The wait is over

Back in November 2011, after returning from my deployment to Afghanistan, I started labeling my work-related posts with "The Waiting Place" because I didn't feel like I was really moving anywhere career-wise.

In that time, though, I interviewed for a position as a general's aide (didn't get it) and later got a job as a company executive officer. In one of those "life-lemons-lemonade" moments, the delay in the promotion timeframe allowed me to hold that position for about six months, giving me a lot of insight into company operations.

Now that I've been promoted (I'll pin the new rank on Friday) and I've gotten my CLC3 date, I feel like my time in "The Waiting Place" is over. This is the last post for that label.

From this point, I'll be writing about my transition out of my current company and on to my next duty station in Fort Lee, Virginia.

CLC3 date!

Remember my August 9th post about probably having to sit at Fort Hood for the foreseeable future? Forget all that -- I just got a seat for the Combined Logistics Captains Career Course starting in September.

September? Isn't that, like, just a few weeks away? Yes, and that's why the past three days have been very stressful.

On Friday, I got an email from Human Resources saying that they still had some seats open in the September and November captains career courses. I thought, "Perfect! I can get into that November class I wanted!"

Alas, by the time I called on Monday, some of those other, more senior year group folks had responded, too. Because they had priority, he said he "couldn't make any guarantees." What he offered instead was a seat in the September course with an RFO by the end of the day. (According to page 9 of this document, that's no small feat.)

With that piece of news, I went to my chain of command and asked for their permission to leave. It's a bit of a sacrifice for my commander, since my replacement won't be available until mid-September -- after I've already left. Gratefully, despite this, he consented.

I promptly called back and accepted the offer. With just a little over three weeks to get everything lined up, I'm going to CLC3.

Costs of captaincy

And yes, captaincy *is* a word.

To a civilian audience, the idea of having to dish out money for a promotion sounds strange, but that's that how it works for Army officers. Compared to the pay and benefits of being a captain, though, the $75 is negligible -- just part of the deal. Here's where the money goes:

Clockwise, from the top left, that's:

1. The epaulettes for the white dress shirt.
2. The STA-BLACK pins for the reflective belt (morning PT) and a patrol cap
3. Two velcro ranks for the uniform top
4. One rank for the rain coat
5. A sew-on rank for the helmet cover
6. STA-BRITE ranks for the beret
7. Transportation captain epaulettes for the Army Service Uniform (ASU), and
8. Another sew-on rank for a patrol cap.

The most expensive thing is the pair of ASU epaulettes -- $41.20

As a logistics (small "l") captain, I'll have to get new stuff again after going to the captain's career course. At that point, officers in Transportation (88A), Ordnance (91A), and Quartermaster (92A) become Logisticians (FA90A).
From left: Logistics (soldier red; bronze piping), Tranportation (brick red; golden yellow piping), Ordnance (crimson red; yellow piping), and Quartermaster (buff)

Though the Logistics branch colors are most similar to Transportation, it's best not to risk wearing the wrong colors. I'd rather dish out another $40 on epaulettes than worry about getting caught with the wrong gear.

I'll have to take a new DA photo for my ORB anyway.

Chatting with the Branch Manager

I called my branch manager last Thursday to see if I could schedule my captain's career course. Here's what I learned.

First, I found out there are over 1,000 people who have a higher priority for CLCCC (Combined Logistics Captains Career Course) than I do. There are over 300 left from YG2007 and about 650 from YG2008.

To him, it's very important to get those guys to classes before me. However, I wonder how many of those 1000+ captains just don't want to go. Some guys with prior enlisted service are right where they want to be and don't have any intention of moving.

As I thought about it further, I came to the realization that I probably won't leave Fort Hood for another year or so. That's just how the system works.

In one sense, the process is bottom-up. As new second lieutenants come in, it frees up first lieutenants to take over the XO and junior battalion staff spots. Then, after there are enough people on battalion and brigade staff, people are free to move out.

With my battalion closing down, this is a great opportunity. The hard part for me is determining what I *want* to do. I'd love to go to CLC3 as soon as possible, but I don't want to request a date only to have it pushed back to July. In that situation, I'd be filling a chair for six months in the new battalion.

Compared with sitting around for that long, I'd rather invest a few more months and take command of a Movement Control Team. It wouldn't count as a "real" command (meaning a "key developmental billet") because it's not more than 50 people, but it would be a great broadening experience.

The only problem with MCT command is a possible deployment. Between 1.) MCT command with deployment, and 2.) sitting at a desk, I would choose the latter. What's definitely not a possibility is moving outside the brigade. Though it would be great to move into a brigade support battalion and see how that side of things works, there's very little chance of my brigade just letting me go; even then I'd have to find someplace that would take someone on an open timeframe.

Options are nice, but they sure make decisions more complicated.

Catching up

Back in 2007, I got the idea to join the Army from a friend of mine while we were in Korea. He got me started on a path that has led us to where we are today -- both captains in the U.S. Army.

We didn't enlist together, though. He returned to the U.S. first and went to basic training in March 2008. I stayed in Korea until the end of my teaching contract and then started basic in July 2008. As specialists, he had about 4 months more time-in-grade than I did.

That gap narrowed a bit in Officer Candidate School. He had to snowbird a bit before his class formed, and so his class didn't graduate until about six weeks before mine. As lieutenants, he outranked me by six weeks.

Now, with the promotion board results I mentioned in the previous post, it's two days -- I'm catching up.

Maybe I can beat him to major four years from now.

First round of FY2012 captain promotions

This morning I was happy to get my sequence number -- I placed within the first 750. That's a great way to start the morning.

The afternoon was even better -- I found out I've been a captain for almost two weeks.

MILPER Message 12-251 gave the effective dates of promotion for the first 1242 lieutenants-promotable as follows:

1. 23 July, 1-47 (47 total)
2. 24 July, 48-338 (291 total)
3. 25 July, 339-509 (171 total)
4. 26 July, 510-762 (253 total)
5. 1 Aug, 763-1083 (321 total)
6. 1 Sept, 1084-1242 (159 total)

With the next captain board beginning on April 6th (according to that HRC website's "Consolidated Selection Boards for FY13"), my guess is that HR will be spacing things out through March.

But I'm happy. I ate breakfast as a lieutenant, lunch as a lieutenant-promotable, and dinner as a captain with 12 days time-in-grade.

Promotion sequence numbers

As promised, the Army's Human Resources Command released the list of first lieutenants who are promotable to captain.

Army Times published the full list of names.

You can also get the same list, but with the actual sequence numbers. Start at http://www.hrc.army.mil/, then Career > Boards and Promotions > Officer & WO Selections & Promotions. About a third of the way down the webpage, there's a link called "FY12 Captain, Army Competitive Category, Selection Board Results" posted 7-Aug-12. Click on that -- you'll need to log in with your AKO information at this point.

I was pretty happy.

Out of the 4500+ names, I'm within the first 750.

Family Care Plan

In my last post, I wrote about some ways you can get kicked out of the Army. If you're a single parent, there's another: failing to have a valid Family Care Plan.

A family care plan is what you would do with your kids in case you had to be deployed. Failing to have such a plan may sound like a rotten way to lose your job, but the Army is very serious about having a world-wide available force.

Similar its bias against overweight soldiers, the Army stresses that soldiers be effective under deployment conditions. If a soldier can't be sure that their family is taken care of, they're not going to be effective.

That applies to me, too. Because of my wife's Exceptional Family Member status, I had to put together a family care plan.

The Army's not for everyone.

MEB, Chapter, & Veterans Affairs

There are several ways to get out of an Army enlistment.

First, you can bide your time until your "Expiration, Term of Service" (ETS). Assuming you don't do anything grossly negligent, you'll get out with an honorable discharge and get on with your life.

Second, you can do something bad, like continually refuse to show up for work, which will get you "chaptered out" with an other-than-honorable discharge. This will negatively and permanently affect your civilian career, but hey -- you got what you wanted.

You don't necessarily have to do anything particularly bad to get chaptered out. You can also get chaptered for failing (several times) to pass a the physical fitness test or for backsliding into obesity after successfully completing the overweight program.

Third, there's a medical evaluation board. If you sustain a significant permanent injury, the Army will hold a Medical Evaluation Board (MEB)to determine if you should be retained or released with monthly disability for the rest of your life.

Unfortunately, this creates an incentive to claim an injury, especially one that's difficult to quantify. Back pain, knee problems, and post-traumatic stress disorder are more difficult to confirm than, say, missing a leg. And mixed in with this incentive is a typical Army perspective: "you might as well try."

Sadly, this has created a backlog for the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Army's MEB process. We in the ground-level units are frustrated because it takes what seems like forever to vacate these positions and get more capable people. In the meantime, we have to use up more human resources to escort soldiers to their appointments -- each one missed just delays the process and costs the Army more money.

I heard of one soldier's story that perfectly illustrates this.

Soldier X was about to ETS in July. Although they had completed the Army's overweight program, they had failed to keep fit. That didn't matter, though, as they were about to start terminal leave (where you use up all your vacation days before you quit) and then get out.

In June, however, a doctor told them that they would be a good candidate for an MEB. Though this was clearly in violation of the existing policy against MEB initiations in the last year of a soldier's enlistment, for whatever reason it was approved.

Maddeningly, the soldier's enlistment was extended just so they could get an MEB and get out. Rather than get the soldier off the payroll and have the Department of Veterans Affairs handle the matter, the Army will now keep paying this person -- just so they can get out anyway.

While the soldier was set to ETS, it didn't make much difference that they had become overweight again; now that they're in the MEB process, they're ineligible to be chaptered out for being overweight.

What I can't figure is why the Army would do this. My only guess is that the Army is trying to relieve the burden on Veterans Affairs, but that's the only thing that makes any sense.

Signing in advice for ROTC graduates

One of the lieutenants I know just found out their sequence number for promotion; it's in the first hundred, so they're sure to get promoted in the first month. At first blush that sounds pretty cool, but after hearing the story -- not so much.

ROTC accessions start collecting a paycheck once they sign in to their first duty station, which in most cases is Basic Officer Leader's Course (BOLC).

As an ROTC graduate, my friend spent a few months after graduation waiting for the first school, which was in October 2008. However, by signing in to the school in October -- the start of the federal government's 2009 fiscal year -- they were assigned to Year Group 2009.

What they should have done is sign in during September and then wait for BOLC to start. By doing so, they would have been assigned to the 2008 cohort. The last officer in that group was promoted to captain in November 2011. The way it looks now, the first officer of the 2009 group won't be promoted to captain until -- and I'm just guessing on this -- the beginning of September.

If you consider the difference this year between a 1LT and a CPT in both base pay and housing allowance (with dependents), that's about a $10,000 mistake.

So here's my advice, ROTC people -- sign in by September and do whatever work you can find ("snowbird") until your class begins. It's better to be at the tail end of one fiscal year's group than at the beginning of the next.

August 7: Big News Day

On the 26th, MILPER message 12-232 announced that the Army Competitive Category promotions to captain will come out at 7:30 EDT, August 7th.

However, the results will be "prepositioned" tomorrow, meaning that the results will be available to division-level leadership.

The reason? So that they can contact those who have not been selected for promotion and warn them beforehand.

So, now it's just a matter of *not* getting a phone call in the next week.

Role of the Family Readiness Group

Back in 1991, hundreds of thousands of soldiers deployed to Saudi Arabia in Operation Desert Shield. It was the first major deployment since Vietnam.

Back then, it had been almost 20 years since the wider Army had deployed. Actions in Grenada and Panama involved only Rangers -- not your normal joes -- and people with deployment patches were almost revered.

Since the transition to an "all volunteer army" in the 1970s, the Army had changed -- families were more common. However, garrison life hadn't changed the way families were treated. Because there was no telling how long the coming "Storm" would last, most families packed up and went to the grandparents' house.

The build-up drew tens of thousands of soldiers away from Fort Hood, but also caused the loss of even more family members. With no one to live in houses, properies were sold at below-market values. Killeen was a ghost town.

The Army learned the lesson that in order to keep the economies surrounding military bases from collapsing during a deployment, you had to engage families.

Hence the Family Readiness Group (FRG).

During a deployment, the FRG acts as a "support group of last resort." Spouses who can depend on friends or nearby family members typically don't turn to the FRG, but those with no one else can ask the FRG leader for help.

In a garrison environment, however, there can be little motivation to attend FRG functions. This can lead to a downward spiral of disinterest and uninvolvement. Another challenge is the issue of gossip. A unit's FRG can turn off spouses if there is a lot of negativity -- a common occurrence.

One of the commander's jobs is to engage spouses through the FRG, but this can be hard if there isn't anyone willing to step forward. In that situation, I wonder if the best thing to do is to mail a monthly newsletter to soldiers' homes.

Although the feel of a printed newsletter may be old-fashioned, I think it's the warmest way to engage families. Facebook is cheaper, true, but the cost of a disengaged family can be far greater than printing and postage.

Support Operations and the chain of command

Yesterday my operations section got a call from the brigade SPO office saying we had to help a sister battalion that couldn't accomplish a support mission it was assigned. It was a strange call for several reasons.

First, the normal route for taskings is through our battalion, not directly from brigade. Second, we normally get a few days' notice. Third, the brigade contact said we were to let the other unit use our equipment to do the mission.

This kind of "put down everything you're doing and handle this" convulses a company's operations, but that obviously wasn't the brigade contact's concern. Their concern was getting the mission done, without regard for property accountability or personnel availability. It's a bad way of doing business.

As I found out later, our battalion SPO office had said as much -- which was why brigade circumvented battalion and called us directly. Without knowing exactly who was ordering this, I called my commander and -- under his direction -- put things in motion to pick up the mission.

The first thing to do was dispatch the equipment -- the weekly checks that certify a piece's operability. And since the equipment actually belonged to a who third unit, we had to go through them to get that done.

Unfortunately (and I say that tongue-in-cheek), we just weren't able to get this done by the end of the duty day. Even if we were, though, we'd have had to lay out all the component parts in order to do a property transfer. There's no way all of this could have happened in one afternoon with time enough to actually *do* the mission. We would have run around like crazy for nothing.

Too bad it didn't work out!

For me, it was a learning experience. Although there wasn't anything I did *wrong*, per se, I should have contacted battalion SPO immediately after the brigade contact called. That would have ended things right there.

I also learned about the interpersonal friction between the battalion and brigade staffs. Neither section is monolithic, and there are always characters who act to cover their behinds without notifying their own superiors. In this case, the brigade contact was a comparatively low ranking NCO -- no match for our Support Operations Officer (a major).

In addition, I saw the friction between our SPO and that of the sister battalion's. While we've become famous for never dropping a mission, the other battalion is almost notorious for letting things fall through. Rather than continue to clean up their messes, our SPO shop is trying to wean them from their dependence on us.

To conclude, just because you get a call from someone at brigade doesn't mean you have to do what they say. As an XO, it's imperative that you know who to take orders from, who you just have to be nice to, and who you can blow off.

No matter what, though, you always have to keep your commander in the loop. If there's anyone who can cover your behind, it's your direct boss.

XO vs. OPSO

What's the difference between "executive officer" and "operations officer"?

A: At the battalion level, the executive officer -- a major -- oversees the human resources section (S-1) and the supply section (S-4). When the battalion commander is out, they take over.

What's not run by the XO is handled by the SPO (support operations officer), another major. This includes the S-3 (Operations) and SPO sections.

The S-3 takes care of things like firing ranges, driver licensing, and periodic mandatory classes. In combat units that have no garrison mission, this is a big deal, because they coordinate subordinate companies' daily activities. However, in support battalions like mine, it's less important.

The Support Operations section is responsible for getting mission taskings from brigade and parcelling them out to the appropriate companies. This is a much bigger deal for units with garrison missions like ours.

At the company level, however, the difference is nothing but semantics.  According to my ORB (Officer Record Brief), I'm the Operations Officer, but that's only because of the way our MTOE is written -- there is no position called "executive officer."

My previous unit was the same way, but that's not always the case. I've seen maintenance company MTOEs that have positions for both an executive officer and what's called a "maintenance control officer."

Although the only person I rate is the Operations NCO, my office is right between the company commander's and the first sergeant's. I go to the XO meetings, assume command when the boss is out, and coordinate things in the different headquarters sections. My boss even calls me "XO." For all intents and purposes, that's what I am.

The only time it really makes a difference is in emails, when I go by "OPSO."

I don't want any recipients to think I'm sending them hugs and kisses.

Role of the maintenance warrant officer

If you look at my transportation unit's MTOE (blueprint of assigned personnel and equipment), you'd see we have a lot of enlisted personnel and a handful of commissioned offiers, but only one warrant officer -- the maintenance chief.

It was the same in my previous unit, another similar-sized transportation company. I remember -- as a platoon leader -- wondering what the warrant officer did besides stand behind the maintenance platoon during formations. I've since learned a lot about that position.

A company's maintenance program is more than ordering parts and repairing trucks. It includes overseeing the maintenance of CBRNE equipment, the communications gear, and the arms room. There's also a lot of record keeping and coordination with the Supply section.

As a commander, it's important to give the right amount of authority and autonomy to the warrant officer. In my first unit, the first sergeant would pull people from maintenance for miscelleous taskings and even funeral detail teams. That may be fine if maintenance is ahead of their schedule (and overstrength), but that's hardly ever the case.

It's also important that the executive officer/operations officer know how to work with the maintenance warrant. The XO is in charge of the headquarters platoon, but the maintenance chief should be able to address issues in the HQ's constituent sections. For example, each weapon is supposed to get a documented, periodic inspection. If the armorer is behind on those, the chief needs to be able to frankly tell the XO about the problem.

Depending on the unit's mission, a commander might even consult as much with the maintnance chief as with the first sergeant (his "senior enlisted advisor"). This might be the case in "Third Shop" maintenance units whose primary mission is to provide field level maintenance support, but it doesn't have to be.

As the maintenance platoon's motto says, "No Maintenance, No Mission."

Role of the Safety Officer

A while back, I got appointed my unit's official Safety Officer as an "additional duty." More recently, I finished my training by going to the one-day training presentation. (I even got a certificate of completion!)

So what does the Safety Officer do? I can think of four things.

First, the safety officer is an advisor to their company commander. They can provide material for the commander's pre-weekend safety brief, giving them more to talk about than the typical "don't do this, don't do that" lecture.

Second, the safety officer runs the unit's safety program. Depending on how the commander wants to set responsibilities, they can work with the fire marshals to make sure all the fire extinguishers' inspections haven't expired, and coordinate with the Environmental Compliance Officer to make ensure compliance.

Third, the safety officer is supposed to report on Army accidents. If Pvt. Joe is driving on post and hits someone's car, the safety officer should be on site, take pictures, and get statements. He can then submit the official report to the chain of command.

Lastly, the safety officer is the liaison between the unit and the battalion-level safety officer. Both the company commander and the battlion safety officer answer to the battalion commander. If the company commander reports a Serious Incident (like a soldier's attempted suicide or somthing) to the BC and the BSO isn't in the loop, that's bad. The safety officer should prevent that by informing the BSO of any reportable issues.

Unfortunately, safety officer is one of those thankless jobs. The consequences of screwing it up can be significant, but there's not much opportunity for glory.

However, in anticipation of *appointing* one some day, I'm glad I now at least understand what they're supposed to do.

Pace of Captain Promotions

I was curious about the timeline for captain promotions, so I pulled up the monthly MILPER messages from the Army HRC website and researched the Army Competitive Category promotions from 2003 to 2011. (Clicking on the chart brings up the readable version.)

The timeline generally works like this: in December, there's a board that determines who will be promoted over the course of the following year. In April, the list is announced, the above-the-zone promotions are announced, and the promotions begin . Around July there's a huge jump. By November, the list is finished and the next year's cycle begins.

Some years are strange. In 2008, less than 7 percent had been promoted by June, but July saw two-thirds of the year group promoted in that one month alone. In 2007 and 2009, some promotions were backdated all the way to January.

Before 2006, the system was a little different. In 2003 and 2004, the cycle ran from March through February of the next year. I didn't want the chart to be any more complicated than it already is, so I left those years out.

So there you go -- the pace of the Army's promotions to captain. Though it doesn't address things like zone of consideration or number of total annual promotions, it can help future promotable lieutenants guess roughly when they can expect their promotions.

Cadet at the range

Today I went to the range for my annual qualification with the West Point cadet.

That's him on the left. One of my better pictures, if I don't say so myself....

Hosting a West Point cadet

Back in 2009, just a few months after I arrived at Fort Hood, I hosted an ROTC cadet. I don't know why my unit was chosen for that task -- the only officers we had were second lieutenants (plus the commander) -- but I remember not having a clue what I was supposed to teach her.

Heck, I didn't even know what *my* job was; how could I be expected to show someone else? At the end, I found she'd had a miserable time, and I felt bad. Though I'd followed through on the guidance I had gotten, I think my company commander should have given me more specific advice on what the expectations were.

In April, news came to the unit that we'd be hosting a West Point cadet, and I volunteered to be the sponsor. In part, I wanted to make up for such a rotten time the previous cadet had. The other part is that I have a lot more experience now.

This month makes three years since I first arrived at Fort Hood. I've been a platoon leader both in garrison and while deployed, and now I'm an executive officer. I'm still figuring things out, but I have a little bit more of a clue now.

There's still one question I have, though -- why is my whole chain of command emphasizing the need for him to learn about platoon leadership? Looking back at my own platoon leader years, I don't see how three weeks are going to make much of a difference.

But I guess that's one of those things I have yet to learn.

Riverwalk

The Army paid for my family and I to stay in San Antonio this weekend. It was pretty cool, except that I got sick. Still, the kids got to play in the pool and we walked along the river a couple times. And I got a good picture.