What is your opinion with the Army's push to certain MOSs giving soldiers an automatic promotion to Sergeant upon completion of said school?

Sorry, but they gave me that rank a few months ago.

Too funny:)

Wait a minute, the University of Phoenix has an Online course to be a general too.... ;-)

That's not the main reason for advanced promotions in most MOS'S it's based on retention and keeping competitive with civilian sector.

SGT James Elphick Why do you need Chevrons on your collar to be a leader? Shouldn't you start with the concept that if there are two folks in a room, one of you is senior, and therefore needs to be the leader?

Sgt Aaron Kennedy, MS I agree, however in my experience the Army's mentality was very different. When I was getting out they started promoting everyone, in the infantry at least, to SGT once they reached 3 years time in service. This was because to be a team leader they theoretically needed to hold that rank, even though often times the position was held by a SPC/CPL. Furthermore, those guys who got promoted to E5 at 3 years often reached SSG/E6 in 4-4.5 years when they became a squad leader. The Army was putting rank on collars as a sort of band-aid to the fact that they were bleeding junior leaders. Often times they received little or no training to be in the position they held until after a combat deployment, if ever (many ETS'd without getting the training). So, in summation, you don't need chevrons to be a leader but the Army was making it to look that way.

SGT James Elphick this is one of the cultural differences between Army & Marines. Not better, not worse, just different. We focus on leadership at all levels. The idea of the "senior Lance" is so very real with us. Within 15 seconds a room full of Marines will know who is in charge regardless of rank spread.

The idea or a 4 year SSG is just "foreign" to me. 6 years is about as fast as we can get "in zone" for SSgt, and even then, if Selected, we won't pick up until the last wave of that year, so 7~ years would be EXTREMELY fast. That's not to say we don't have Sgts at 3, but after that it "throttles back" quite a bit. Again, not better or worse, just different.