The reason DA Form 5560-1 looks the way it does is that a file has to speak for itself. Officially DESIGNATED SMOKING AREA, it serves to designated smoking area, and the record it produces outlasts the people and the circumstances behind it. Edition 04/01/2007, status ACTIVE, is the version published here: 1 page(s), close to unknown fields, each one present because some later reader will need that fact without being able to ask for it. Because a subsequent edition has appeared, this copy stays available — a record made under one edition is interpreted under that edition.
The form has an author and an occasion, held by different authorities. G-9 owns the content and reshapes it when what is being recorded changes. AR 600-63 governs the event that calls for the form and the route the finished document takes afterwards. Keeping those two apart is what allows a procedure to be amended without the page being rebuilt each time.
Retrieval governs the order of entry. The head of the form takes name, identification number, unit and date, and those values become the handles by which the record is found later — the substantive blocks are never searched on. This is why the spelling must match official records exactly rather than approximately.
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.
The signature is the point at which entries become an assertion someone stands behind, so it follows everything else and its absence leaves a draft. Countersignatures by reviewing, approving or witnessing officials each carry their own weight and are dated at signing, which is how the file preserves the order of responsibility. Seen that way, the familiar errors are not clerical trivia: an unanswered mandatory field, digits transposed in an identification number, day and month reversed, and residue from a reused file each put something false or unresolved into a document that will be relied upon.
Personal information may not be gathered silently, and the Privacy Act statement is how that obligation is met on paper: it names the collection authority, the purpose, the routine uses and whether disclosure is mandatory. Because it exists to inform a decision, it belongs before the fields it covers rather than after them. A filled copy then holds personal data and is stored and transmitted under the corresponding safeguards.
Download the form
Formats exist because completion happens under different conditions, not because anyone wanted variety. The published set is PDF. A fillable pdf carries live entry objects, so typed text lands in fixed positions and stays legible whoever reads it later. A printable pdf drops those objects and leaves the page as an image, which is what an office needs where a screen is unavailable and a pen is not. The document itself is unchanged between them; what differs is the circumstance each anticipates.
The choice of application decides whether your work survives. Browsers render pdfs as documents to be read; where a viewer shows fields without a mechanism to store them, typed text disappears when the tab closes, and nothing announces the loss. A full reader treats the file as a form and preserves entries on save.
Downloads are free and unregistered. The material was published for general use, and the files are passed on unaltered.
The routing in AR 600-63 decides where the document goes — a named office, the administrative channel, or the individual's file — and the records schedule for the series decides how long it stays. Neither is a local judgement, because a record system loses its meaning if each office keeps things for its own preferred interval. Copy the form before submitting it.
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.
A word on where this page sits. These are reproductions of published Department of the Army documents, made available by an independent site with no official role and no authority to issue forms. The structure described above — proponent, prescribing directive, records schedule — exists apart from this site entirely, which is why nothing written here is legal advice and why acceptance by any office is not something that can be promised. Put questions of entry, requirement or eligibility to G-9 or to the administrative office servicing your unit.
Questions and answers
- What is DA Form 5560-1?
- DESIGNATED SMOKING AREA
- Which edition is current?
- 04/01/2007
- Who is responsible for this form?
- G-9
- In which formats can it be downloaded?
- PDF, PDF
Publisher notes
- 42-ITEM ONLY PRODUCED IN ELECTRONIC MEDIA