How to Fill Out and Submit DA Form 7424: Sensitive Duty Questionnaire

To fill out DA Form 7424, the Sensitive Duty Assignment Eligibility Questionnaire, answer each yes-or-no question about your legal, behavioral health, and personal history truthfully, explain any “yes” with dates and outcomes in the remarks, and hand the completed form to your chain of command for inclusion in your nomination packet. The form is a self-disclosure document the Army uses to screen soldiers nominated or volunteering for positions of significant trust and authority under AR 614-200. Refusing to complete it removes you from candidacy.¹

The form applies to four categories the Secretary of the Army has designated under AR 614-200, paragraph 8-18: drill sergeants, AIT platoon sergeants, recruiters, and Sexual Assault Response Coordinators and SAPR Victims’ Advocates. A valid security clearance does not exempt you. The regulation states that background screenings and security clearance processes are independent, and a soldier who holds a clearance can still fail the sensitive duty screening.²

What to Gather Before You Start

The form asks pointed questions about specific categories of past conduct. Answering accurately requires knowing what is actually in your records, because vague recollections lead to inconsistencies that centralized screening will catch.

Pull records of any interaction with military or civilian law enforcement. That means Article 15 actions, letters of reprimand, civilian arrests or convictions, and any involvement with military criminal investigators. Recruiter eligibility criteria, for example, disqualify soldiers who have been the subject of an adverse adjudication including Article 15 proceedings.³ Dismissed charges and expunged civilian records still matter, because the Army’s centralized screening checks CID databases, inspector general records, and federal agency records that may reflect incidents your local courthouse has sealed.

On the behavioral health side, know whether you have any history of treatment for mental health conditions or enrollment in substance abuse programs. Recruiter candidates are ineligible if they have been enrolled in any drug or alcohol dependency program within the past 36 months.³ The form also asks about sexual misconduct, domestic violence, and involvement with extremist organizations. Have dates, locations, and outcomes for anything that might come up.

Financial records are not directly part of DA Form 7424 itself, but the broader nomination packet for recruiter candidates includes a financial statement on DA Form 5425.⁴ Organizing that documentation now prevents delays later.

Where to Get the Current Form

DA Form 7424 is available through the Army Publishing Directorate website, though some publications on that site require a Common Access Card login.⁵ USAREC hosts a copy directly on its recruiting portal for recruiter candidates.⁶ Your unit’s personnel office likely has the current version as well.

Filling Out the Form

The top of the form contains administrative fields: name, grade, unit of assignment, and similar identifying information. Fill these exactly as they appear in your official personnel records. Even minor discrepancies between what you write and what HRC has on file create unnecessary friction during centralized screening.

The core of the form is the eligibility screening section, a series of specific yes-or-no questions about past conduct. Based on available excerpts, these cover sexual misconduct (including adultery, fraternization, and sexual activity with subordinates), violations of the Army’s policy on extremist organizations, substance abuse, and criminal history. Each item requires a truthful response.

If you answer “yes” to any item, provide details in the remarks section: dates, circumstances, and outcome. Write in plain, factual language. Reviewers are looking for honesty and evidence that you have addressed the issue, not a spotless record. A clear, direct explanation of something that happened five years ago reads far better than a vague non-answer that the screening process later contradicts.

One detail catches people off guard: the form is not always completed by the soldier alone. For recruiter candidates, the first commander or supervisor in the grade of captain in the chain of command completes DA Form 7424 as part of a face-to-face interview with the soldier.⁴ For drill sergeant candidates, the form is completed during initial orientation at the Drill Sergeant Academy.¹ The exact procedure depends on the position and component, so confirm with your chain of command how the form will be administered in your case.

The Behavioral Health Interview

Separately from the questionnaire, AR 614-200 requires that nominees for positions of significant trust and authority undergo a behavioral health interview before appointment. The only exception is collateral duty SARCs and SAPR VAs.²

For recruiter candidates, this takes the form of a Recruiter Candidate Assessment completed by an independently privileged behavioral health provider, and it must be done within six months of arrival at the Recruiting and Retention College.³ Drill sergeant candidates need a mental health evaluation documented on DA Form 3822, completed by a certified Army mental health professional.⁷ For recruiter nominees, the mental evaluation statement cannot be older than six months at the time of reporting.⁴ Schedule it early enough that it does not expire before your packet is complete.

Submitting the Form as Part of Your Packet

DA Form 7424 does not travel alone. It is one piece of a larger nomination packet that your chain of command assembles. For recruiter candidates, the full packet includes DA Form 5425 (financial statement), DA Forms 5426 and 5427 (commander interview and evaluation forms), DA Form 7424, the mental health evaluation, and the Enlisted Record Brief.⁴ Recruiter nominees hand-carry the entire packet when reporting to the Assessment and Recruiting Center.

For drill sergeant candidates, the form is completed at the Drill Sergeant Academy during initial orientation. If a candidate discloses possible misconduct within the previous 12 months on the form, HRC makes the final determination on whether to remove them from the Drill Sergeant Program. For Reserve and Guard soldiers not on AGR status, their respective command makes that call.¹

Company and battalion commanders or equivalent supervisors personally conduct face-to-face interviews and complete the relevant forms as enclosures to the packet.⁴ Your immediate leadership is vouching for your suitability before the packet ever reaches HRC.

What HRC Verifies Against Your Answers

Once the packet reaches Human Resources Command, centralized screening goes well beyond what your local command can see. AR 614-200 paragraph 8-19 lists the records HRC screens or coordinates:²

Inspector General records for any complaints or investigations on file.
Personnel security and criminal records indexed in the Defense Clearance and Investigations Index (DCII), the Army Intelligence Records Repository (AIRR), the Army Central Registry of sex offenders (ACRC), and records held by OPM and other federal agencies.
U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command and Crime Records Center records.
Official military personnel file restricted files maintained by HRC.
Any other relevant records HRC decides to pull.

HRC also verifies that soldiers possess a favorable NACLC (National Agency Check with Law and Credit) or higher-level investigation before screening can proceed.² At the local level, commanders are required to check police records, the National Sex Offender Registry, Army Substance Abuse Program records, family housing records, Army Central Registry records, and behavioral health records maintained at the military treatment facility.

This is why honesty matters so much. A soldier who omits an Article 15 or downplays a domestic incident that surfaces during CID record screening faces far worse consequences than someone who disclosed it upfront.

Disqualifying Factors and How Long They Last

AR 614-200 sorts unfavorable information into tiers:²

Type I disqualifiers: permanent exclusion from all positions of significant trust and authority. The regulation maintains a table (Table 8-1) listing specific categories.
Type II disqualifiers: exclusion for five years from the date of the incident.
Other unfavorable information: exclusion for three years from the date of the incident if it occurred within the past three years.

A Type I disqualifier permanently ends any possibility of serving as a drill sergeant, recruiter, AIT platoon sergeant, or SARC/SAPR VA. A Type II creates a five-year waiting period, after which the soldier may be reconsidered. Less serious derogatory information imposes a three-year cooling-off period.

Waivers and Appeals

A disqualification is not always the final word. Waiver authority for Type II disqualifiers for drill sergeant, AIT platoon sergeant, and recruiter nominees sits with the Commanding General of HRC. For SARCs and SAPR VAs, the first general officer or Senior Executive Service member in the soldier’s chain of command holds that authority. Neither can be delegated further.²

For cases that fall outside the specific disqualifiers listed in Table 8-1, the Director of Enlisted Personnel at HRC has waiver authority for drill sergeant, AIT platoon sergeant, and recruiter nominees. This authority can be further delegated to the nominative branch chief.²

Soldiers who are disqualified based on background screening receive notification through Defense Enterprise Email. The notification identifies the agency that reported the disqualifying information and provides that agency’s address so the soldier can pursue an appeal.² Confirm the current routing instructions in the notification email itself, as addresses and office designations change with Army reorganizations.

Privacy of What You Disclose

DA Form 7424 includes a Privacy Act Statement on the form itself, disclosing the authority for collecting the information, its purpose, and its routine uses.⁸ The stated purpose is to obtain the information necessary to determine whether a soldier is eligible for sensitive duty.

Medical information disclosed during screening has layered protections. Under the Military Command Exception to HIPAA, military treatment facilities may share protected health information with command authorities for fitness-for-duty and fitness-for-assignment determinations. Once that information reaches command, it falls under the Privacy Act of 1974 rather than HIPAA. Behavioral health and substance abuse treatment records carry additional restrictions, and providers generally cannot notify a commander that a soldier sought these services unless the soldier poses a serious risk of harm to themselves, others, or the mission.⁹

In practice, the behavioral health interview and the information you disclose on the form travel through controlled channels. The certifying commander and HRC screening officials see what is relevant to the suitability determination. If you have concerns about what specific records will be accessed, the behavioral health provider conducting your evaluation can explain what gets reported and what stays in your treatment file.

1
DTIC. TRADOC Regulation 350-16 Training Drill Sergeant Program
2
U.S. Army. Army Regulation 614-200 Enlisted Assignments and Utilization Management
3
U.S. Army Recruiting Command. Eligibility Requirements
4
DTIC. Assignment of Enlisted Personnel to the U.S. Army Recruiting Command
5
Combined Arms Research Library. Finding Military Publications
6
U.S. Army Recruiting Command. DA Form 7424 Sensitive Duty Assignment Eligibility Questionnaire
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U.S. Army Recruiting Command. Return Recruiters
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DocHub. DA Form 7424
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Health.mil. Military Command Exception