How to Fill Out an Army After Action Review (AAR) Template

An Army After Action Review template is filled out by working through four doctrinal questions in order: what was supposed to happen, what did happen, what was right or wrong with what happened, and how the task should be done differently next time. Every section of the form maps to one of those questions, and the quality of what you write depends almost entirely on the source documents you pull together before you start typing. The commander has discretion over the exact format,¹ but the logic below applies to any AAR template your unit uses, from a printed one-pager to a digital form.

Gather Your Source Documents First

An AAR template filled from memory produces opinion. An AAR template filled from documents produces a usable record. Before you write anything, pull three things together.

The operation order or training schedule. This gives you the commander’s intent, training objectives, and concept of operations — the material that answers the first question on the form. FM 7-0 directs the leader or evaluator to restate the mission, guidance, and concept of operations at the start of the AAR using maps, operational graphics, or terrain boards.¹ Without the OPORD in front of you, the form has no baseline.

The Training and Evaluation Outlines (T&EOs) for every task trained. These contain the performance steps and standards that let you say whether a task was performed correctly. FM 7-0 directs leaders to review T&EOs during planning so they understand task requirements before the AAR begins.¹ If you skip this step, Section 3 becomes guesswork.

Observation data. Communication logs, situation reports, casualty figures, indirect fire effectiveness, sustainment shortfalls, and medical evacuation times recorded by Observer Controller/Trainers during the exercise all belong in your source pile.² Objective data keeps the write-up grounded and prevents the form from becoming a collection of impressions.

Complete the Administrative Header

Record the unit designation, the date and time of the training event, the location, the exercise or training event name, and the name of the facilitator or evaluator. List participating units and key personnel. This header is what turns loose notes into a retrievable record that can be pulled from a file six months later and still make sense.

Section 1 — What Was Supposed to Happen

Copy the commander’s intent and the specific training objectives directly from the OPORD or training schedule. Then list each task the unit was expected to perform, together with the conditions and standards taken from the T&EOs. Keep it factual and short. This section is the yardstick you will measure everything else against, so it needs to be exact, not paraphrased.

If the training event had multiple phases (movement to contact, actions on the objective, consolidation, and so on), list the objectives phase by phase. That structure will carry through the rest of the form.

Section 2 — What Actually Happened

Document the sequence of events. FM 7-0 recommends organizing after action reports “in a logical, chronological order, usually by operational phase or warfighting function.”¹ Use the same phase breakdown you set up in Section 1 so the two sections line up.

Reference your objective data as you write. Timeline entries, OC/T observations, casualty figures, and sustainment reports carry more weight than individual recollections. Pull perspectives from as many participants as you can — squad leaders, team leaders, individual soldiers, and the opposing force — to build a shared account rather than a single-viewpoint narrative.

Write this section as a record of what happened, not an evaluation of it. Judgments belong in Section 3.

Section 3 — What Was Right and What Was Wrong

For each task or phase, compare what actually happened against the standard from the T&EO. Identify strengths to sustain and weaknesses to correct. This is the analytical core of the document, and it is where most poorly written AARs fall apart.

Specificity is what makes this section useful. “The platoon failed to establish a casualty collection point within 10 minutes of contact” gives the next leader something to train against. “Communications could have been better” does not. Every finding should tie back to a published standard, name the observed behavior, and be concrete enough that someone reading the form later can picture what happened.

Do not stack this section with only failures. Sustaining strengths is doctrinally equal to correcting weaknesses, and units that only get told what they did wrong stop trusting the process.

Section 4 — How to Do It Differently Next Time

Record the specific corrective actions the unit agreed on. Each action item needs three things: the problem it addresses, the proposed fix, and the person responsible for implementing it. If the unit identified a better way to train a particular task, capture that here too.

This is the section that decides whether the AAR was worth doing. If the corrective actions never appear in a later OPORD or training schedule, the form was paperwork. If they do, the form was a professional development tool. Write action items concrete enough that the next planner can lift them straight into the next training plan.

Write Specific Observations, Not Vague Ones

The single biggest quality difference between AAR templates that get used and AAR templates that get filed and forgotten is the specificity of the observations. A useful observation names the task, the standard, the actual performance, and the gap. A useless one gestures at a category.

Compare these two entries for the same event:

Vague: “Medical response was slow.”
Specific: “First aid was applied to the simulated casualty at the point of injury within two minutes, but the platoon did not establish a casualty collection point within the 10-minute standard, and the 9-line MEDEVAC request was transmitted 14 minutes after the casualty was called.”

The second version tells the next leader exactly what to drill. The first version tells them nothing. When you fill out Sections 2 and 3, reach for numbers, times, distances, and named tasks every time you can.

Formal Versus Informal — What Changes on the Form

FM 7-0 recognizes both formal and informal AARs.¹ The four-question structure of the template does not change between them. A formal AAR is resource-intensive and typically supports larger exercises where a senior evaluator consolidates input from subordinate, supporting, and adjacent units and the opposing force. An informal AAR — the kind a squad leader might run in the field using pinecones to mark positions³ — uses the same four sections with less visual support and shorter written entries. Do not skip a section because the AAR is informal. Write less in each section instead.

File the Completed Template and Feed It Forward

FM 7-0 is direct on this: lessons learned from the AAR process are always recorded. Once the template is filled out, the completed after action report is retained by the unit and periodically reviewed by leaders. It also goes to the next higher commander for comment and possible dissemination outside the unit.¹

The last step is the one most often skipped. Take the corrective actions from Section 4 and put them into the next training plan. Commanders use AAR findings to assess unit performance, correct deficiencies, and sustain what worked, and the AAR signals the start of the next planning cycle rather than the end of the last one.¹ A template with unimplemented action items is a template that failed at its job.

1
Department of the Army. FM 7-0 Appendix K – After Action Reviews
2
Modern War Institute. Updating the After-Action Review: JPMRC’s Data Assessment Tool and the Next Generation of Data-Driven Lethality
3
Virginia Department of Forestry. Army After Action Review (AAR) Template