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Long-planned changes to the mid-ranks NCO promotion system took effect June 1, slashing promotion points for 40,000-plus soldiers competing for sergeant and staff sergeant stripes.
The changes imposed an 80 percent cut for soldiers like Sgt. Nicholas Mateo, a geospatial engineer at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash. He had racked up more than 500 points toward promotion to staff sergeant under the old system. Mateo now has 126 points.
These reductions directly affect soldiers who already have been recommended for promotion, but privates and specialists should take action now to better prepare themselves to compete for NCO promotions, personnel officials say.
While the average promotion point total for the 20,000 specialists on the Army-wide recommended list for sergeant dropped from 514 to 371 between May 1 and June 1, the news isn't as bad as it may seem.
While you may have fewer points under the new system, you probably won't need as many points to make the cut.
An analysis of cutoff scores shows that on June 1, soldiers on average needed 356 points to advance, compared with 514 for specialists promoted to E-5 on May 1.
The picture is similar for staff sergeant promotions. Though the average point totals for 20,000 promotable sergeants Army-wide decreased from 654 to 378, the average promotion score for promotion to E-6 dropped from 654 points to 363.
Despite the stunning reductions, the Army promoted 4,643 soldiers to sergeant and staff sergeant June 1, the biggest monthly total this year, and one of the largest E-5 and E-6 authorizations in three years.
The new scoring system is designed to support the development needs of soldiers in several ways, first by focusing on specific skill sets at different ranks, and by recognizing combat experiences while stressing the importance of completing professional military education courses earlier in a soldier's career.
In a big change, separate point values and ceilings apply to the worksheets for advancements to sergeant and staff sergeant.
For example, specialists can rack up as many as 340 points by doing well in marksmanship, the physical fitness test and by having combat experience. Sergeants looking to advance can collect points the same way, but they max out at 255.
Another example: civilian education was once worth 100 points for both ranks; now it maxes out at 75 for sergeant and 100 for staff sergeant. Awards are similar: 125 maximum for sergeants; 165 for staff sergeant.
"The whole point is to get soldiers to focus on areas important to their overall development and potential for continued service," said Gerald Purcell, a retired sergeant major and an enlisted promotion policy integrator in the Office of the G1 at the Pentagon.
"The continuation of a secondary education is an important aspect of the Army's life-long learning strategy," he said. "But what we're trying to do here [in the civilian education category] is to support pursuit of secondary education while minimizing its impact on the total promotion score.
"While pursuit of a college degree is important, it's not something a soldier has to do by the time he or she reaches sergeant," Purcell said.
The new system also gives proper credit for deploying, Purcell said. "No matter what your MOS is, experiences gained in combat are invaluable, and a soldier with those experiences brings more to the table than the soldier without them," he said.
Once the new scores were determined, personnel computers recalculated the scores based upon the new values — and thousands of soldiers lost points.
While the changes have been in the works for the past 10 years, the actual launch of the system June 1 has prompted supervisors throughout the Army to familiarize their soldiers with the changes.
Staff Sgt. LaShelle Threats, human resources NCO for the 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, is conducting training sessions of about one hour for soldiers in her brigade. So far, soldiers' questions have focused on how points are calculated, how to calculate points for deployments and correspondence courses, and the differences between promotions to sergeant and staff sergeant.
Not surprisingly, soldiers already on recommended lists also have noticed their promotion points have been cut.
Mateo also is a member of the 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team. He "kind of expected (the drop in points) with the way correspondence courses are going," he said.
"I maxed out on correspondence courses, but most of those were sub-courses," said Mateo, who is on orders for reassignment to Fort Bragg, N.C.
Under the new system, promotion points are awarded for military correspondence courses and computer-based training, such as Army e-Learning, but soldiers must complete a course in its entirety. Points are not awarded for sub-courses, as Mateo found out.
Under the new system, soldiers will be granted one promotion point for every five hours of completed correspondence course or computer-based training.
Total credit hours earned for completion of a course will be divided by five to determine promotion points.
Despite the loss of points, Mateo said he likes the new promotion system because it allows the soldier to be responsible for his advancement up the ranks.
"It makes them either want it or not care about it, and that will show in the end," he said.
Soldiers in the 4th Brigade's 472nd Signal Company learned about the new promotion system during a training session June 1.
First Sgt. Ronald Phillips said he required all of his 75 soldiers to attend the training, not just the specialists and sergeants.
"I want the (privates) to understand what it entails, and the sergeants first class and master sergeants so they know what the soldiers need to do so they can counsel and teach them better," Phillips said.
"We as NCOs need to be more involved (in the promotion system) because we should be mentoring soldiers for promotion," he said.
Phillips said in the past, promotion-related administrative actions were taken care of by the unit personnel section, but under the new system, those actions are the soldier's responsibility.
"They need to get educated and be more proactive in their promotions," he said.
Spc. Tiffany Santos, a multichannel transmission system operator and maintainer with the signal company, said she becomes eligible for promotion to sergeant in a couple of months.
"I'm really not concerned, because I believe the new promotion system motivates soldiers who are serious about their careers," she said.
Santos said she expects to have 360 to 380 points under the new system, compared with the roughly 430 she would have had under the old system.
The point recalculations for June promotions were made in mid-May, and will serve as the base starting point for promotable soldiers who earn additional points in the future.
While the new scoring regimen retains the 800-point, six-category format of the old system, points have been redistributed.
Other major changes include:
• The introduction of a new Promotion Point Worksheet that is updated electronically based on personnel and training information in a soldier's official records. The high-tech system is designed so that achievements that earn promotion points, such as physical training and marksmanship, will immediately be credited to the soldier when earned and will be reflected on the worksheet, according to Sgt. Maj. Debra J. Sturdivant, chief of enlisted promotions at the Human Resources Command, Fort Knox, Ky.
• Initially the Army Reserve will use a manual system to tabulate promotion scores. The modified DA Form 3355, Promotion Point Worksheet, will be used until automated systems become available in the Reserve to support use of the new electronic Promotion Point Worksheet.
• The shift of 300 points away from the commander and board categories of the old system to the other four achievement categories of the worksheet. This means a soldier's chain of command no longer awards points.
However, commanders initiate the process by recommending soldiers for promotion, while monthly boards continue to validate the commander's recommendation with a "go/no-go" vote.
• Soldiers can now earn promotion points for their combat experience, up to 30 points for sergeant, and 60 points for staff sergeant.
In the "Military Training" section of the worksheet, soldiers receive two points for each incremental month of service in an overseas combat zone, such as Iraq or Afghanistan.
If it looks like the June promotion "surge" was designed to ease the transition to the harsh reality of the new system, the Army maintains that it "was purely coincidental," according to Purcell.
"The fact is, we would have selected the same number for promotion regardless of changes to the point computations," Purcell said.
"These changes increase our ability to select the best-qualified soldiers, not how many, for promotion," He said. "While the scores go down, that doesn't affect how many promotions are realized," he said.
Monthly promotion authorizations for sergeant and staff sergeant fluctuate throughout the year, as they are based on requirements in the E-5 and E-6 grade cells of enlisted military occupational specialties throughout the Army.
For the past 10 years, for whatever reason, June generally has been a good month for sergeant and staff sergeant promotions, as have the late summer and fall months.
Sturdivant said the source document for crediting combat experience is the Enlisted Record Brief.
