DD Form 2278 occupies a particular place in Defense recordkeeping. Its title is DD Form 2278, Application for Do It Yourself Move and Counseling Checklist, September 1998, and it exists to Application for Do It Yourself Move and Counseling Checklist. What the DD prefix records is an administrative judgment made long before your copy was printed: this transaction was determined to be common to the whole Department rather than peculiar to one service, and so the documentation of it was standardized at Department level.
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
What you can download: PDF. The form runs 2 pages and asks for approximately 67 entries. The plurality of formats is deliberate: Defense distribution has never been able to assume one operating environment across the whole force.
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.
Xfdl appears in the set for reasons of institutional inertia rather than preference. It is the IBM Lotus Forms format, once the Department's electronic forms standard and deployed widely enough that it outlived the decision to move on. IBM Lotus Forms Viewer or an equivalent client opens it; a pdf application will not.
All of it downloads without charge. Where care is needed is in the reader you choose. A fillable pdf depends on field properties that desktop applications honour and browser previews frequently ignore, so work locally rather than inside a browser window.
What the form asks for
- 1. Date prepared (4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day).
- 2. Shipment number.
- 3. Member or employee information. a. Name (last, first, middle initial).
- 3. b. Rank/grade.
- 3. c. Social security number.
- 3. Agency.
- 4. This shipment/storage is required incident to the following orders: a. Type orders. Press space bar to mark X in first box if local, second box if permanent, or third box if temporary.
- 4. d. New duty assignment.
- 4. e. Orders number.
- 4. f. Number of miles.
- 4.b. Date of orders (4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day).
- 4. c. Issued by.
- 4. g. Name of preparing office.
- 4. h.Paying (AFO/F&AO) Navy and Marine Corps.
- 5. Send check to (complete address).
- 6. State of legal residence.
- 7. b. Mark X if D I T Y move authorized.
- 7.b. DITY move authorized from:
- 7.b. DITY move authorized to:
- 7. c. Mark X if I T O and or T M O provided with accurate estimate weight of H H G s.
- 7. Entitlements. Mark X if: a. Option of G B L, van and or D I T Y move, nontemporary storage.
- 7. d. Mark X if maximum authorized weight.
- 7.d. Maximum authorized weight.
- 7. e. Mark X if unauthorized items, such as P O V, flammables, etc.
Route the executed form as not stated or local guidance directs, and retain a duplicate first. Cross-component routing is ordinary for DD forms, which is precisely why a personal copy earns its keep: the receiving office may belong to an organization you have no standing to query about a missing document.
When DD Form 2278 cites another form, the citation is self-sufficient. The DD series is a single sequence administered at Department level, so the number resolves to exactly one document without any need to establish which component issued it — a convenience that exists only because the sequence was never allowed to fork.
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.
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 2278?
- DD Form 2278, Application for Do It Yourself Move and Counseling Checklist, September 1998
- Which edition is current?
- Not stated by the publisher
- Who is responsible for this form?
- Not stated
- In which formats can it be downloaded?