The reason DA Form 5914 looks the way it does is that a file has to speak for itself. Officially RATION CONTROL SHEET, it serves to ration control sheet, and the record it produces outlasts the people and the circumstances behind it. Edition 07/01/2002, status ACTIVE, is the version published here: 1 page(s), close to 200 fields, each one present because some later reader will need that fact without being able to ask for it.
The form has an author and an occasion, held by different authorities. G-4 owns the content and reshapes it when what is being recorded changes. PAM 30-22 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.
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.
Tab order is not a convenience feature; it was fixed when the form was built and generally traces the page, so following it produces the sequence the designer intended and leaves fewer gaps than a mouse. Exclusive option groups clear the previous selection because the record is not permitted to hold two contradictory answers. Single-line fields do not wrap for the same reason the layout is fixed: the printed page has to fall in known positions, so text past the field width is cut at the margin even though the screen still shows it whole. Overflow belongs in remarks or on a continuation, where there is room designed for it. And an inapplicable field is marked rather than skipped, since a blank tells a later reader nothing about whether the question was considered.
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.
The Privacy Act statement is on the page because collecting personal information requires the collector to disclose the terms first — the authority relied on, the purpose, the routine uses, and whether an answer is required or may be withheld. That order is the point: the statement is read before the entries it governs, since consent given afterwards is not consent. Once completed, the copy is a personal record and carries the handling obligations that attach to one.
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.
No charge and no account apply: these are published documents, and access to them is not something a distributor is entitled to price.
What the form asks for
- ACTIVITY
- ACTIVITY_1
- ACTIVITY_10
- ACTIVITY_11
- ACTIVITY_12
- ACTIVITY_13
- ACTIVITY_2
- ACTIVITY_3
- ACTIVITY_4
- ACTIVITY_5
- ACTIVITY_6
- ACTIVITY_7
- ACTIVITY_8
- ACTIVITY_9
- CUM_BAL
- CUM_BAL_1
- CUM_BAL_10
- CUM_BAL_11
- CUM_BAL_12
- CUM_BAL_13
- CUM_BAL_2
- CUM_BAL_3
- CUM_BAL_4
- CUM_BAL_5
The routing in PAM 30-22 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.
Related documents are located by series and number, and the relation is rarely accidental — forms under one proponent or one directive tend to serve steps of a single procedure. Anything the DA series form names on its face normally travels with it, as do the continuations, covers and transmittals the process generates. Assembling them together is what makes the submission a complete account.
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-4 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 5914?
- RATION CONTROL SHEET
- Which edition is current?
- 07/01/2002
- Who is responsible for this form?
- G-4
- In which formats can it be downloaded?
- PDF, XFDL, PDF
Publisher notes
- 42-ITEM ONLY PRODUCED IN ELECTRONIC MEDIA,