Don't Ask Don't Tell

Freebase Dali · 05-28-2009, 01:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by crash_override

Damn dude, thats risky buisness. I put on E-4 in 7 months (no big deal) and Navy does advancement exams also. But evaluations weigh very heavily on advancement as well. Basically it comes down to a decision board that decides who make it and who doesn't by looking at you on paper. So if you have the person writing you eval in your pocket then you have a serious advantage even if you test like a rock. Maybe in the air force its different, in fact im almost sure of it. But regardless, my point is that in the Navy, favoritism is a fairly big issue.

p.s. Is it rue you guys take your PRT on bikes?

The army's method of advancement is truly jacked up.
E1-E4 is automatic unless you're flagged for fuckin' up... which is ok. But to advance from E4 to E5 (NCO from there up), you need the obvious time in grade / time in service, and... points.
Some MOS' points are extremely high (798) and some are low, which is dependent on how many slots for E-5 there currently is in the MOS.
To obtain these points, all you do is take a crap-load of army correspondence courses (which is a matter of copy+pasting from answer discs), score well on PT, marksmanship, plus any awards you have, and turn them into S-2 and they add to your points based on that.
After that, you go to a promotion board, in which the panel asks you a bunch of stupid questions. If you go to a board, you automatically get more points. If they decide to say you're promotable, then all you have to do from that point is wait until the point cutoff drops for your MOS. Then you're promoted. OR... you can get an auto promotion if your MOS needs more NCO's.
The reason this is jacked up, is any piece of shit E-4 can easily become an lower end NCO... NCO's are the guys doing the leadership. What you end up with is a bunch of 20 year old kids wearing stripes and setting all the wrong examples, making bad decisions, etc.
The process is the same for advancement to E-6.
E-7 and up is a selection process, and it revolves around your "NCOER" (kinda like a record of your accomplishments and fuck ups... and a photograph of yourself. If you don't look like upper enlisted material, you simply don't make it.

Oh, and I wish we did PT tests on a bike. That would have been sweet.