Whats your thoughts on the STEP program ?

STEP is not new. There has been a requirement to attend NCOES prior to promotion for decades. It was just temporarily suspended during the surge because the Army couldn’t promote people fast enough. Even then, there was still a requirement for NCOES prior to promotion, you just had to attend the NCOES for your current rank before pinning on the next rank. For instance, you had to complete BLC prior to pinning on SSG.

The Army never should have suspended it. Because they didn't, NCOES schools are so backed up the waiting list is a mile long. And I blame the NCO's and the units. Typically once conditionally promoted a soldier had 24 months to complete his/her NCOES, but the units(commanders/1SG) don't hold their feet to the fire on it and shame on them. For instance I have been in an E7 position for 4 years and can't get into SLC anytime soon. But it doesn't matter I ETS in less than a year anyway.

Overall, I think it has produced a more competent NCO. My problem with it now is that once you make things mandatory, the quality of that program (in this case NCOA) tends to go down so that the program can meet quotas. We've all seen this done.

At first I hated it since I was right there at the threshold about to be promoted, then I missed points in December. It went in to effect on January 2016 and I was deployed before a bit more. Coming back, contrary to what the NCOAs were saying, it took an obscenely long time to get into BLC. I wasn't promoted until April 2017, which included waiting an extra month after BLC graduation just for good measure. Lol.