Every entry in the Defense records system exists because some decision needed a documented basis, and DD Form 1351-5 is one of those instruments: DD Form 1351-5, Government Quarters and/or Mess, July 1999, created to Quarters and/or Mess, Government. The reason it carries a DD number rather than a service designation is structural — the Department maintains a single body of forms for matters that arise identically in every service, so that a record created in one component remains intelligible in another.
This is why the arrangement matters to you rather than only to the archivists. not stated governs the form throughout the Department, with not stated as the responsible office, so the record you create is legible outside your own component. Joint assignments, agency details and cross-service transactions all depend on that: the paperwork does not have to be reconstructed each time it crosses a boundary.
You are looking for edition not stated, listed as not stated. Department-wide supersession is a single event rather than a rollout, which is what distinguishes edition currency on a DD form from the same question on a service publication: nobody anywhere is still accepting the previous version out of habit.
Work down the page in the printed order, and understand why the order exists. The identifying block establishes whose record this is and under what circumstances it arises. The body of the form then answers questions that are only meaningful once that context is fixed. The signature block comes last because a certification signed before the entries are complete certifies nothing.
Verify the printed edition against not stated first. Field structure shifts between editions, and the office that receives your record is reading the current one. That office may sit outside your service, which removes even the informal accommodation you might expect from a colleague who used the old version last month.
Unclear entries are resolved from the printed instructions first and from not stated where the two texts diverge.
Download the form
The set published here is PDF, covering 2 pages with roughly 57 fields. More than one format survives because the Department serves users under very different conditions, from a desk with current software to a location where a printer is the only reliable output.
Fillable and printable are not two presentations of one file but two different objects. One holds your entries as structured data within the document; the other is a static picture meant to meet a pen. Since a DD form frequently moves outside the organization that created it, the durability of the entry matters more here than on a record that stays in one drawer. Typed text reproduces indefinitely; handwriting degrades at every copy.
The xfdl file is a survival from an earlier phase of Defense form automation. Xfdl is the IBM Lotus Forms format, and for a long period it was the Department's standard for electronic forms — fielded broadly enough that it still appears in distribution sets today. It opens in IBM Lotus Forms Viewer or a compatible client and nowhere else; a pdf reader will report it as damaged, which is not a fault in the file.
Every format is free, as published government documents are. A note on tools, though — the interactive field layer that makes a fillable pdf useful is precisely the part browser viewers handle least reliably. Save the file, open it in a full pdf reader, and the fields behave as the form's designer intended.
What the form asks for
- 4. Quarters. a. Press space bar to mark X if Government quarters were not available to the above-named member on the following dates or for the following periods.
- Specify dates or periods when government quarters were not available.
- 4.b. Mark X if government quarters were not or will not be available to both the above-named member and his dependents on the following dates or for the following periods:
- Specify dates or periods when government quarters were or will not be available.
- 4.c. Mark X if utilization of government quarters by the above named member is or was impracticable for the following dates or the following periods:
- Specify dates or periods when utilization of quarters is or was impracticable.
- 5. Mess. Mark X as applicable. a. Government mess was not available to the above-named member for the number of meals shown opposite each of the dates or periods specified in columns 1 and 2 below.
- 5.b. Mark X if government mess was not or will not be available to both the above-named member and his dependents for the number of meals shown opposite the following dates or periods.
- 5.c. Mark X if utilization of government mess available at this station by the above-named member is, was, or will be impracticable for the number of meals shown opposite the following dates or periods.
- 5.d. Mark X if officers' open mess was not available to the above named officer for at least two meals on the following dates government quarters were available.
- 6. Remarks, continued.
- 1. Traveler's name: last, first, middle initial.
- 2. Grade.
- 3. Social security number. Do not include dashes.
- 4. Date of statement: four digit year, two digit month, two digit day.
- Column 1. Date meals not available (line 1). Enter all dates as four digit year, two digit month and two digit day, no spaces or punctuation marks.
- Column 2. Number of meals not available.
- Date, line 2.
- Number of meals not available.
- Date, line 3.
- Number of meals not available.
- Date, line 4.
- Number of meals not available.
- Date, line 5.
The completed form goes to the office named in not stated or in local implementing procedure, and it is worth keeping a copy before it goes. On a Department form the destination is frequently outside your own chain — another service, a defense agency, a joint staff — and recovering a document that has crossed an organizational boundary is a slower business than retrieving one from a file down the hall.
Cross-referenced documents are found by series and number, with nothing further required. That the DD sequence is unified across the Department means a cited number identifies one form and no other, which is the practical payoff of centralizing the numbering in the first place.
Where a service form is cited in the same instruction, the two numbering systems should not be read across. DA numbering belongs to the Army and is administered by an Army proponent; DD numbering belongs to the Department and is administered by not stated or an equivalent Department office. The systems developed separately and were never harmonized, so identical digits in each identify two documents with nothing in common. The prefix, not the number, tells you which system you are in.
A form is downstream of the policy that requires it, and revision usually starts there: a directive is reissued, a collection requirement is altered, notice language is updated by statute. The form is republished as a consequence. Since none of that reaches individual users, an archived copy quietly becomes wrong, and verifying not stated each time you download is the whole remedy.
The role of this page is narrow and worth stating plainly. It makes a published Defense form available and explains its structure. It does not advise, does not interpret policy for your circumstances, and cannot indicate how any office will treat a completed copy — those judgments rest with the authorities that own the process. Direct such questions to not stated, to the administrative office that services you, or to the authority named in not stated.
Questions and answers
- What is DD Form 1351-5?
- DD Form 1351-5, Government Quarters and/or Mess, July 1999
- Which edition is current?
- Not stated by the publisher
- Who is responsible for this form?
- Not stated
- In which formats can it be downloaded?