Every entry in the Defense records system exists because some decision needed a documented basis, and DD Form 2697 is one of those instruments: DD Form 26 97, Report of Medical Assessment, February 1995, created to Report of Medical Assessment. 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.
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.
Current edition: not stated, status not stated. Understand why that date is worth attention here. When the Department reissues a form, the replacement takes effect across every component simultaneously, so an older copy is not merely locally out of date — it is out of date in every office that might receive it.
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.
Check the edition date before you type anything, against not stated. Old blanks accumulate in shared drives for years, and the cost of one is not obvious until a reviewer cannot find a field. Because DD forms are revised centrally and replaced across the Department in a single action, there is no component still tolerating the old layout as a local practice.
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 46 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.
Two states of the same page circulate, and the reason is worth knowing. In the fillable pdf, the boxes are real fields holding real data; in the printable pdf, the boxes are drawings. Where a record will cross components — as Department records regularly do — the typed version is the safer artifact. Each scan, each forwarding, each reproduction costs handwriting a little legibility, and the office that finally files the record is rarely the office that received it first.
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.
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
- Report Control Symbol.
- Section 1 - to be completed by service member. Any service member who requests a physical examination may have one. 1. Name (last, first, middle).
- 2. Social security number. Do not include dashes.
- 3. Rank.
- 4. Component.
- 5. Unit of assignment.
- 6.a. Home street address (or RFD, including apartment number).
- 6.b. City.
- 6.c. State.
- 6.d. Zip code.
- 7. Home telephone number (include area code).
- 8. Date of last physical examination by the military (4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day).
- 9. Date entered on current active duty (4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day).
- 10. Compared to my last medical assessment/physical examination, my overall health is: Press space bar to mark X in first box if the same, second box if better, or third box if worse.
- 10. If worse, explain.
- 11. Since your last medical assessment/physical examination, have you had any illnesses or injuries that caused you to miss duty for longer than 3 days? X first box if no, second box if yes.
- 11. If yes, explain.
- 12. Since your last medical assessment/physical examination, have you been seen by or been treated by a health care provider, admitted to a hospital, or had surgery? X first box if no, second box if yes.
- 12. If yes, explain.
- 13. Have you suffered from any injury of illness while on active duty for which you did not seek medical care? X first box if no, second box if yes.
- 13. If yes, explain.
- 14. Are you now taking any medications? X first box if no, second box if yes.
- 14. If yes, list medications.
- 15. Do you have any conditions which currently limit your ability to work in your primary military specialty or require geographic or assignment limitations? X first box if no, second box if yes.
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.
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.
A word on what this page is. It distributes a published Department of Defense document and describes what the document contains and how it is completed. It is not the issuing authority, does not speak for one, and offers no legal advice; nothing written here determines whether a particular submission will be accepted, because that determination belongs entirely to the office receiving it. Questions of applicability, eligibility or procedure go to not stated, to your servicing personnel office, or to the office identified in not stated.
Questions and answers
- What is DD Form 2697?
- DD Form 26 97, Report of Medical Assessment, February 1995
- Which edition is current?
- Not stated by the publisher
- Who is responsible for this form?
- Not stated
- In which formats can it be downloaded?