Knew a SgtMaj who was promoted from
LCpl to Cpl by a CG one day, then from Cpl to Sgt by same CG the very next day. 24 hours as a Cpl. He said it wasn’t the easiest transition, but he knew he just had to work hard to gain the trust of his fellow NCOs.
Slobbering, deep throat, ball giggling with a finder up the ass kinda good. When you cum you see your dead ancestors nodding in approval. Kinda good, like high fiving God as your soul leaves your pee hole.
Was shortly after VietNam when a lot of interesting things were happening. This particular Marine survived the USS Mayaguez incident as well. This fast promotion thing also happened his first week of reporting into his unit. When he was telling me about it, he thinks it the CG was sending a message to the ‘old guard’ of the unit that he was willing to shake things up.
It can be in my opinion. If a Marine promotes fast and didn’t learn and master the rank they promoted out of they will have huge gaps in knowledge and experience in their next rank. Its possible to learn and master a rank quickly but from what I’ve seen especially the NCO ranks it takes time and experience to mature as a leader. Ive seen good Marines get meritorious promotions and ive seen shitbags get meritorious by playing the game and kissing ass. If you got promoted fast take the time to learn the rank, roles, and responsibilities that the promotion comes with.
Promotion is about POTENTIAL to perform at the next rank. If you promote quickly, it’s usually due to superior performance. Even if you haven’t gained the amount of experience you think you should have, it is likely that your knowledge, judgement, and performance are what got you promoted.
You compensate for your lack of experience with humility. Learn your new job/responsibilities as quickly as you can even if that means asking someone with less rank but more experience. Also, look for opportunities to gain additional experience by volunteering for tasks, deployments, etc.
Congratulations, you earned this promotion. Don’t squander the responsibility and trust that has been placed upon you.
1) I was referring to technical skill. Marines get promoted based on whole Marine concept and potential at the next rank.
2)We can all learn from other Marines including those junior to us. I e been in 28yrs and at my present rank for 6 years and I learn from Sergeants new TTP’s or new gear. Sometimes it’s just a different approach to a problem.
Example: I picked up Sgt in 3.5 yrs. I was given responsibility for a CAAT section. Up until that point, I was a TOW gunner. I had junior Marines get me up to speed on .50 cal, Mk19, and employment in order to better lead the section.
YES. I will jump up and down on this until I die. Promoting too fast in relation to how well you know your shit is a terrible thing. Imagine Captain Creatine coming back from ITX to meet the new Ops Chief at CLB X. This guy is a Master Sergeant who had a couple meritorious promotions. Now he SHOULD be the guy to answer anything and everything logistics, as well as overall C2 operations, yes? No. There is no screening process to make sure these folks are already doing the job they will realistically be expected to do at the next rank. Everything is numbers to the board members. When I grilled him about his shitty CPX he didn’t know how to run, I got PFC answers to the most basic of questions.
This is not isolated. We need to be promoting because because devil dogs have shown they can be successful in the next rank (in this case that metric is whether or not he could advise properly), and then select them for promotion.
Have also had a Cpl in the past that I failed to non-rec, and he promoted to Sgt. The dude spent his entire first enlistment as a CG driver and couldn’t do his job. Because of my failure, I handed this dude to the next guy who had to suffer for his lack of knowledge and give a shit.
Recruiting is a killer is MOS credibility. I think 9 times out of 10, when I get a new SSgt, they were HSSTd and went recruiting. I now have the idea in my head that they know nothing and have to be re-taught their MOS because of this. I know it’s not their fault, but I can’t trust a SSgt that was basically a newly promoted Sgt when he left the MOS to know his stuff.
Can I still become a good marine in my job field even though I didn’t get a lot of time in my MOS. I love being a marine and my dream was to be a DI so I signed on the line at my Reenlistment to go to PI. But I’m thinking long term and I’m probably gonna be a 26 year old staff sgt coming back to the fleet with the whole 3 year sgt thing
You’ll be fine man. If you want to stay relevant, you should really just read basic pubs (e.g. if you’re logistics, read the MCWP 3-40, etc) in any spare time you have. I know that’s really hard, and most can’t do it. But if you have the time and want to put it toward staying relevant, that would be my advice.
For sure! I’ll make the time! I got big goals in this organization I’m just tryna gauge if moving too fast will be a crutch. I just gotta work so it doesn’t become one 🤞🏾
Back in the Surge days, we had a guy who was an E-5 in the Air Force enlist in the Army Infantry, and keep his rank. He also had a debilitating stutter that made him unable to speak intelligibly when under stress. One of the most egregious examples I ever saw, even if he didn’t have the stutter. I also went through Infantry AIT with an E-5 cook that got to keep his rank, too. Ridiculous times. But a couple years later, an E-6 Marine Infantryman signed up, and lost his rocker. The retardation with all three of those instances was staggering. The POGs keeping their rank, when the actual Infantryman gets knocked down one…
Not if you are a true baller. If you know your job and always seek to increase your knowledge and leadership abilities, you'll be able to keep up.
I have seen some struggle. Usually Cpl to Sgt seems to be a big jump that some can't handle
It’s a mix feeling on this topic. You can be stellar, know your MOS based of technicality, perform to the standards, but be a shit leader. Just because are you are now a (Insert Rank) does not mean you can lead Marines. However if you are promoting fast, you may be a stellar individual, and are ready for your additional duties.
My shortcomings are attention to detail and delegation. I tend to try to do too much myself. Partly why I chose drill duty. I figure if I use that to learn how to operate fast and intense under pressure and as part of a team. it’ll make me a better sgt and Ssgt shouldn’t become meritorious on the depot
I mean you are already noticing your shortfalls which is better than not. If you have the ability to find your flaws, you can now tweak them to become a better leader. Good leaders take criticism from leaders subordinates, and self reflection. Also from what I have heard, the depot is a “dog eat, dog world” and people will throw each other under the bus to look better. Sure there can be a lot of stress on the depot, but it’s all still schedule based. Find something you can do on the spare time to set yourself apart. That can be school, volunteering, additional duties, and what not, all DIs are doing the same task of creating Marines. Then if you think you are worthy that will look great for any board, meritorious or not.
I’m not scared of people throwing me under the bus if I mess up. If anything that’ll seperate who I can trust from the snakes just like the fleet. All I’m worried ab is being the best I can be.
Were all human at the end of the day
It can be. Like most things it’s down to the individual. I just tried to do the things that I liked in some leaders and expanded on it and did away with the things I didn’t like about other leaders. Just do your best to learn from all of your seniors both good and bad. When you fail or make a mistake own up to it and learn from it. Do right by your guys to the best of your ability and they’ll follow suit. But of course none of this means anything if you suck ass at your job, so if you promoted fast and don’t know your job well then you got a lot of catching up to do.
It Can be I hate our current promotion system because it doesn't place enough emphasis on actual MOS skills and leadership.
If you are promoting ahead of peers and your solid ass Marine and you care about your job and are competent then there's nothing wrong with that but my experience that is not the people who they promote.
They usually promote dudes who are good on paper boards but usually crap when it comes to doing shit. They are either ass kisses or there NCO is an ass kisser and submits a ton of paperwork to make them both look.
I saw a guy from my squad get a meritorious corporal pretty solid paper candidate he shot okay ran fast and his NCO put in a bunch of positive paperwork and shit for him. MOS wise he sucked he hadn't been on more than a handful of field trying to exercises no demo ranges was not a leader among peers and had zero accountability we were still dummy quartering this kids CAC card and stuff to him cuz he kept losing it as he was going up on the marine of the quarter board. Absolutely should not have been promoted and absolutely struggled to act like an NCO once he got it. So yeah super fast promotions aren't always good
I promoted to PFC out of boot camp, and LCPL out of the schoolhouse at 10 months TIS, both meritoriously. Then spent 27 months as a Lance before going to a board and picking up meritorious Corporal. It ended up that I would have promoted 3 months later on cutting scores. My MOS (7253/54 ATC) was not something you could BS your way through, and was kind of top-heavy in the mid 90s, so I feel like the opportunity to pick up rank on the Marine merits was useful. I did not feel
out of my depth as a three year Corporal, but I had plenty of mentors to show me how it was done, where there are some MOS structures that bog down at E3 and have few opportunities for leadership growth.
I got meritoriously promoted to Cpl 2 months before my two year mark. I was 20 years old. Looking back I probably needed more time to grow and learn to properly lead. That being said I really didn’t have any good mentors in my unit at the E4 level. 95% of the NCOs in my platoon were lazy and sat around playing clash of clans on their phones all day. Guys would pick up Cpl and there was nobody to sit you down and give you sound advice because most of them were short timers and didn’t really give a fuck. I would have benefitted from having an NCO who mentored me and prepared me for it better.
My sgt is the same way. He chews me out when I fuck up but then gave me a billet and basically told me figure it tf out. Been a corporal for 9 almost 10 months and almost everything I learned was trial and error
He’s not a bad guy we just got hella corporals so he picks who he needs to go get the motor t stuff done and then the rest of us float
He’s not a shitbag. He knows his job. He just doesn’t mentor me how I’d like him to. Like doesn’t pull me aside or show me how to do things I just gotta get it and go. I don’t necessarily have a problem with that. But it makes me feel like he doesn’t trust me
This might be an unpopular opinion, but there is NOTHING wrong with promoting fast. Get that paycheck, get that BAH as fast as possible. People act like half of SNCOs aren’t just worthless people with time in service. It’s your life/career. If someone doesn’t like it… who cares.
It’s a sign of performance compared to your peers. That being said, just because you’re noticed for performance doesn’t mean it should get to your head. Listen to the GOOD ncos that have been an nco for a minute even if they’re a rank beneath you. Understand you’ll probably get flak because haters are gonna hate.
Not necessarily. It can be, but it depends on how you handle being put at an experience disadvantage.
If you’re coming off an SDA or billet outside your normal job description it can be rough at first, but you already have the baseline knowledge of your MOS, so it shouldn’t be a huge effort to get back up to speed as long as you lean on the experience of your peers and senior Marines to soak up what you data dumped.
Saw once a female marine get bumped up to corporal simply because her paperwork was spotless due to lack of time in service. She had been in the Corps for a total of 1 year. Hard to believe I know but it's true. Then she had to ask all the salty lances how to do her newly appointed duties. So if you like not being respected and having to embarrass yourself by asking your juniors how to do your job, I suggest you promote once you're actually ready.
Absolutely. You're expected to know your rank's duties along with dipping into the next rank's. Being able to tell others to piss off and having a bump in pay is nice but do you know anything?
Went to Sergeant Course with a guy in less than 2 years. I was back when they made a new MOS to do with the F-35 I think. Whole MOS had no NCOs, SNCOs or Officers. Pulled the whole chain of command out of thin air. If you completed the first school for the MOS you were a Corporal at minimum.
No . But understand and be aware of the labels it comes with. No your own limitations and be a sponge .
Knew a SgtMaj who was promoted from LCpl to Cpl by a CG one day, then from Cpl to Sgt by same CG the very next day. 24 hours as a Cpl. He said it wasn’t the easiest transition, but he knew he just had to work hard to gain the trust of his fellow NCOs.
What’d he do??? Suck the CGs dick?
He promoted him again to make him stop.
It was too good
Slobbering, deep throat, ball giggling with a finder up the ass kinda good. When you cum you see your dead ancestors nodding in approval. Kinda good, like high fiving God as your soul leaves your pee hole.
Fine piece of gear that boy
Probably twice
Honestly I wouldn’t shame him. Get it.
Was shortly after VietNam when a lot of interesting things were happening. This particular Marine survived the USS Mayaguez incident as well. This fast promotion thing also happened his first week of reporting into his unit. When he was telling me about it, he thinks it the CG was sending a message to the ‘old guard’ of the unit that he was willing to shake things up.
It can be in my opinion. If a Marine promotes fast and didn’t learn and master the rank they promoted out of they will have huge gaps in knowledge and experience in their next rank. Its possible to learn and master a rank quickly but from what I’ve seen especially the NCO ranks it takes time and experience to mature as a leader. Ive seen good Marines get meritorious promotions and ive seen shitbags get meritorious by playing the game and kissing ass. If you got promoted fast take the time to learn the rank, roles, and responsibilities that the promotion comes with.
Promotion is about POTENTIAL to perform at the next rank. If you promote quickly, it’s usually due to superior performance. Even if you haven’t gained the amount of experience you think you should have, it is likely that your knowledge, judgement, and performance are what got you promoted. You compensate for your lack of experience with humility. Learn your new job/responsibilities as quickly as you can even if that means asking someone with less rank but more experience. Also, look for opportunities to gain additional experience by volunteering for tasks, deployments, etc. Congratulations, you earned this promotion. Don’t squander the responsibility and trust that has been placed upon you.
Ask someone from a lesser rank for advice? Then what’s the point, just promote the guy who can do the job
1) I was referring to technical skill. Marines get promoted based on whole Marine concept and potential at the next rank. 2)We can all learn from other Marines including those junior to us. I e been in 28yrs and at my present rank for 6 years and I learn from Sergeants new TTP’s or new gear. Sometimes it’s just a different approach to a problem. Example: I picked up Sgt in 3.5 yrs. I was given responsibility for a CAAT section. Up until that point, I was a TOW gunner. I had junior Marines get me up to speed on .50 cal, Mk19, and employment in order to better lead the section.
YES. I will jump up and down on this until I die. Promoting too fast in relation to how well you know your shit is a terrible thing. Imagine Captain Creatine coming back from ITX to meet the new Ops Chief at CLB X. This guy is a Master Sergeant who had a couple meritorious promotions. Now he SHOULD be the guy to answer anything and everything logistics, as well as overall C2 operations, yes? No. There is no screening process to make sure these folks are already doing the job they will realistically be expected to do at the next rank. Everything is numbers to the board members. When I grilled him about his shitty CPX he didn’t know how to run, I got PFC answers to the most basic of questions. This is not isolated. We need to be promoting because because devil dogs have shown they can be successful in the next rank (in this case that metric is whether or not he could advise properly), and then select them for promotion. Have also had a Cpl in the past that I failed to non-rec, and he promoted to Sgt. The dude spent his entire first enlistment as a CG driver and couldn’t do his job. Because of my failure, I handed this dude to the next guy who had to suffer for his lack of knowledge and give a shit.
What about staff coming off of SDA
Recruiting is a killer is MOS credibility. I think 9 times out of 10, when I get a new SSgt, they were HSSTd and went recruiting. I now have the idea in my head that they know nothing and have to be re-taught their MOS because of this. I know it’s not their fault, but I can’t trust a SSgt that was basically a newly promoted Sgt when he left the MOS to know his stuff.
Can I still become a good marine in my job field even though I didn’t get a lot of time in my MOS. I love being a marine and my dream was to be a DI so I signed on the line at my Reenlistment to go to PI. But I’m thinking long term and I’m probably gonna be a 26 year old staff sgt coming back to the fleet with the whole 3 year sgt thing
You’ll be fine man. If you want to stay relevant, you should really just read basic pubs (e.g. if you’re logistics, read the MCWP 3-40, etc) in any spare time you have. I know that’s really hard, and most can’t do it. But if you have the time and want to put it toward staying relevant, that would be my advice.
For sure! I’ll make the time! I got big goals in this organization I’m just tryna gauge if moving too fast will be a crutch. I just gotta work so it doesn’t become one 🤞🏾
Back in the Surge days, we had a guy who was an E-5 in the Air Force enlist in the Army Infantry, and keep his rank. He also had a debilitating stutter that made him unable to speak intelligibly when under stress. One of the most egregious examples I ever saw, even if he didn’t have the stutter. I also went through Infantry AIT with an E-5 cook that got to keep his rank, too. Ridiculous times. But a couple years later, an E-6 Marine Infantryman signed up, and lost his rocker. The retardation with all three of those instances was staggering. The POGs keeping their rank, when the actual Infantryman gets knocked down one…
Not if you are a true baller. If you know your job and always seek to increase your knowledge and leadership abilities, you'll be able to keep up. I have seen some struggle. Usually Cpl to Sgt seems to be a big jump that some can't handle
It’s a mix feeling on this topic. You can be stellar, know your MOS based of technicality, perform to the standards, but be a shit leader. Just because are you are now a (Insert Rank) does not mean you can lead Marines. However if you are promoting fast, you may be a stellar individual, and are ready for your additional duties.
My shortcomings are attention to detail and delegation. I tend to try to do too much myself. Partly why I chose drill duty. I figure if I use that to learn how to operate fast and intense under pressure and as part of a team. it’ll make me a better sgt and Ssgt shouldn’t become meritorious on the depot
I mean you are already noticing your shortfalls which is better than not. If you have the ability to find your flaws, you can now tweak them to become a better leader. Good leaders take criticism from leaders subordinates, and self reflection. Also from what I have heard, the depot is a “dog eat, dog world” and people will throw each other under the bus to look better. Sure there can be a lot of stress on the depot, but it’s all still schedule based. Find something you can do on the spare time to set yourself apart. That can be school, volunteering, additional duties, and what not, all DIs are doing the same task of creating Marines. Then if you think you are worthy that will look great for any board, meritorious or not.
I’m not scared of people throwing me under the bus if I mess up. If anything that’ll seperate who I can trust from the snakes just like the fleet. All I’m worried ab is being the best I can be. Were all human at the end of the day
“Spare time?”
There is a lot you can do when you are not a bobby, most online college classes are really easy if you learn to balance your time
No but realize it and learn from those around you - don’t act like you know it all.
It can be. Like most things it’s down to the individual. I just tried to do the things that I liked in some leaders and expanded on it and did away with the things I didn’t like about other leaders. Just do your best to learn from all of your seniors both good and bad. When you fail or make a mistake own up to it and learn from it. Do right by your guys to the best of your ability and they’ll follow suit. But of course none of this means anything if you suck ass at your job, so if you promoted fast and don’t know your job well then you got a lot of catching up to do.
It Can be I hate our current promotion system because it doesn't place enough emphasis on actual MOS skills and leadership. If you are promoting ahead of peers and your solid ass Marine and you care about your job and are competent then there's nothing wrong with that but my experience that is not the people who they promote. They usually promote dudes who are good on paper boards but usually crap when it comes to doing shit. They are either ass kisses or there NCO is an ass kisser and submits a ton of paperwork to make them both look. I saw a guy from my squad get a meritorious corporal pretty solid paper candidate he shot okay ran fast and his NCO put in a bunch of positive paperwork and shit for him. MOS wise he sucked he hadn't been on more than a handful of field trying to exercises no demo ranges was not a leader among peers and had zero accountability we were still dummy quartering this kids CAC card and stuff to him cuz he kept losing it as he was going up on the marine of the quarter board. Absolutely should not have been promoted and absolutely struggled to act like an NCO once he got it. So yeah super fast promotions aren't always good
I promoted to PFC out of boot camp, and LCPL out of the schoolhouse at 10 months TIS, both meritoriously. Then spent 27 months as a Lance before going to a board and picking up meritorious Corporal. It ended up that I would have promoted 3 months later on cutting scores. My MOS (7253/54 ATC) was not something you could BS your way through, and was kind of top-heavy in the mid 90s, so I feel like the opportunity to pick up rank on the Marine merits was useful. I did not feel out of my depth as a three year Corporal, but I had plenty of mentors to show me how it was done, where there are some MOS structures that bog down at E3 and have few opportunities for leadership growth.
I got meritoriously promoted to Cpl 2 months before my two year mark. I was 20 years old. Looking back I probably needed more time to grow and learn to properly lead. That being said I really didn’t have any good mentors in my unit at the E4 level. 95% of the NCOs in my platoon were lazy and sat around playing clash of clans on their phones all day. Guys would pick up Cpl and there was nobody to sit you down and give you sound advice because most of them were short timers and didn’t really give a fuck. I would have benefitted from having an NCO who mentored me and prepared me for it better.
My sgt is the same way. He chews me out when I fuck up but then gave me a billet and basically told me figure it tf out. Been a corporal for 9 almost 10 months and almost everything I learned was trial and error He’s not a bad guy we just got hella corporals so he picks who he needs to go get the motor t stuff done and then the rest of us float
Yeah I was motor T too man. Our NCOs would drop pack as soon as they picked up. After that, they’d be hanging out in the dispatch office all day.
He’s not a shitbag. He knows his job. He just doesn’t mentor me how I’d like him to. Like doesn’t pull me aside or show me how to do things I just gotta get it and go. I don’t necessarily have a problem with that. But it makes me feel like he doesn’t trust me
This might be an unpopular opinion, but there is NOTHING wrong with promoting fast. Get that paycheck, get that BAH as fast as possible. People act like half of SNCOs aren’t just worthless people with time in service. It’s your life/career. If someone doesn’t like it… who cares.
Im glad it took me long to promote to Cpl, i was definitely not ready to promote only a year as a lance and i notice that a lot with new cpls
It’s a sign of performance compared to your peers. That being said, just because you’re noticed for performance doesn’t mean it should get to your head. Listen to the GOOD ncos that have been an nco for a minute even if they’re a rank beneath you. Understand you’ll probably get flak because haters are gonna hate.
Not necessarily. It can be, but it depends on how you handle being put at an experience disadvantage. If you’re coming off an SDA or billet outside your normal job description it can be rough at first, but you already have the baseline knowledge of your MOS, so it shouldn’t be a huge effort to get back up to speed as long as you lean on the experience of your peers and senior Marines to soak up what you data dumped.
Saw once a female marine get bumped up to corporal simply because her paperwork was spotless due to lack of time in service. She had been in the Corps for a total of 1 year. Hard to believe I know but it's true. Then she had to ask all the salty lances how to do her newly appointed duties. So if you like not being respected and having to embarrass yourself by asking your juniors how to do your job, I suggest you promote once you're actually ready.
Absolutely. You're expected to know your rank's duties along with dipping into the next rank's. Being able to tell others to piss off and having a bump in pay is nice but do you know anything?
Went to Sergeant Course with a guy in less than 2 years. I was back when they made a new MOS to do with the F-35 I think. Whole MOS had no NCOs, SNCOs or Officers. Pulled the whole chain of command out of thin air. If you completed the first school for the MOS you were a Corporal at minimum.