The Army, like any orga­ni­za­tion, must react and adapt itself accord­ing to chang­ing out­side con­di­tions. We are now enter­ing a part of the cycli­cal lifes­pan of the U.S. mil­i­tary called a draw­down. What does this mean to Soldiers? Simply put, if you have com­mit­ted an unfor­giv­able sin such as: DUI, drug use, lying, cheat­ing, or steal­ing you will have to work very hard to be retained.

New Army reten­tion guidelines

The Army has laid out a series of new reten­tion rules effec­tive 1 March 2012. Soldiers who have a poor eval­u­a­tion report on file will not be eli­gi­ble to reen­list. What does poor mean? Here’s a list of all the symp­toms of a poor NCOER:

• NO entry in the val­ues section
• Senior Rater rat­ing of 4 or 5
• Relief for cause report
• Overweight
• APFT fail­ure
• AWOL 96 hours or greater
• Failure of a ser­vice school
• Use of drugs
• Alcohol related inci­dents that resulted in some form of pun­ish­ment or admin­is­tra­tive action like an Article 15 or let­ter of reprimand

How can you sur­vive the drawdown?

If you are barred to ren­lis­te­ment, were involved in a sig­nif­i­cant act of mis­con­duct, or received a poor eval­u­a­tion report chances are you will be fac­ing the pos­si­bil­ity of either denial of reen­list­ment or sep­a­ra­tion from ser­vice. So what can you do?

Find help

Step one: I highly rec­om­mend that you seek legal guid­ance from JAG. Also con­sider the pos­si­bil­ity of request­ing assis­tance from a civil­ian attor­ney who spe­cial­izes in mil­i­tary law. These con­sul­ta­tions tend to be rather inex­pen­sive but the infor­ma­tion you gain may prove price­less if it leads to sav­ing your career.

Request an excep­tion of policy

If you want to fight for your job, you can apply for an excep­tion to pol­icy for reen­list­ment. To do this you need to show your chain of com­mand you have learned from the inci­dent in ques­tion and you are a stel­lar Soldier. Even then you will most likely face dif­fi­culty as the goal is to reen­list only those Soldiers who have shown the abil­ity to per­form to stan­dard through­out their enlist­ment with­out becom­ing involved in misconduct.

Prepare for civil­ian life

If you do not secure an excep­tion of pol­icy, you will need to come to grips with your new real­ity. There is a lot of work to be done before you sep­a­rate out of mil­i­tary ser­vice. Find your sep­a­ra­tion date. If you will not be allowed to reen­list you may have one-one and half years to pre­pare for your ETS. This will allow you to be well pre­pared for tran­si­tion to civil­ian life. JAG and your local REUP NCO can help you iden­tify the ben­e­fits you will be enti­tled to accord­ing to the type of dis­charge you are being sep­a­rated under. Read more about prepar­ing for civil­ian life.

Serve your country

Remember, you must con­tinue to be a pro­fes­sional Soldier. Just because you are mov­ing away from mil­i­tary ser­vice does not mean that you are no longer the per­son you were while on active duty. If you have bumped heads with your chain of com­mand in the past, this is the time to Soldier up and be a pro­fes­sional. Your chain of com­mand can be of great assis­tance in help­ing pro­vide a pos­i­tive envi­ron­ment dur­ing your sep­a­ra­tion experience.

You will likely find that your chain of com­mand has empa­thy for your sit­u­a­tion and wants to do every­thing they can to ease your tran­si­tion. Do not spoil this oppor­tu­nity by being unpro­fes­sional and caus­ing trou­ble. This will only hurt your cause and poten­tially result in a loss of fur­ther benefits.

Keep mov­ing forward

Do not allow your sep­a­ra­tion from ser­vice to color your view of life in a neg­a­tive man­ner. I have served with numer­ous indi­vid­u­als who sim­ply amazed me by grow­ing where they were planted. They made the best of the sit­u­a­tion and achieved great things through pos­i­tive atti­tude, will­ing­ness to learn, and hard work. Separation is not the des­ti­na­tion, it is only a stop on the jour­ney of life. You choose where your final des­ti­na­tion will be… Get involved. Choose it, and work to achieve your goals.

Best of luck in your civil­ian endeav­ors. Thanks for your ser­vice to this nation.

Additional Reading

• “New Army reten­tion stan­dards take effect, more to fol­low” [link]
• Policy Message 12–02: “Reenlistment Options and Window” [link]

I had an oppor­tu­nity to visit Fort Carson, Colorado last week where I spent time with Soldiers of HHC, 4^th STB, 4^th BCT includ­ing a meet­ing with AskTOP Subject Matter Expert SFC Mackie Ocampo. I also vis­ited the 60^th Ordnance Company.

I served as pla­toon sergeant and later first sergeant at the 60^th while we were sta­tioned in Friedberg Germany oper­at­ing the sec­ond largest ammu­ni­tion stor­age site out­side the United States. I left the 60^th Ordnance Company in October of 1995 as 1SG. At that time, the Soldiers and Leaders of the unit pre­sented me with a unit guidon. I hung the guidon proudly in all of my offices through­out the remain­der of my career.

Mark presents a guidon to 60^th ORD com­mand team

Space for my I Love Me Wall has dwin­dled since I retired. The 60^th has always held a spe­cial place in my heart. It didn’t feel right to pack the guidon away in a box, so I decided to give it back to the unit for cer­e­mo­nial use.

When I walked into the unit, I saw the unit motto “Wolf Pack” on the wall. That brought back mem­o­ries… I encour­aged the unit to choose a motto as none existed at the time within the 60^th and over­whelm­ingly they chose “Wolf Pack”. Funny how tra­di­tion car­ries on.

I spent some time with a group of Soldiers at the 60^th. This gave me an oppor­tu­nity to inter­act with a great group of Soldiers and lead­ers. As I stared into their faces I saw the next group of lead­ers that will lead the mil­i­tary of the future. Who knows, they may very well be some of the next great American civil­ian, polit­i­cal, and busi­ness leaders. After all, the mil­i­tary grows the best lead­ers this nation has to offer as they are tested morally and phys­i­cally. They must have the intesti­nal for­ti­tude to do what is right no mat­ter how tough things get. More impor­tantly we grow lead­ers that we will entrust with our country’s most pre­cious resource–the sons and daugh­ters of this great nation. They will be the ones to lead, grow, and men­tor our chil­dren as they tackle our nation’s future strate­gic and tac­ti­cal chal­lenges across the globe.

I would like to give a spe­cial thanks to 1SG Seip and CPT Parris of the 60^th Ordnance Company for allow­ing me the oppor­tu­nity to spend some time with their Soldiers. Also, a spe­cial thanks to the lead­ers of the 4^th STB, LTC Craft and CSM O’neal as well as SFC Mackie Ocampo and SFC Holland for their pro­fes­sion­al­ism and kindness.

Airdrop! New con­tent secured.

Eight new posts were pub­lished to the site today, includ­ing con­tri­bu­tions from AskTOP sub­ject mat­ter experts John Perry and Philip Cave (fea­tured below). Check them out and remem­ber to give us a shout if you have any tricky Army lead­er­ship questions!

My EPS selec­tion let­ter is signed, when will my pro­mo­tion orders be cut?

Orders will gen­er­ally be cut by the National Guard 15 to 30 days from the sign­ing of an EPS (Enlisted Promotion System) let­ter. However, there are sev­eral vari­ables that could impact that time… [read more]

Political CANs and CANNOTs for Soldiers dur­ing a pres­i­den­tial elec­tion year

Now that we are through the hol­i­day sea­son and charg­ing for­ward towards Spring we face 2012, a pres­i­den­tial elec­tion year. That poten­tially spells prob­lems for mil­i­tary per­son­nel (active, Guard, Reserve, or retired) who want to be involved in the polit­i­cal process. This arti­cle is a quick ref­er­ence to help you nav­i­gate the var­i­ous polit­i­cal restric­tions that apply to you as a Service Member. [read more]

More shiny new content…

• Where can I find an exam­ple Army counseling SOP?
• Can I use an elec­tronic DA FORM 5000/5501?
• Can I let Soldiers go to the gym dur­ing Duty Hours?
• Who gets copies of an Army coun­sel­ing statement?
• Can I receive an Article 15 because I let my pla­toon play soc­cer for PT?
• Can my leader force me to attend a din­ning in or dining out?

Click to read Army Regulation 600–8-19

Army Regulation 600–8-19 has been updated via a rapid action revi­sion dated 27 December 2011. Titled Enlisted Promotions and Reductions, this reg is an impor­tant ref­er­ence con­cern­ing advance­ment through the Army ranks. Changes include:

• Clarifies mil­i­tary edu­ca­tion waivers for rec­om­men­da­tion and pro­mo­tion (tables 3–3 and 3–4).
• Adds new guid­ance for select­ing or nom­i­nat­ing Soldiers to fill first sergeant and sergeant major vacan­cies (para 7–41).
• Adds an Internal Control Evaluation Checklist (app B).
• Changes Basic Noncommissioned Officers’ Course to Advance Leaders Course and Advanced Noncommissioned Officers’ Course to Senior Leaders Course (throughout).
• Changes HRC-Alexandria, HRC-Indianapolis, and HRC-St. Louis to HRC (throughout).
• Makes admin­is­tra­tive changes (throughout).

Check your inbox for our Christmas Newsletter or click this link to read it in your web browser. Merry Christmas, folks. Have an excel­lent holiday.

We have an excit­ing 2012 com­ing up on the site. The newslet­ter con­tains some details about where we are going and how we are chang­ing to bring you what you’ve asked for.