DD Form 2655 occupies a particular place in Defense recordkeeping. Its title is DD Form 2655, Complaint of Discrimination in the Federal Government, June 2012, and it exists to Complaint of Discrimination in the Federal Government. 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.
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.
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.
Where a specific field is genuinely unclear, the instructions printed on the form come first and not stated governs where the two do not agree.
Download the form
Formats available: PDF, across 3 pages and about 54 fields.
Nothing here is charged for. Published Defense forms are public documents and distribution carries no fee, in any format. One caution about software: fill the form in a desktop pdf application rather than a browser tab. Browser-embedded viewers implement field behaviour inconsistently, and the failure mode is silent loss of everything you entered.
What the form asks for
- For agency use.
- 1. Full name of complainant (last, first, middle initial).
- 2.a. Home telephone number (area code only).
- 2.a. Remainder of home telephone number.
- 2.b. Office telephone number (area code only).
- 2.b. Remainder of office telephone number.
- 3. Address (Street, city, state and ZIP Code).
- 4.a. Name of office that you believe discriminated against you.
- 4.b. Address of office (Street, city, state and ZIP Code).
- 4.c. Name and title of person(s) you believe discriminated against you, if you know.
- 5. Are you now working for the Federal government? Press space bar to mark X in first box if yes, second box if no.
- 5.a. Name of agency where you work.
- 5.b. Address of your agency (Street, city, state and ZIP code).
- 5.c. Title and grade of your job.
- 6. Election of representation. X first box if attorney, second if non-attorney, or third if no representation.
- a. Name of representative.
- b. Address (include Zip Code).
- c. Telephone (include area code).
- d. Fax (include area code).
- e. E-mail address.
- 7. Date on which most recent alleged discrimination took place: four digit year, two digit month, two digit day.
- 8. X why you believe you were discriminated against. a. Race.
- If checked, state your race.
- b. X if color.
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.
Understanding why editions change explains why checking them is not optional. Revision follows directive reissue, changes in what data is required, and amendments to mandatory notice text — decisions made at Department level and communicated through publication rather than notification. The file you saved does not update itself, so the edition date at download is what you rely on.
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 2655?
- DD Form 2655, Complaint of Discrimination in the Federal Government, June 2012
- Which edition is current?
- Not stated by the publisher
- Who is responsible for this form?
- Not stated
- In which formats can it be downloaded?