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The scope here is Department-wide. DD Form 1839 — DD Form 1839, Baggage Identification, September 1980 — exists to Baggage Identification, and it applies across the services rather than inside one. That is what the DD prefix encodes: joint issue, single edition, every branch and defense agency working from identical paper.
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.
Current edition is not stated, carried as not stated. Check that against any copy you already hold before doing anything else — Department-level revisions land everywhere simultaneously, so a stale file is stale across the whole Department.
The set is PDF. Size: 1 pages, about 4 fields.
Nothing costs anything here. Work in a full desktop pdf application rather than a browser preview; field behaviour in browsers is unreliable.
What the form asks for
- Press this Reset button to clear the data from all fields.
- Name: last, first, middle initial.
- Street address. Home or unit/APO.
- City, state, and zip code.
Edition check comes first, ahead of any entry. Compare the printed date to not stated and replace anything older. Department-level supersession is simultaneous across the services, so a superseded blank is not merely out of date locally; the office receiving it is already working from the new field structure whichever branch it belongs to.
Fill top to bottom. Identification, then substance, then certification — lower fields commonly derive from the header, and completing out of order produces internal contradictions a reviewer will catch.
Mark inapplicable items N/A rather than leaving white space. Use the date format the form specifies. This matters more on Department forms than on service forms: the record may be reviewed by personnel outside your branch who share none of your office conventions.
Privacy Act Statement first, personal entries second. It names the authority for the collection, what the data is for, who else routinely sees it, and whether you have to answer at all.
Signature comes after everything else and must be a signature: pen, or a credentialed digital signature via Common Access Card. Typing does not qualify. Add the date at the same moment.
Review for the usual: old edition, blank required fields, illegibility on reproduction, date format, signature and date. Unclear entries — read the form face, then not stated; the directive prevails.
Submit to the office named in not stated or in local instruction; retain a duplicate before it leaves. Joint routing often sends a DD form across organizational boundaries, and tracing one afterward is not a same-day matter.
Related forms are found by number alone. The DD sequence is one unified Department-wide series, so a cited number resolves to exactly one document with no branch qualifier needed.
Where a procedure cites both a service form and a DD form, the two are unconnected. Service numbering answers to a service proponent, DD numbering to not stated or another Department office, and the two sequences were never aligned. Matching numbers mean nothing whatever.
Three drivers of revision: directive reissue, altered collection requirements, updated statutory notice text. No notification accompanies any of them, so download fresh and confirm not stated rather than reusing an archived file.
What is here is the blank form and a description of it. What is not here is legal guidance or any assurance about a particular filing — this page is not the issuing authority and does not speak for one. Those questions go to not stated, to your servicing administrative office, or to the authority identified in not stated.
Questions and answers
- What is DD Form 1839?
- DD Form 1839, Baggage Identification, September 1980
- Which edition is current?
- Not stated by the publisher
- Who is responsible for this form?
- Not stated
- In which formats can it be downloaded?