My FIL spent 20 years in the Air Force and retired an E-5

What do you mean it can't happen at a normal job?????

You do know he got cost of living bumps nearly every year don't you?

Do you think Walmart keeps paying its cashiers more every year?

Take the janitor at your neighborhood elementary school, I'm sure he gets cost of living bumps, but after some probationary period, he will never get promoted. He is not qualified to be his boss.

Your FIL was in it for the pension. He looked around and determined the 50% salary increase he could get out of the Air Force was not worth it because then he would not have a pension.

They didn't kick him out because E-5 is where all the real work is done. Did he have a 7-skill level? That is a little pay bump. Wiki says, "The average Air Force wide active duty time for promotion to the rank of E-5 is over 4 years." So it took him about twice as long to as average to get to E-5.

Wiki says, "The average Air Force wide active duty time for promotion to the rank of E-6 is 12 years." So given his earlier performance that might have been 24 years. My guess is that he saw they were kicking E-6s to the curb faster than E-5s.

When it's not actually in a war zone, the military requires a lot of BS, Mickey Mouse type of stuff. Some people grouse about it and it gets noticed.

Plus, the average NCO is a lot more proficient than a comparable civil service worker, so "average" is pretty high already. As a result, promotions as you get higher in rank are increasingly decided on inter-office politics. At least, that was the way it was when I was in the military. Virtually all the E-5s I met in the military were very good workers. Conversely, quite a few GS workers (civilians) weren't worth spit, but you couldn't dynamite them out of a job.

Promotions everywhere are decided on inter-office politics.

Putting up with a lot of BS is the definition of a good worker. You are kind of repeating yourself.

Figuring out how to hire the right people at the lower levels of GS has been a hard problem for a long time. Problems in the upper levels of GS are all about inter-offices politics like everywhere else.

In the army you have to try really hard not to make E6. E6 is average retirement rank in army.

I made SGT (E5) in 2 yrs 2 mo.

Alan

Alan,

Didn't you join after you had your college degree?

Yea.....plan was go enlisted for a couple yrs..then go OCS.....they dropped the age limit to 29 w/no age waivers. I'm 36. Been in 4 yrs. Plan now is either CBRN Warrant Officer or Green to Gold and get a masters. The WO option won't open up for a few years. So I've got some time.

Alan

I just meant your career trajectory with a degree would be different than for someone without.

I hope you are still running. A six plus year waiver may be tough.

That's interesting. According to the Defense Officer Personnel Management Act, officers passed over twice for promotion are required to be discharged from the military. In the zone O-5 promotion comes at 16 years, so in practical terms, you have to make Major (O-4) to retire. I've heard of cases where guys made O-4 below the zone, and then proceeded to get passed over for O-5 twice and have to leave before retirement, but you have to have screwed up to do that.

I didn't know that enlisted could stay in rank so long.

In the air force, yes its pretty uncommon, particularly in the post-Cold War era. All other branches promote percentages within certain specialties, which means that in some specialties, you can find yourself stuck at E-5 or E-6 for a long, long time. In the Air Force, they promote their percentages service wide, meaning once you accrue the points, you get promoted. Retiring at less than E-7 in the modern Air Force is quite rare.

Was he active duty or ANG? In the guard its pretty common for people to find a billet they like and hold it til they die. I do believe that in the ANG all E-5s get promoted to E-6 at 16 years, regardless of their billet, but I could be wrong.

Yea with a degree E6 and 7 will be a lot easier.

I've know guys in their early 40s get waivers for GtoG. CBRN Warrant is a new program. Need to be minimum E6 to go CBRN Warrant. ..also much more selective than GtoG

Alan

well...... wrote:I didn't know that enlisted could stay in rank so long.

For enlisted people, its called High Year of Tenure. In the Air Force, until 2013, if you were still an E-5 at 20 years you were forced out. Now, if you're still an E-5 at 15 years, or an E-6 at 20, you're out.

He could have been demoted at some point and held on to get the retirement benefits. All the armed services got very stretched for manpower after W declared war on everyone. There was a lot of pressure to retain anyone who knew what they were doing. Demotions were preferred to discharge.

Police/miltary jobs are by it's nature 90% logisitics and clerical and much of these positions can be done by Soccer moms and disabled vets via the internet from home.

This is the future for a great majority of military and police jobs.

The gov't is rapidly moving to internet based management of employees and departments.

As much as people hate it, Obamacare is a miracle managed mostly via Linux servers with rather limited new beauraucratic gov't jobs.

For example, why have a Colonel with an accounting degree manage finances at an overseas location when a soccer mom can do it from Omaha via the internet for much cheaper.

As a consequence, in the coming decades, Civil Service and military logistics and clerial jobs are being trimmed down termendously, as much as 75%.

There are jobs which can't be done via the internet, but can be done remotely by drones, robots, and artificial intelligence.

The frontal attack jobs of US Marines cannot be trimmed down, neither can less extremene positions in the standard four Pentagon branches, and law enforcement organizations.

You are correct, it is not common.

How dumb. Why keep those E5 fatties when they can be replaced by illegal aliens.

Devil Dog wrote:

well...... wrote:I didn't know that enlisted could stay in rank so long.

For enlisted people, its called High Year of Tenure. In the Air Force, until 2013, if you were still an E-5 at 20 years you were forced out. Now, if you're still an E-5 at 15 years, or an E-6 at 20, you're out.

I got out of the Army in 1994, and my recollection was that what "Devil Dog" says became the policy in 2013 was what the policy was back then. (In other words, E-5s forced out at 15 years and E-6s at 20.) However, this may have been a short term thing (back then) during Clinton's troop cuts.

As for not getting promoted to E-6, promotions to E-6 were (and still may be) based on accumulating "promotion points" and hoping that the Army drops the points needed to your level. Some MOSs have higher levels and do not drop that often. I was an officer in an area with skilled MOSs and saw a lot of very bright, competent, dedicated guys that got stuck at E-5 because the point level was high in their MOS and had not dropped to a reasonable level for years.

A year or so ago they dropped the RCP...retention control point for E-5 (P) in the army is 14 yrs...it was 20. CertaIn MOS' s are very hard to make enough points to get promoted because the point level is so high. Some MOS' s the points are maxed out for a long time in an effort to get people to change MOS' s or just gtfo.

Alan

Is this strange or what? wrote:

He was had the rank of E-5 for 12 years. How do you stay the same rank for that long. It can\'t happen at a normal job. Why didn\'t they kick him out?

AF/AR/NV/CG promotions are very heavily examination driven, centered on classroom courses, stability, maturity, poise, professionalism, technology, public relations, fitness, and leadership. MC promotions are100% different, 90% about personal weaponless fighting skillsets, extreme physical fitness, survival, environmental elements, ability to handle unforseen challenges and threats, expending sadistic brutality & torture, close order drill, rifle & pistol marksmanship score, extreme infantry skills; and 10% vocational/college classroom courses.

What irks me is that taxpayers have to pay retirement payments for ex-20 year E-5 soldiers when the Navy should kick them out before 20 years to save taxpayers money and instead hire contractors or recent immigrants on an as needed basis. I mean if there's no sailors in Iraq and Afghanistan then we don't need to have fork lift operators, cooks, accountants, and car mechanics on the Air Force payroll. Hire them when some nut job president starts a war, or use cheap, starving 3d world laborers... Indians, Filipinos, Israelis, Yemenis, Morrocans, Russians, etc.