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Promotions leave some staff NCOs out in cold

For sergeants hoping to pin on that first rocker — and staff NCOs hoping to move on up — now seems like the perfect time to make the Corps a career.

Deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan give you a chance to show what you’re trained to do, and efforts to grow the force are opening up a broad path to promotion in most military occupational specialties.

But the truth is that thousands of sergeants and staff noncommissioned officers in zone for promotion will get passed over this year. In fact, over the next few years, they may actually get passed over repeatedly.

The Corps’ ongoing expansion to 202,000 Marines by the end of 2011 means bigger promotion zones and earlier consideration for thousands of Marines. But it also means that some Marines will move into the zone too early to be truly competitive.

In their place, Marines who have been passed over once, twice and even four times are getting promoted, surprising their superiors and even themselves. Old-timers who wouldn’t have been a factor a few years ago are increasingly getting the nod.

Throw in a handful of new rules and variables, and that makes the current promotions climate for career enlisted Marines at once the best of times and the worst of times.

If you thought picking up rank was a given, think again.

Changing the rules

Overall, more than 4,500 Marines in zone for a staff NCO promotion in fiscal 2007 were passed over, for a variety of reasons. Some of those Marines — the ones with poor performance evaluations or legal troubles and more — have stalled out for good reason.

But others missed the cut because the realities for today’s promotions are changing.

As the Corps works to grow the force, there is a lot of pushing and pulling inside the advancement system. Enlisted Marines compete for slots within their military occupational specialties. Demand for different jobs varies, but overall, growing the Corps means more opportunities across the board.

At the same time, however, there is a growing pool of senior Marines who are staying in the Corps, despite passing their traditional service limits. Last year, a Corps-wide message announced formal procedures for granting waivers to Marines seeking to stay in uniform but who have failed to keep up with their peers in promotions.

Historically, service limits would force out a sergeant who reaches his 13th year in the Corps but is twice passed over for promotion to staff sergeant — a system known as “up or out.” But these days, many such Marines can stay in the fight. And if they stay, they compete for promotion.

“In the past, if you got passed over twice it was a really bad thing, and you start looking for employment elsewhere,” said retired Sgt. Maj. John Estrada, the 15th sergeant major of the Marine Corps and formerly the highest-ranking enlisted Marine. “Now that the Corps is growing to a much bigger size, I think those individuals have some new life. They have an opportunity to get promoted where in the past they wouldn’t have.”

Formal waivers granted for Marines to stay on beyond their service limits are becoming more common. For staff sergeants and above, the Corps last year granted 73, up from 25 in 2005, according to data provided by the Marine Corps. So far, the Corps has granted 40 waivers this year, suggesting the total could be higher still.

Every time a twice-passed Marine gets the nod, that’s one less spot for an in-zone candidate. The boards look at all Marines equally and give no special preference or penalty to a sergeant who has been up for promotion once, twice or three times before.

“The pool is bigger. They’re going to look at a lot of people,” Estrada said. “It’s more competitive than it used to be because you’ve got a bigger pool.”

The trend has been underway for a couple of years. While the number of promotions handed out has gone up, the pool of Marines eligible for those jobs has grown even more, in some cases.

Take the staff sergeant selection boards of recent years. The number of staff sergeant promotion slots available increased about 20 percent between fiscal years 2005 and 2007, from 3,578 to 4,300 Marines selected overall. But the percentage of Marines promoted from the in-zone pool actually fell, from 65.2 percent to 64.4 percent. The boards tapped more people who were above the zone — 801 in 2007, up from 634 in 2005.

That holds true for the gunnery sergeant selection board as well. Although more promotions were given out in 2007 compared with 2006, the percent of Marines in zone selected for gunny remained about the same. Meanwhile, the number selected from above the zone spiked about 20 percent — from 495 to 597.

That’s good news for the above-zone crowd, but it could prove frustrating for many Marines moving into the promotion zones for the first time.

“The big concern is that promotion in the junior ranks is so fast because of the points system,” one first sergeant said in an interview. “Marines are getting to sergeant so quickly, we’re having to backtrack and say, ‘Is he really ready to be staff sergeant?’”

Marine Corps Headquarters provided a brief written statement downplaying the impact of service-limit waivers on promotions.

“Waivers rarely impact ‘promotion pools’ and have no impact on the promotion opportunities of a sergeant being considered for staff sergeant. Any argument offered that it does would not be based on any available data,” Capt. Blanca Binstock, a spokeswoman for Marine Corps Headquarters wrote in an e-mail. “Marines are selected to the next higher grade based on who is best and fully qualified for selection, not who has been in service longer.”

Facing the board

Marines should be aware of the changes in the way careers are evaluated behind closed doors when boards meet to sift through stacks of personnel records.

A key change this year is the explicit instruction that promotion boards should consider Marines working in newly created billets, such as a transition teams assigned to train the Iraqi Security Forces, on equal footing with traditional downrange assignments.

“The War on Terrorism has seen the growth of billets traditionally not filled by Marine staff noncommissioned officers. Staff noncommissioned officers assigned to nation building and crisis operations billets are critical to the success of our Country’s policies,” according to the instructions provided to the promotion board members this year.

“The board should be especially diligent in weighing the qualifications of staff noncommissioned officers serving in Transition Teams (TT) and Joint Individual Augmentation (IA) Billets. Service in these critical billets should weigh equal to traditional Marine Corps staff noncommissioned officer billets in the operational forces supporting the Global War on Terrorism during board deliberations.”

Additionally, the boards are instructed to give full consideration to Marines who do not serve in B-billets. Just a few years ago, that résumé gap would have been enough to nix promotion for most staff NCOs.

But operational tempo and new combat extension programs have changed career patterns, allowing a growing number of Marines to spend more time in the operational forces, rather than breaking away to serve as drill instructors or recruiters.

“Bloom where you’re planted,” Master Sgt Anita Robertson, the staff NCO in charge of enlisted promotions, said in a recent interview. “It’s not so much about your billet as it is your performance.”

The bottom line

On the other side of the coin are the Marines who have been unable to get to the war zones at a time when the lack of combat experience is a liability.

“In evaluation of my 25 years of service, this is the ‘perfect storm,’” wrote Master Sgt. Warren Van Nortwick in a recent letter to Marine Corps Times discussing enlisted promotion problems. “I now have one pass (October 2007), will not have time to do a combat tour before the next promotion board convenes, and most likely will draw another pass in 2008.

“I believe I have run out of options in attaining the rank of master gunnery sergeant.”

Van Nortwick makes a good point. He may very well get passed over for master gunnery sergeant again next year.

But others like him will get passed over, too. That means the stigma of a couple of passes isn’t what it used to be. It may create a self-perpetuating trend — the more good Marines get passed over, the more selection boards will pick from above the zone the following year.

“A whole heck of a lot of them are very good Marines with good records, but competition’s tough,” Estrada said.

It may be that the old rules no longer apply — the strains of war on two fronts and the demand for more Marines is overhauling the promotions system.

“It used to be a 2P system,” said one master sergeant, referring to the “twice-passed” scenario. “It’s not anymore. I know 4P guys who have picked up.”

He attributed the shift to an effort to keep experienced Marines around longer as the Corps grows, and a little bit of “lowering the standard.”

“We had a guy who was a terminal staff sergeant who just picked up gunny,” he said. “He goes, ‘I don’t know what I did, but I’m happy.’”

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