Every entry in the Defense records system exists because some decision needed a documented basis, and DD Form 1870 is one of those instruments: DD Form 1870, Nomination for Appointment to the United States Service Academy, September 2005, created to Nomination for Appointment to the United States Military Academy, US Naval Academy, US Air Force Academy. 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.
That decision has consequences you will notice. Because not stated prescribes the form for the Department as a whole, and not stated maintains it on the Department's behalf, the same blank passes between the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the Marine Corps, the Space Force, the Coast Guard when operating under Defense jurisdiction, the defense agencies and the combatant commands without translation. A clerk in one component reads a record created in another and finds the fields where they expect them.
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 sequence printed on the form is the sequence in which a reviewer will read it, and the two should agree. Header data frames every entry below it; the substantive fields depend on that frame; the certification stands at the end because its whole function is to vouch for what came before. Entries made out of sequence commonly contradict entries made earlier.
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.
For an ambiguous field, read the form's own instruction, then not stated, which controls.
Download the form
The set published here is PDF, covering 1 pages with roughly 27 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.
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
- Nomination for Appointment to: Press space bar to mark X in first box if U.S. Military Academy, second box if U.S. Naval Academy, third box if U.S. Air Force Academy.
- 1. Name of nominee (last, first, middle initial).
- 2. Date of birth (4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day, no separators).
- 3. Social Security Number. Do not include dashes.
- 4. Domicile in constituency. a. Street (include apartment number).
- 4.b. City.
- 4.c. County.
- 4.d. State.
- 4.e. Zip code (9 digit).
- 5. Temporary address. a. Street (include apartment number).
- 5.b. City.
- 5.c. County.
- 5.d. State.
- 5.e. Zip code (9 digit).
- 6. Sex. Mark X in first box if male, second box if female.
- 7. Telephone number (include area code).
- 8. Congressional district and/or state.
- 9. Type of nomination. a. Vacancy. Mark X in order for first, second, third, fourth, or fifth.
- 9.b. Type of nomination. Mark X in first box if principal, second box if competitive, third box if alternate, and fourth box if competitive alternate.
- Alternate number (enter 1 through 9 if applicable).
- If alternate, enter name of principal nominee.
- If competitive alternate, enter name of principal nominee.
- 10. Remarks.
- 11. Nomination authority. a. Typed name (last, first, middle initial).
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.
Forms referenced inside this one are located by number alone, and that simplicity is a direct product of Department-level numbering. Because the DD sequence is maintained centrally and not duplicated by service, a number is a complete address: one number, one document, throughout the Defense establishment.
It helps to see the DA and DD sequences as what they are: separate registries with separate custodians. One serves a single service under a service proponent, the other serves the Department under not stated or an equivalent office, and neither was ever indexed against the other. A number that appears in both systems points to two unrelated documents, which is why reading the prefix comes before reading the digits.
Editions change for reasons that originate above the form itself. The prescribing directive is reissued and the form follows; the information the Department needs to collect changes and the fields change with it; the statutory notice language is amended and every form carrying that notice is republished. None of these events announces itself to the person who downloaded a copy last year, which is why confirming not stated at the moment of download is the only reliable check available to you.
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 1870?
- DD Form 1870, Nomination for Appointment to the United States Service Academy, September 2005
- Which edition is current?
- Not stated by the publisher
- Who is responsible for this form?
- Not stated
- In which formats can it be downloaded?