The reason DA Form 1144 looks the way it does is that a file has to speak for itself. Officially REQUEST FOR DOSSIER/INDEX CHECK, it serves to request for dossier/index check, and the record it produces outlasts the people and the circumstances behind it. Edition 12/01/1966, status ACTIVE, is the version published here: 3 page(s), close to 138 fields, each one present because some later reader will need that fact without being able to ask for it.
Two offices stand behind the form, and the distinction between them explains most of what follows. G-2 is the proponent: it decides what the form asks and revises it when the underlying process changes. AR 381-45 is the prescribing authority: it decides when the form is raised at all and where the completed document travels. Content and occasion are separated deliberately, so that a change in procedure does not require redesigning the page.
Identification precedes substance for a structural reason. Name, identification number, organisation and date of preparation are how the finished document is located in a file or a database; the body of the form is what someone reads after the search has succeeded. Spell the name as official records spell it, since the search runs against those records and not against habit.
The rules of entry all trace back to the page being fixed in advance. Tabbing follows the order built into the form, which usually matches how the page reads and misses less than clicking. An exclusive group discards the earlier selection because contradictory entries would make the record unusable. One-line fields have no wrap because print positions are predetermined, so an overlong entry displays fully and prints truncated. Longer text goes to the remarks area or a continuation, both provided for exactly that. Where nothing applies, the nil mark is entered — a blank leaves the reader unable to tell a considered answer from a skipped one.
A signature is what converts entries into a record, which is why it comes last and why an unsigned form remains a draft however complete it looks. Where a reviewing official, an approving authority or a witness also signs, each adds a distinct attestation, and each dates the day of signing rather than the day of preparation — the dates trace the sequence of responsibility. The recurring defects are worth knowing precisely because they defeat that purpose: an empty mandatory field leaves an obligation unmet, transposed identification digits attach the record to nobody, a date with day and month reversed puts events in the wrong order, and entries left in a reused working copy assert facts nobody intended.
Behind the Privacy Act statement is a requirement that anyone asked for personal data be told, in advance, under what authority it is sought, for what purpose, who else routinely sees it, and whether refusal is possible. Reading it after completing the fields defeats its function. And the completed form is itself a personal record from that point on, subject to the handling rules such records carry.
Download the form
Why several files for one page? Because the form has to be completed in a headquarters and in places without a workstation, and PDF, XFDL covers both. The fillable pdf holds interactive fields that fix each entry in place and remove handwriting from the equation. The printable pdf is the same layout without those fields, meant for a printer and a pen. Neither is a lesser copy of the other; each answers a condition the other cannot.
Where a file opens matters more than it appears to. A browser will display a pdf, but browser viewers were built to read documents, and some accept keystrokes into fields they never intended to store — the entries are gone at tab close, without warning, because saving was never part of what that viewer does. A dedicated reader is built around the file's own structure and keeps what you enter. The xfdl file belongs to a different lineage entirely: IBM Lotus Forms, adopted across Army systems for the routing and signature handling built into it. That is why only the Lotus Forms Viewer reads it.
There is no charge and no sign-up. Published documents are distributed as published, without modification.
What the form asks for
- AGENCY
- COMP_A
- COMP_A_1
- COMP_A_2
- COMP_A_3
- COMP_A_4
- COMP_B
- COMP_B_1
- COMP_B_2
- COMP_B_3
- COMP_B_4
- COMP_C
- COMP_C_1
- COMP_C_2
- COMP_C_3
- COMP_C_4
- COMP_D
- COMP_D_1
- COMP_D_2
- COMP_D_3
- COMP_D_4
- Collection1
- ContentArea1
- DATE_A
Where the signed form goes is settled by AR 381-45 rather than by the office holding it — a named recipient, the unit administrative channel, or the individual's own file, depending on why it was raised. Retention likewise belongs to the records schedule for the series, which exists so documents are kept for as long as anyone might need them and no longer. Keep a copy before release; the original serves the file from then on, not you.
Forms cluster by series and number for the same reason files do: shared proponency and a shared prescribing directive usually mean a shared process. So a document in the DA series referenced on the face of another is generally part of the same transaction, and continuation sheets, cover sheets and transmittals belong to the package from the outset rather than arriving after a query.
Editions change because the process changes, and the printed edition date is the only marker of which version a page belongs to. A copy saved locally cannot know it has been superseded, so the date on it is compared against the edition in force before reuse. Records already executed under an earlier edition are left alone — a document is read under the terms it was made, and reopening completed files to match a later form would falsify the account.
It is worth being plain about what this page is within all of the above. The files are reproductions of published Department of the Army documents, offered for download by a site with no official standing and no part in issuing anything. That matters because the machinery described here — proponency, prescribing directives, records schedules — runs entirely elsewhere. Nothing written here is legal advice, and no statement can be made about whether an office will accept a given document. G-2 and the administrative office servicing your unit answer questions of entry, requirement and eligibility, and they are the ones positioned to.
Questions and answers
- What is DA Form 1144?
- REQUEST FOR DOSSIER/INDEX CHECK
- Which edition is current?
- 12/01/1966
- Who is responsible for this form?
- G-2
- In which formats can it be downloaded?
- PDF, XFDL, PDF
Publisher notes
- 42-ITEM ONLY PRODUCED IN ELECTRONIC MEDIA