DA Form 1256 Incentive Award Nomination and Approval

DA Form 1256 Instructions

All award nominations must be submitted on DA Form 1256. When the award is approved, the original form - either a hard copy or a printed and signed digitally-generated version of the form - will be stored in the employee's Official Personnel Folder (OPF).

1. Part I consists of three blocks and is completed by the operating officer.

   • The operating officer provides the service member's or employee's name, organization, present position, title, grade, and salary in the first block (Boxes 1 through 3). If the nominated employee held another position during the period of nomination, their position is recorded in Box 4;
   • The second block of Part I identifies the type of the recommended award. Awards are can be either honorary or monetary;
   • The third block contains personal identifying information about the official making the nomination.

2. Part II is completed only if the award is forwarded to the Department of the Army Headquarters (HQDA). If the nomination is not EEO-compliant, the operating officer has to provide an explanation on a separate page.

3. The local incentive awards committee fills out Part III of DD Form 1256.

4. The appropriate approving authority or authorities fill out Part IV. Part IV contains five columns: the action level, the status of the application as prescribed by each of the action levels - either approval or disapproval (with the indicated sum of the monetary award), an additional cash award (with the sum indicated), and the signature, title, and date of each approving or disapproving official on every action level.