD form the new layout reaches every receiving office in every service at once — there is no lag during which the old version is still normal somewhere.
For anything ambiguous in a specific field, the form's own instructions come first and not stated controls where the two differ.
Route it where not stated or local procedure directs, and keep a copy first. On a Department form the receiving office is frequently outside your own chain — another service, a defense agency, a joint command — which makes recovering a lost original slower than it would be internally.
Look up cross-referenced forms by series and number. DD numbering is unified across the Department, which removes the usual step of identifying which service issued the thing.
Prefix before number. A DA citation and a DD citation in the same instruction point at separate systems — one Army, administered by an Army proponent, one Department-wide under not stated — and there is no correspondence between them at any number.
Editions change when the prescribing directive is reissued, when the data collected changes, or when notice language is amended. None of that reaches you. Checking not stated at download is the entire defence, and it is cheaper than repeating a submission.
This page publishes a Defense document and explains its contents. It does not advise, does not rule on applicability, and determines nothing about how a completed form will be treated. Direct such questions to not stated, to the servicing personnel office, or to the office designated in not stated.
Questions and answers
- What is DD Form 1797?
- DD Form 1797, Personal Property Counseling Checklist, September 1998
- Which edition is current?
- Not stated by the publisher
- Who is responsible for this form?
- Not stated
- In which formats can it be downloaded?