Consider what a Department-level form is for. DD Form 1842 — DD Form 1842, Claim for Loss of or Damage to Property Incident to Service, May 2000 — was established to Claim for Loss of or Damage to Personal Property Incident to Service, and it was placed in the DD sequence because the underlying transaction occurs throughout the Defense establishment in substantially the same shape. Standardizing the record was cheaper and more reliable than letting six services each design their own.
The practical effect of Department-level issue is interoperability. not stated establishes the requirement across the Defense enterprise; not stated keeps the document current for all of it. No service maintains its own variant, which means a completed record travels between components — service to agency, agency to joint command — and arrives in a format the receiving office already knows how to read.
The edition in force is not stated, carried by the publisher as not stated, and edition discipline is stricter on a Department form than most people expect, precisely because supersession happens everywhere at once. There is no interval during which one service still works from the previous layout while another has moved on.
The form is laid out top to bottom in a sequence that reflects how the record will be read, not merely how it was drawn. Identification comes first because everything below it is understood in relation to a named person, unit or transaction; substantive entries follow; certification closes the document because certification attests to what precedes it. Filling out of order tends to produce internal inconsistencies — an entry that made sense before the header was settled and does not afterward.
Before the first entry, compare the date printed on the form face with not stated. This is not bureaucratic fussiness. Editions change field numbering, and a receiving office working from the current layout may look for information where your copy does not put it. On a Department form the exposure is wider than usual: your record may be reviewed by an office in another service entirely, one with no reason to remember what the previous edition looked like.
Unclear entries are resolved from the printed instructions first and from not stated where the two texts diverge.
Download the form
What you can download: PDF. The form runs 2 pages and asks for approximately 39 entries. The plurality of formats is deliberate: Defense distribution has never been able to assume one operating environment across the whole force.
The difference between a fillable and a printable pdf is a difference in what the file contains. A fillable release carries an interactive layer: each box is a defined field with a name and a data type, and what you type is stored as data inside the document. A printable release has no such layer — it is an image of the page, and the only place your answers can go is onto paper. The distinction matters downstream, because a Department record often gets scanned and forwarded several times before it reaches its final file, and typed characters survive that chain in a way pen strokes do not.
What the form asks for
- 1. Name of claimant (last, first, middle initial).
- 2. Branch of service.
- 3. Rank or grade.
- 4. Social security number. Do not include dashes.
- 5. Home address (street, city, state and zip code).
- 6. Current military duty address, if applicable (street, city, state and zip code).
- 7. Home telephone nunber, include area code.
- 8. Duty telephone nunber, include area code/DSN.
- 9. Amount claimed.
- 10. Circumstances of loss or damage, explain in detail. Include date, place, and all relevant facts. Use additional sheets if necessary
- 11. Did you have private insurance covering your property? Press space bar to mark X in first box if yes, second box if no.
- 12. Have you made a claim against your private insurer? X first box if yes, second box if no.
- 13. Has a carrier or warehouse firm involved paid you or repaired any of your property? X first box if yes, second box if no.
- Did any of the claimed items belong to the government or to someone other than you or your family member? X first box if yes, second box if no.
- Were any of the claimed items acquired or held for sale, or acquired or used in a private profession or business? X first box if yes, second box if no.
- 17. Signature of claimant (or designated agent).
- 18. Date signed (4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day).
- 19. Procedure. X first box if small claims, second box if regular claims.
- Part 3 - Denial or supplemental payment (to be completed by Claims Office). 23. Mark X if Denial.
- 24. Mark X if Supplemental Payment.
- 24. Supplemental payment amount.
- 25. Signatures. a. Claims examiner.
- 25.b. Date signed (4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day).
- 25.c. Signature of reviewing authority.
Submission follows not stated and whatever local instruction supplements it. Make a copy before the original leaves. Department forms travel across organizational lines by design, and the administrative distance that makes them useful is the same distance that makes tracing a lost one difficult.
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.
Procedures that touch both Department and service processes will cite forms from both sequences, and the coincidence of numbers between them is exactly that — coincidence. An Army proponent maintains the DA series for the Army; not stated or another Department office maintains the DD series for the whole Department. Two independent registries, two independent numbering runs, no correspondence at any value.
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.
What you have here is the document and a description of it, which is a different thing from guidance. This page is not an organ of the Department, gives no legal or procedural advice, and makes no representation about the outcome of any filing; the offices that administer the requirement are the only ones positioned to answer that. Applicability, eligibility and procedural questions belong to not stated, to your servicing personnel office, or to the office designated in not stated.
Questions and answers
- What is DD Form 1842?
- DD Form 1842, Claim for Loss of or Damage to Property Incident to Service, May 2000
- Which edition is current?
- Not stated by the publisher
- Who is responsible for this form?
- Not stated
- In which formats can it be downloaded?