Packet Instructions - Fort Campbell: Fill & Download for Free

The majority never do as only 3% ever do. 1.9 % will SGM E-9I made E-8 at 17 years as an 11C Mortar man. See while there are guidelines and gates on how you should get promoted and many years it should take, it is never exactly the same for anyone.I made Sgt E-5 in 21 months the Army. So I should of been a very fast tracker. I came in an E-1, made E-2 (mosquito wings)@ 6 months, then E-3 PFC @just under 8 months. As soon as I made E-2 I went Air Assault school. About a month later I am walking to the motor pool to sign my dispatch for the vehicle that we were going to the field with on Monday. I was in spit shine boots and starch uniform. As I cut through the back of the brigade headquarters the brigade Commander and brigade Command Sergeants Major was walking out to their vehicles. I yelled currahee sir as I saluted and kept walking by, hoping they hadn't even noticed me. About 5 seconds later the brigade command sergeant major said soldier stop. I immediately turned around and snap to the position of attention. The brigade Commander started questioning me and wanted to know what I did and where I was going. I told them that I was a driver / Gunner (mortars) in CSC 1/506. All this time I noticed the brigade command sergeant major writing something down. Later on that day I was told that the First Sergeant of my company wanted to see me. Normally this is not a good thing when the first sergeant wants to see a private in his company. As as soon as I reported to him he looked at me and wanted to know which one was better the brigade Commander or the bde command sergeant major. I looked at him and said I don't understand first sergeant. He then said okay dumbass. Let me rephrase it in a way that you might be able to understand when you suck both of their dicks which one was better? I said I have never now or ever will do that. He then said okay I don't understand because I just got a note from the Bbe CSM that said you will be promoted to PFC next month, so I just figured that is what you did. Now later on he told me he knew that they we're just impressed with the way I handled myself and the way I looked and that I already had Air Assault wings but he really wanted to mess with me.So not long after that I went made SPC E-4. If I remember about @ 12–13 months. I have been the soldier of the month than the soldier the quarter. So any way I at 14 months I volunteered to go to PNCOC leadership School since nobody else wanted too. Literally the platoon Sergeant in formation asked who wanted to go and I raised my hand he said okay you're going. This was the combat arms version of soon-to-be PLDC and now warrior leader course. Not long after that I was made a squad leader at like 16 months in the army. I had guys that have been to Vietnam w over 10 years in the Army in my squad. They had been promoted and then busted and were just waiting to get out of the army. Oddly enough these guys helped me a lot and they were always really good soldiers. I'm very lucky that I had a couple of them in my squad cuz they actually took care of this young very inexperienced acting Sergeant E-5. Once one the senior SP-4 was trying to give me grief. One of the Vietnam Vets told him to shut the F up. He said you could of went to PNCOC but you didn't so shut up and listen to your squad leader.So I go to Germany and about six months after I get there I go to BNCOC. Which is another leadership course. See the guy that was supposed to go knew he was coming to come up positive on a urinalysis which was very rare back. So he self-referred himself. So they had to put somebody else in their place and here I go again. Everyone tells me that I will be a Staff Sergeant E-6 at 5 years in the Army if I stay in which was the minimum time back then. I reenlisted went to Hawaii and at five years I went to the Staff Sergeant promotion board. Then everything changed, the cut-off for 11C went to 998 out of a 1000. You see at that time the Army had too many staff sergeants and too many sergeant first classes as 11 Charlies. Even though we were infantry we were smaller and there were a lot less of us than a normal 11 bravo or 11 Mike infantry unit. So I waited and continued to go to military schools, and do correspondence courses. I also shot expert and made to 290 or above on my PT test. Still I could not get promoted.Finally right before I left for my year in Korea I made the cut off for staff sergeant at seven years in the army.While I was stationed for Korea I was a mortar section sergeant. The platoon Sergeant I had at that time was let's just say worthless, one of the absolute worst leaders I ever had in the military. He never signed for 1 range as it was always myself, the other section or the platoon leader. He always said he had platoon Sergeant business to do. The first day I met him he asked me where I was coming from, I told him I was coming from recruiting duty. He looked at me straight in the eye and said I hate recruiters they always send us scumbags when I was a drill sergeant. He was also one of these guys that had joined the army, got out and then came in several years later so he was older than a than most of everybody else in the company. He never did PT and he would just turn the platoon over to me or the other section sergeant when the company would do right face. When we get back he would be sitting there with his cup of coffee and cigarette, want to know how the run was.He never hid the fact that he did not like me even though he knew that I was one of best NCO's. This was never more evident then when I came out of the field, sitting on my desk was my NCOER (evaluation) that was not great, it was not bad, it was just average. He didn't even have the balls to give it to me himself as I stated he left it on his desk with instructions for me to sign it and turn it into personnel, as he PCS while we were out in the field.At that time I left Korea and went to Fort Benning as an instructor, once again I knew I had to do something. I started going to college, I attained my associate's degree and also continue to do everything I needed to do to try to get promoted. At 14 and a half years I made the Sergeant First Class E-7 list. The very next month my sequence number were so low that I pinned on E-7. I was always told that it takes 5 years of the board looking at you for promotion to get rid of a bad/average NCOER as the only look at your last five. It was exactly 5 years later that I made the list. I went to Fort Campbell Kentucky and became the mortar platoon sergeant in 1st of the 187th rakkasans. All the years before I went to Airborne school and many other military schools to include Pathfinder School. Two and a half years later at 17 years in the army I made the list for E-8. Now the funny thing is this was in the secondary or below the zone promotion.A few years later my wife told me it was time we retired. Somehow when my retirement packet went forward my promotion packet did too. I made the list for SGM E-9 and the academy in my first look in the primary zone. If I had not have had an approved retirement packet I would have stayed in and made SGM.Oh yeah in case you were wondering the worthless PSG that I had in Korea while he did make E-8 and he did atttend sergeant majors academy, he did not make sergeant major before he retired. I say worthless but really truth be told I learned more most of the time from my bad leaders and I did my good leaders in the army.Once out in the field when I was he HHC First sergeant I got down behind a 50 cal and check the right and left sectors of fire. The old grizzled mess patoon Sergeant looked at me and said he had never had his first sergeant check the sectors of fire themselves. I got up tried to get some of the mud off of me and said what you have on now. The old mess Sergeant ever a smartass said thank you First sergeant. I just smiled.