Administrative documents are written for readers who were not present, and DA Form 5678-R is no exception. Titled POLICY STATEMENT AND MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING FOR PARTICIPATION IN THE U.S. ARMY POTENTIAL CONTRACTOR PROGRAM (LRA), it is used to policy statement and memorandum of understanding for participation in the u.s. army potential contractor program (lra) — a transaction that means little in conversation and a great deal in a file. The published edition here carries the date 02/01/1988 and the status ACTIVE. Its 2 page(s) and roughly 85 fields are sized to what the record must prove years later, which is always more than the moment appears to need.
Two offices stand behind the form, and the distinction between them explains most of what follows. ASA (AL&T) is the proponent: it decides what the form asks and revises it when the underlying process changes. AR 70-35 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.
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.
Much of the form's behaviour follows from its being a fixed page. Tab order was set at build time along the reading sequence, which is why tabbing catches boxes a pointer passes over. Exclusive groups release one choice when another is made because a record cannot carry two answers to a single question. Single-line fields refuse to wrap because every entry must print where the layout expects it — text beyond the width is lost at the margin, visible on screen to the end. That is what remarks areas and continuation sheets are for. Marking a field that does not apply matters for a related reason: emptiness is ambiguous, and a reviewer reading the file later cannot distinguish an omission from a decision.
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.
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.
Software determines whether an entry lasts. A browser viewer is designed for reading, and several will take typed input into fields without any means of writing it back — the text is simply absent when you reopen. A standalone reader handles the form structure properly. The xfdl file is IBM Lotus Forms, carried in Army systems for the routing and signature support it provides, which is why the Lotus Forms Viewer is its only reader.
Downloads are free and unregistered. The material was published for general use, and the files are passed on unaltered.
What the form asks for
- AuthRepr
- CertName
- CoOfDate
- Collection1
- Collection2
- ContentArea1
- CorpTitl
- Member
- Namea
- Nameb
- Namec
- Named
- Namee
- Page1
- Page2
- R38
- R39
- R40
- R41
- R42
- R47
- R50
- R59
- R60
The routing in AR 70-35 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.
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. ASA (AL&T) 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 5678-R?
- POLICY STATEMENT AND MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING FOR PARTICIPATION IN THE U.S. ARMY POTENTIAL CONTRACTOR PROGRAM (LRA)
- Which edition is current?
- 02/01/1988
- Who is responsible for this form?
- ASA (AL&T)
- In which formats can it be downloaded?
- PDF, XFDL, PDF
Publisher notes
- 41-ITEM ALSO PRODUCED IN ELECTRONIC MEDIA