Changing criteria
Let’s lead off with the Army:
The Army Combat Fitness Test for combat-arms soldiers is a pass-fail physical fitness test for folks in “close combat” roles like infantry and artillery.
Beginning in Spring 2027, soldiers who cannot pass the test will have to reclassify into new jobs or separate from the Army.
“This initiative is not just about meeting metrics, but about ensuring our soldiers are prepared for the challenges of modern combat,” said Command Sgt. Maj. Alexander Kupratty, the Pentagon-level leader in charge of Army operations, training, and planning. “The CFT will be sex neutral and age-neutral, ensuring all soldiers can perform under realistic combat-relevant conditions.”
Think of it as similar to the Expert Physical Fitness Assessment required for the Expert Infantryman Badge (don’t they need to change that to infantryperson before someone is traumatized now that women can serve in combat arms?/s), Expert Soldier Badge, and Expert Field Medical Badge. One difference – the soldiers wear their standard field uniform, but unlike for the badge testing, they don’t have to wear helmets and armor.
The CFT is graded as a continuous timed event, completed in the following order: 1-mile run, 30 dead-stop pushups, 100-meter sprint, 16 forty-pound sandbag lifts onto a 65-inch platform, 50-meter carry of two 40-pound water cans, a movement drill with a 25-meter high crawl and 25-meter 3-to-5 second rush, and a second 1-mile run.
To pass, a soldier must complete all the events in succession within 30 minutes.
The CFT will be required for all soldiers in 24 combat specialties, which include officers, warrant officers, and enlisted specialties in infantry, artillery, armor, combat engineers, and Special Forces, as well as divers and explosive ordnance disposal techs. Task&Purpose
Moving over to the Navy – they are going to evaluate how well someone does their actual job, versus community activities.
To move up in the ranks, sailors are currently assessed not only by their job skills, but also for volunteer work and for “collateral duties” outside their primary rate. Membership in the First Class or Chief Petty Officer Mess is also considered for more senior enlisted sailors.
An April 13 memo from the Chief of Navy Personnel office said those criteria would now count for less in promotions.
By 2027, the memo said, enlisted promotions will focus primarily on how well sailors perform their on-the-job duties, whether their rate be in aviation, air traffic control, electronics, or special warfare. The memo is in line with a push by Master Chief Petty Officer John Perryman to emphasize “technical mastery” among enlisted sailors.
As I read the article, seems unlike the Army, which has promotion boards for pay grades E-5 and up, the Navy doesn’t start promotion boards until they get to senior NCO ranks, the Chiefs. Or do they mean Pentagon-level boards like the Army has for senior NCOs?
“At the selection boards, instead of focusing on the sailors that are technical experts in their field, what tends to happen a lot is these evals selection boards start to look at: this sailor is good in his field, but what collateral duties are they doing? What other associations are they involved with? Are they involved in the First Class Petty Officer Association? Are they the safety officer?” Simoes said.
Collateral duties include being part of a ship’s safety committee, overseeing unit physical fitness tests, or managing drug and alcohol programs or sexual assault prevention and response training. Task&Purpose II
Hopefully some of you aging waterlogged types like Ed can maybe fill us in on this?
I would be on board with the Navy requirements, I remember blowing out the test with high marks only to be smacked with the chiefs board. Then as I was leaving my last sea tour with junior sailors asking me how to fix this or that and me telling them to ask the chief, he should know.
Don’t let it bother you. Some people are doing the job and the Navy, in their infinite wisdom, has yet to catch up with those sailors.
What flavor of nuke were you?
Was an MM, tours on the Arkansas, Lincoln, and Vinson.
I was a “rent a crow”…i.e. was advanced to E-4 automatically upon completion of an advanced A school in my rate. I’m also a very good test taker and was advanced to E-5 on my first try and E-6 on my second. So, from date of entry to promotion to First Class PO was about 6 years. Then I got stuck. Drawdowns and low promotion rates mostly…then when that was past and they started promoting again, I’d been an E-6 long enough that I think they started wondering “why isn’t he a Chief already, what’s wrong with him”. Twice I had different Command Master Chiefs have a meeting with me to review my service record and figure out what I needed to do to get advanced. Both times they had a checklist of things that the board was looking for. Both times they checked off all the items on the checklists and said basically “I don’t know what the problem is.” One of them asked if I’d slept with the CNO’s daughter or something. Ha. I held Chief billets for several years as a PO1. In one of them, one of the other PO1s who worked for me had a parent die the week the review board packages were supposed to go out. I got him to grant me permission before he left. I ordered his service record from personnel along with mine and put together and submitted both of our board packages at the same time. He made Chief. I didn’t. BTW, that was the second time that the CMC called me in for a record review and couldn’t figure out why I didn’t get selected. Anyway, when I got to 19 years, I’d pretty much given up. I jumped through the hoops and submitted my package, but I also had my retirement package ready to submit the day after the advancement results were announced. That’s the cycle where they finally decided I was good enough. I was the most senior (time in rate) PO1 of my rate and very possibly the most senior PO1 in the Navy that… Read more »
Collateral duties are fine and dandy, but every service member should be rated primarily on their duty MOS and proficiency therein.
That said, some Army units pile the collateral duties on a handful of personnel, making it impossible to focus on their primary job. My brief stint in 3-15 Infantry saw me told that I was the junior Squad Leader by my SF/Ranger PSG. I had about seven years in grade, but has spent the previous two years in Brigade S3 and the three years before that as a Recruiter. Our “senior” SL had a year in grade (having enlisted after I pinned SSG) and the other E-6 exactly one month. Needless to say, the Soldiers knew who to come talk to if they needed advice or guidance on Army programs or regulations. The whole “seniority” thing SF/Ranger guy had come up with was nonsense anyway, and wasn’t brought up after our initial meeting. I think the 1SG explained to him how conventional Infantry works… or something.
Regardless, I reported to that company having been the Brigade Victim Advocate, so I was made Company VA on the spot, then told I was scheduled for the CBRN Defense NCO course the following week to take over that collateral duty (74Ds had been taken from the Infantry units sometime in the late-2010s). Finally, I was made Safety Officer and Voting Assistance Officer.
I was used to, and even thrived on having collateral duties. As CBRN Defense NCO, I didn’t have to hang out in the Platoon CP with the other SLs and instead spent as much time as possible training the company on CBRN equipment. I even talked Commo into giving me a computer to ensure my platoon was always caught up on online training. Fun times. Still took another three years before I got promoted.
I did not know the company level NBC pukes had been removed from MTOE. Of course I got out in 06. Come to think of it, most all units I was in, we had a 11M/B Spc/Sgt running the NBC room after going to the local troop school NBC course. Was always a shock when we had an actual NBC guy.
It didn’t take me long to realize that in garrison, as a 54E/B, my job wasn’t full time. When I first hit a unit, the first thing I did was grab the Additional Duty book and see what was open. I would volunteer for a couple that I wanted before being assigned the crap ones. This accomplished a few important things: face time with unit leadership who had no clue what an NBC NCO’s job was; face time with the Line Troops whose support I needed in order to do my job in the field; school opportunities; more positive bullet comments for the NCOER.
As HQ Plt SGT in a Truck Company one time, our Commo SGT PCS’d with no new one inbound. Bam – now I’m Company Commo. Was Company REUP NCO for 2 years. Top Company for 7 out of 8 quarters.
Had many more “extra” jobs like that. I took time to learn the jobs of the Line Soldiers. Pulled tail on 8 inch howitzers. Learned Survey when GPS was young. Ran an Arms Room for a while. Was BN S2 NCO. Stuff like that. And those jobs benefitted both ME and the UNIT. After the Army did away with SQTs (which I always did very good on), since unit leadership had no idea what we REALLY did for a living, there was no true way to get a decent NCOER without grabbing some extra work and doing good at it. Never offered to do any of that “off-post” volunteer stuff though. Wasn’t work related.
I understand that we needed to be proficient at our jobs and spend time doing them. With me, I was able to maintain my proficiency while doing the extra junk as well. Occasionally, career survival demanded that we do those extra jobs. Just don’t forget how to do your “real” job.
I never knew how many collateral duty’s there were at the company level until IG gave our company 30 days notice of a inspection and they started handing out additional duty orders to almost every NCO in the company. Thankfully I was a Spc., BUT I was also the company armorer, so I had that to deal with.
Sitting here thinking about it, I somehow never had an additional duty dropped on me as a Sgt or SSG. I did get sent to a HAZ-12 course as a Sgt right before we deployed, but I guess they forgot about that, because I never got put on orders or did anything with it. Thank God, because after that course I never wanted my name on anything that had to do with HAZMAT paper work. Let the company XO sign his life away on that CONEX paperwork.
Lucky you. From 2012-2019, I was a SHARP VA at various levels, all collateral positions despite the BDE VA job being considered full-time per the 2012 NDAA. Even as a Senior Drill Sergeant, I was Company Armorer, MRT, and VA. I never had anything as an E-5, but then again I was a Company Armorer and HQ Section Leader then, and managed to create my own collateral Arms Room NCOIC position when I got promoted and took a squad. It was in The Old Guard and we had a bunch of cool historical guns, plus a nice area complete with beer fridge and PS2, so I wanted to keep unaccompanied access. The second I pinned SSG, though, I was sent to the training to become Retention NCO. I think recruiting duty was the only time I didn’t hold at least three titles as a SSG/SFC.
I wound up the CDAC NCO (Community Drug and Alcohol Counseling or some such) and my LT asked how I got that – I told him I had more experience than anyone else.
Shoot, even I got one or two collateral duties when I was a specialist. In addition to my full time job of unit supply clerk (on the signature card from the Cdr. for most classes of supply except V, IX, and X and I did pick up 5.56) and alternate armorer (the number 1 armorer was a 54B who had taken the small arms course), I was also energy efficiency NCO and I think something else one year.
Has the Army ever gotten enough decon troops (NBC; 54B)? You could make E-5 as a 54-B with 498–510 points in the mid-90s; 92Y it was 798 (out of 800; ie, didn’t need any more supply sergeants).
Chemical always be short.
Woo-ee Army! Here we go again.
“16 forty-pound sandbag lift”
“two 40-pound water cans”
Hmm. If only I could get together a couple retired SGMs, maybe a GO, and a disabled native american lesbian in a wheelchair (CEO so we get all the contracting set-asides), we could put together some package deals of the above and sell them to every Army installation in the world.
Maybe even put those sandbags and water cans in a quad-con so we can double the price!
I HATE collateral duties. The reason I stalled at PO1 for 12 years was because I refused to take on any collateral duties. I only took on 1 a year when I realized I asked the person in charge for help with the USMAP program and they didn’t know anything! It became a vendetta of my own making.
That being said, it’s collateral not main or primary. Gonna be a lot of PO1s and CPOs pissy because “how am I going to stand out now?” whining happening.
My bad I saw you asked the question. Our boards for Enlisted start at E7 (CPO). But the collateral duties snake their way in for everything, rankings, sailor of the year, you name it. The problem is you have collateral duty collectors, they have sometimes 4-6 collateral and suck or are mediocre at all of them. Then they get all the praise but are the person not doing their job.
There is a counter point here, some collateral duties are important or needed and should be looked at different. Being the publications person is dumb, but being an Assistant Command Career Counselor is important. It’s the people and commands who take the quantity not the quality, and the execution, that are the problem.
Any questions, please ask. I have sat both sides of this debate for CPO and non-CPO.
“As I read the article, seems unlike the Army, which has promotion boards for pay grades E-5 and up, the Navy doesn’t start promotion boards until they get to senior NCO ranks, the Chiefs.”
That is correct. At least as of 20 years ago when I retired so unless something’s changed since then…
Promotions up to E-6 were based primarily on advancement exam scores.
Advancement to E-7 and above required board review of the entire service record.