Rank venting

So I got my letter (20 years). 4 years active, rest in the reserves with two "combat" mobs sprinkled in.

How many out there are Navy reserves and due to retention etc, making E7 (obviously dependant on rate) is simply not going to happen?

Sucks, I have EPs, killing it in my current unit and have what SPAWAR (now NAVWAR) constantly harps as critical skills, but the advancement rate is a joke.

I don't want to go out this way, anyone have Intel on reserve IP officer DCO odds? Meaning is it in high demand, open? Obviously need an age waver and such, but a 10th fleet O said it's pretty open.

 

I can't add anything to your question directly, as I got out of the Army in 1988, and my time in service was an entirely different world that what you all have dealt with in recent times. Thank you for your service!

I was in from 1985-1988. The only real period of pure peacetime since the early days of involvement in Viet Nam. No hot situations anywhere (invasion of Granada was in 1983, first war in Iraq didn't start until after I ETS'd). Retention was not a concern at that time, and the Army, at least, was making it extremely unpalatable to anyone who wanted to make a career. Promotion points for E5 were at 999 for as long as I was in. I met tons of E4 Promotables who had passed the E5 board years prior, and only had 300 - 400 promotion points, and 8+ years in service. I don't know what the points cutoff for E6 was, but I met more than a few E5's with 12 - 15 years in service, waiting for the E6 cutoff to be lowered. Because it was peace time, there was almost no way to earn any promotion points. Not a very promising scene back then. Of course it all changed dramatically with Desert Storm.

 

Time to kick up those bake sales PO1.

 

I was Active duty 1981- 84 and during my TIS rank promotion was based on how many Marines in a specific MOS . If your MOS had alot of personnel it was slower to advance in rank compared to a MOS that had fewer personnel

For my MOS (2111 small arms weapons repair) I made rank quickly because there wasn't that many Armorers . I made PFC just under 2 months from Bootcamp , Lance Corporal 6 months later then 9 months later promotion to Corporal

Since was the only Armorer in my Armory my OIC appreciated how well I ran it and I received numerous Meritorious Masts which helped achieve rank faster . Unfortunately I got hurt during training mission and had to get out and missed getting Sergeant

 

@Comatose get in here.

 

No comment.










Fuck the selection board...

 

Lolz

 

I think it’s this way for all branches with reserve promotion rates. Lots of guys stagnate at the e6 and up level. Hell I’ve seen some really old e4s.

Look at the bright side, no incurred service obligation if you get selected. No offense but if the Navy knows you’re retiring (assuming you had to submit paperwork for it), why would they promote you? At 18 years I started declining the e9 board just so there wouldn’t be a possible extra 4-5 years incurred*.

How long will you have to wait to collect retirement based off your points?


*wait for an academy date, 9 months in the academy, wait for sequence number to hit, owe 3 years after you pin.

 

The SM Academy is 9 months long???? damn......

 

Yes sir

At least as of 15’

 

And how much of that is learning a hatred for walking on "your" grass and the correct pronunciation of "behoove"?

 

lol no clue. I never entertained going. Although I know they started to add opportunities to take online college courses so guys could come out with a degree also. I went the old fashioned way, busted my ass whenever I wasn’t down range or in the field.

 

Overall it's not a big deal, more so ironic how some rates (mos for some) begrudgingly advance and others are hard-stop. Pretty simple I'll retire soon or get dco selected, I'm fine with either. Get my weekends back, or get to put on my Grandfather's 02 bars and retire later with more points.

 

Agreed on some level. BUT (at least for the Army) it’s based off slots. Combat Arms have larger branches then say the maintenance or MI branch. So when an IN dude advances and an intel guy didn’t it’s because those slots were available. Combat arms moves up faster but we also don’t have transferable skill sets.

I’ve yet to see an add for a stateside job that requires explosive experience and a need to shoot at people. Apparently our interstates don’t need counter IED patrols either.

 

I should have added to my first post, that I was a REMF (27E - TOW/Dragon missile systems repair) and was in a Maintenance batallion, as were the rest of the people I mentioned that had many years at only E4 or E5.

 

I checked out your digits

 

I started out an EM, basic engineer, then 9-11 happened so when I finished my 4 years and went reserve I went coastal riverine and then two MOBs mixed into college over the years. Meanwhile my civilian track got me into cyber security, that is why as a rated EM somehow I'm in a navwar unit. This article speaks volumes to what I see now:
https://mwi.usma.edu/us-military-cant-just-hire-cyber-expertise-heres/

The writing is on the wall this community is going to get huge, but that typical slow bureaucracy will make it so long after I'm retired they will finally start fast tracking guys like me into O ranks with red carpets. Frustrating to have a skill set they are frothing over yet high year tenure will have me retire at a rank that prior service civilian managers have admitted would be a red flag in an interview (again not a big deal and nothing that can't be talked to).

Again, not the end of the world, and grateful to even have the flexibility to put me in such a fun unit, but sad to see how slow and unable (non-agile) our systems are to adapt to the emerging battle space.

So many guys would accept an other than honorable to get out of a shitty billet and I'm in a unit of high paid cyber ninjas that love coming into drill and do extra ATs and we are high year tenuring out left and right. So so typical military- a big huge organization that adapts to the treat scape about a decade too late.

Two for two the last two days calling the DCO recruiter, will keep trying to get this process engaged and it goes how it goes...

 

Not to be an ass but unless you’re MilTec in the same field or active reserve, wouldn’t the demand be for active duty service? I can’t imagine getting a lot done during your drills in such a highly technical field.

With army reserves, soldiers barely even get their counseling and posh training completed, much less actual tactical or technical training.

 

Sorry what is MilTec?

When in a 'coffee and donut' reserve unit I saw that side of the reserves, not enough time to even knock out basic admin. The corivron community spits in the eye of that situation, they get boats in the water, training, land nav, gun shoots etc accomplished on drill weekends, pretty amazing, but they have a healthy deployment cycle so that lights a fire under that ass. Then going SPAWAR/navwar even more impressed at how a tiny unit (relative to corivron) puts such a dent in getting stuff done- sec+ bootcamps getting a bunch of active duty certified and compliant, VMWare vct labs, acas reviews on ships fixing a bunch of configuration issues, helping build the next big deal SIEM for various commands etc every month all year. When the brass rubs us off with bravo Zulu speeches it not typical eye roll stuff but legit amazing what the fleet gets from this unit

Your point is solid and reflected in the article I linked, and in of itself the crutch of it. How are you going to entice purple haired ear hole earing types making 130k a year to join up as an E1, or push button E4 for that matter? Submit to drug tests? Point being the even fewer "strait laced" candidates are even scarcer. Navwar has realized (unfortunately not big Navy though) that there are prior service that still like being active reserve that have that six digit job (not bragging but highlighting the articles point of supply and demand + cultural elements as well) but still like having that "one foot in" the service. My unit kills it with tons of IDTT, AT, ADT funded missions around the world. I went from rolling my eyes at how much impact a tiny reserve unit could have to legit impressed. Just seems a shame at how slow they are at "catching up" to other branches. I have a co-worker already priming me to jump over to the Army side as they seem to have built up the infrastructure to recruit, retain and promote this skill set. This coworker went E to O easily, another buddy put on warrant, no big deal. In the Navy side warrant in this community is essentially impossible, heck even E7 for that matter. LDO, not a single IP or cyber officer billet what so ever this cycle or last cycle.

It's just a trip seeing the big Navy manpower machine move so slowly. Seen it time and time again by the time big Navy has it's knee jerk reaction to a situation, said situation sailed away years ago. It's like watching a sloth trying to play Dodge ball.