Thousands to make accelerated staff sergeant

Easy E-6
Thousands of sergeants will move up earlier


Thousands to make accelerated staff sergeant
By Jim Tice and Matthew Cox - Staff writers
Posted : Sunday Feb 17, 2008 12:18:49 EST

Pressed to increase the number of staff sergeants on active duty, the Army will automatically place several thousand additional sergeants on the servicewide E-6 selection list April 1.

The Army also will accelerate staff sergeant primary-zone promotion opportunities for soldiers who appear before local selection boards, and who compete for advancement to E-6 under the cutoff-score system.

The new system is targeted at sergeants who have not appeared before a local selection board but who have been on active duty for six years and 11 months or more, and who have spent at least 11 months in the grade of E-5.

Unless denied by their commanders, these soldiers will be placed on the standing staff sergeant selection list and assigned 450 promotion points, the minimum needed for advancement to E-6.

Army policy requires soldiers to spend at least one month on a selection list to be eligible for promotion.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/02/army_staffsgt_080217w/



uhc comment: This is how I made SSG in 1968 (or so).

tanked. 2nd, this is a way of keeping them in a little longer, as soon as they are not needed they will be cut loose.

they had them cutting grass just to have something to do.

I remember back in late '04 or early '05, the army did the same thing with E-4s: meet your time in service / time in rank, and you were automatically advanced to E-5. Since these E-5's now only need to meet the same criteria to make E-6, there could conceivably be a number of people who go straight from E-4 to E-6 without "earning" either of the promotions.

Not good business, in my opinion.

(Contrast that to my time as an E-4 in the Navy during the drawdowns of the Clinton years; I had 4.0 evals, perfect test scores, and several years time in rate and time in service, along with years of sea duty; STILL took eight cycles for me to make E-5. They were selecting something like 30-40 out of the 1,000-1,200 sailors who attempted each cycle it in my rate.)