Army plans cuts to NCO ranks
Stars & Stripes reports that a memo leaked out of somewhere which outlined plans to trim NCO ranks. But of course, not where the fat lies;
The first board, affecting the ranks of sergeants first class and above, will consider senior NCOs “for denial of continued service whose performance, conduct, and/or potential for advancement may not meet Army standards.”
The other two boards will target staff sergeants and above who are in a job “where the 12-month operating strength projections exceed 100 percent” and in jobs where the time it takes a soldier to get promoted exceeds the Army standard.
I may have said this before, but I floated a plan in the 90s to cut NCO ranks by giving E-8s and E-9s an option to take a command or first sergeant slot or GTFO. I saw so many E-8 and E-9s spend their careers doing their damnedest to avoid leading troops it disgusted me, especially since we were in the business of being a leader and not a fat ass coffee drinking POG.
I watched a sergeant major yell at his branch chief over the phone because they were trying to send him to an artillery battalion in the 101st from his cushy ROTC assignment. A CSM in the 101st has to be one of the best jobs in the Army for someone who wants to be a leader, unless it’s being a CSM in the 82d, but the guy was a leg.
Yeah, if the Army is going to trim the deadwood, that’d be fine, but start at the top of the enlisted ranks and boot those senior NCOs who’ve avoided leadership positions their entire careers.
Category: Military issues
I’m headed for the stan again here ina few months. You should have seen the rats running from the ship, dropping retirement or getting imjured. These are not combat arms folks with tons of tours and been blown up a million times. I’m not paying as much attention to the NCO”s as to some of the O’s we have that have not deployed. How the hell does an O4 not deploy. The guy I’m talking about is sucking up all the pre-deployment schools but he’s got some trump card he’s getting ready to drop when were a few months closer. No combat deployment…I’m getting ready for number 4 with a ton of TDY and a divorce thrown in there..and I feel guilty I haven’t gone more.
I am concerned with this also given that they have change the semi-promotion system again. I lost 80 points due to the changes and I will have had six years this April.
Feel Guilty? I have only deployed once and had to watch other units leave after they go through the DCS that we help support.
Can they start doing this in the Reserve Side as well? More specifically the CA/Psyop realm, so that guys like me who have that tactical experience and want to actually be leaders at higher levels can take those billets? I mean, I am up for a promotion soon and it would be nice to have an actual slot to be promoted into….
It should be, if you are E-7 or above without a Combat Patch, and with no tours, GET OUT! Make way for the younger, combat seasoned blood to come in and lead from the front!
Make all the fatties update their photo, enforce ht/wt and PT standards. Bring back the early retirement programs we had in the 90s. And anyone giving a slick sleeved 79R a hassle needs a selection to a tour in USAREC.
What Lucky says.
When you have 56 year old LTCs (AF clown who can’t pass the PT test) how can anyone move up? Get rid of the buck suckers who needed to retire years ago and have (but forgot to tell the military). Combat(real) is a young man’s profession.
@#5: Recruiting and Drill are about the only excuses I would give someone for not having a combat patch. I still consider my three years recruiting as my 5th combat tour (the stories I could tell you). At the same time it is only a 3 year tour, unless you convert, so 79R get a pass in my book, eventhough some of them need to get booted too (Height/Weight standard wise).
By this time though all Senior NCO’s that did time in either USAREC or Drill should have been back to a unit and deployed, but there are always execeptions to the rule (very few though).
this is typical. Get rid of the guy with 3 deployments but keep the shitbird CSM in
Hell they could cut GOs and save more then cutting NCOs.
You mean CSMs who run DI schools too? Ran, I meant….
I’m just going to throw this out there, but if they slash the NCO ranks and do not so a simultanious draw down of the Jr Enlisted, it will be quite bad for all concerned.
Doc is absolutely right, but any cuts need to start from top down, so the fat fucks at higher echelons need to go away
If you cut a General/Admiral billet- you’ll cut several positions- aides, drivers, secretaries etc… Now there is a start!
There are way too many E9’s in the Army and NG. In Bosnia, we had 1,200 troops…for that we had 6 full cols, 78 majors, 9 Sergeant Majors…most doing jobs that were slotted for an E4 or E5!!! But in our group, we had zero privates!
@13: I was actually talking about the idea of a shit ton of privates running around with nay an NCO in sight to square them away.
Worse I fear the NCOs that know how to be suck ups will stay and the hard driving NCOs that have had their heads up their asses i dunno fighting a war are going to be the ones to go. It always happens in war. The ones with paper kingdoms stay, and Warriors get told their useless.
Agree with all here, there’s way too much (figurative and literal) fat at the top. Institute mandatory selection boards to stay in past 20 (including those who are already there). Not leading troops? G’bye.
seen this happen before too. In the mid-90’s, the Green Machine offered 15 year retirements to mid-grade NCOs. Not senior NCO’s, just E-6 and -7’s. We gutted the middle ranks and kept only very senior and very junior folks.
it’s already started I just got off the phone with my buddy from a grunt unit and they’re bouncing possibly him another TL and six squad leaders right before deployment.
I love all the feedback you all have. I was blessed enough to be promoted to 1SG in only 12 years of service. There is no doubt that I feel i had earned. It pains me to see all the Army times everytime i walk into a shopette these past 6 months. Can the SMA not speak in a positive tone even once? Everything is negative, every damn issue. We have thousands of Soldiers, Leaders right now afraid if they are even going to be serving this time next year. And working at a HQ’s like i am now whom is directly involved with this draw back i can say that nobody is safe, not even me. All we can do is use sites like these to share information as soon as we get it so people can prepare for the worst. More times than not at my level i see Soldiers not having the time necessary to react and end up getting screwed because we tell them we are getting rid of them in a memo and tell them they have 30 days to respond but the won’t get until 3 days before those 30 days is up. I mean come on! I do everything within my power to help. If i had a dime for everytime i have sat on AKO white pages looking up people i have never met just to give them advance warning on something. Right or wrong i don’t care. I am a leader and i can only hope someone would do the same for me. just because i am not their leader doesn’t mean shit!!
@4. You’re making too much sense. And it won’t happen, because it’s the top levels, the old lions, that are running the younger lions off the carcass. There’s only so much to go around, and the old lions are making sure they get their share. Their reasoning is the young lions are still young enough to hunt on their own.
That would be fine, if we were talking about lions, instead of people.
I agree with you TOP C. I like your comment.
I’d so volunteer to get out. I’m through w/the Army. Don’t like Ft Lewis, Wa
I’ve served my time.
Why did they change the reduction to Full Bird Colonel. I think the change makes the NCO corp a little weak. I was talking to drill sergeant in my unit. He told me that he missed the previous CSM because he was old school. He really cared about the Soldier but when they talk to the other CSM his answer was am trying to retire.