The American Soldier expects his sergeant to be able to teach him how to do his job. And he expects even more from his officers.

—GEN Omar Bradley

Welcome

AskTOP is a blog that con­nects you to a net­work of active and retired mil­i­tary lead­ers who answer your Army lead­er­ship ques­tions. Browse our list of answered ques­tions or search the site. If your ques­tion is not listed, sub­mit it to and we will respond ASAP.

Site News

New retention guidelines announced as part of Army drawdown
21 February, 2012

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]
FT Carson Visit
13 February, 2012

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

I served as pla­toon sergeant and later first sergeant at the 60th while we were sta­tioned in Friedberg Germany oper­at­ing the sec­ond largest ammu­ni­tion stor­age site out­side the United States. I left the 60th 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 Gerecht presents a guidon to the leadership team of 60th ORD at Fort Carson

Mark presents a guidon to 60th ORD com­mand team

Space for my I Love Me Wall has dwin­dled since I retired. The 60th 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 60th and over­whelm­ingly they chose “Wolf Pack”. Funny how tra­di­tion car­ries on.

I spent some time with a group of Soldiers at the 60th. 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 60th Ordnance Company for allow­ing me the oppor­tu­nity to spend some time with their Soldiers. Also, a spe­cial thanks to the lead­ers of the 4th STB, LTC Craft and CSM O’neal as well as SFC Mackie Ocampo and SFC Holland for their pro­fes­sion­al­ism and kindness.

AIRDROP
18 January, 2012
Airdrop! New content secured.

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…

AR 600–8-19 Updated (RAR)
3 January, 2012

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).
Ye Olde Christmas Newsletter
22 December, 2011

AskTOP.net Christmas Newsletter

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.

 

 

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