Consider what a Department-level form is for. DD Form 462 — DD Form 462, Bond of Person Designated to Act on Behalf of Incompetent Member or Former Member of the Uniformed Services, May 2003 — was established to Bond of Person Designated to Act on Behalf of Incompetent Member or Former Member of the Uniformed Services, 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.
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.
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a form, the replacement takes effect across every component simultaneously, so an older copy is not merely locally out of date — it is out of date in every office that might receive it.
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.
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 1 pages and about 28 fields.
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
- Of (enter street address).
- In witness thereof, the parties hereto have executed this instrument under their several seals this day of (enter day).
- Enter month.
- (enter year), the name and corporate seal of the corporate surety being hereto affixed.
- Individual principal (seal).
- Street address.
- Street number.
- City.
- Attest:
- Street number.
- City.
- State.
- By (affix corporate seal).
- Press this Reset button to clear the data from all fields.
- Know all men by these presents that we (enter names).
- Enter additional names if necessary.
- In the country of (enter country).
- State.
- As principal and (enter as appropriate).
- As principal and as surety (enter additional data).
- for the use and benefit of (enter name), an incompetent,
- in the penal sum of (enter number of dollars), for the payment of which sum well and truly to be made, we bind ourselves, our heirs, executors, administrators, and successors, jointly and severally, firmly by these presents.
- The condition of this obligation is such, that the Secretary of Defense designated the principal to receive from the Government any active duty pay and allowances, or any amounts due for accumulated or accrued leave, or any retired or retainer pay, otherwise payable to (enter name), a mentally incompetent member of the uniformed services.
- In presence of (enter name of witness).
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.
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.
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.
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 462?
- DD Form 462, Bond of Person Designated to Act on Behalf of Incompetent Member or Former Member of the Uniformed Services, May 2003
- Which edition is current?
- Not stated by the publisher
- Who is responsible for this form?
- Not stated
- In which formats can it be downloaded?