Why is there such a long wait for reserve component officer and warrant federal recognition/promotion?

Scroll update as of Today, 9 February 2018. Red highlighted scrolls are new or recently moved.

Latest update sent out as of 1 Feb. Probably not much news here...

P08-17 has finally been published.. Published: SO# 31; 2018-02-01

Why do I keep checking this thing, like something's going to change? At this point I am just torturing myself. Of course nothing's changed, you don't get to ~270 days scrolling by actually displaying progress. My maximum TIG is approaching.... I am The Terminal LT!

U06-17, D08-17, and P08-17, are now three of the longest running promotion scrolls being processed in a while (and others are also catching up). Its funny, I still remember my commander saying that the fedrec process was averaging less than a 180 days when this process started, but I believe these scrolls are over 300 days now with D08-17 alone being at SECDEF for over three months (supposedly the last step in the process)... And still no one has provided the reason why this happening all of sudden. I understand if there is extra vetting now which would hold it up at a particular step in the process, or if a particular scroll has derogatory information for a particular officer that needs to be addressed. However, for all scrolls being held up at every single step makes no sense to anyone. And now many are at OSD, which is supposedly a relatively quick/final step (I have heard less than 30 days), so what is the hold up still?

On that note, when was the last promotion scroll signed? Something like six months ago? So no ARNG officers have had a federal promotion in that time? I am actually surprised there are not more letters to congress.

I have a suspicion, that our Secretary of Defense is unaware that there are literally thousands of National Guard Officers whose promotions are currently waiting on his approval. James Mattis does not strike me as the kind of leader that would be pleased with that. I would hate to be the one that hands him those scrolls with all the names and numbers of those of us stuck in Purgatory when he asks, "What is the story behind these?"

Article posted today from NGAUS. Also contains a link for you to tell your FED REC story. One Officer was on a scroll for over 2,000 days.... I would have lost my marbles.

https://www.ngaus.org/newsroom/news/survey-guardsmen-wait-years-promotions?utm_source=MagnetMail&utm_medium=email&utm_term= [login to see] &utm_content=November%2020%2C%202017%20%28WR%29&utm_campaign=Guard%20Officers%3A%20Long%20Wait%20for%20Promotions

The following article appeared today on the NGAUS website. About 2/3 down the article is a link to complete a survey regarding the Fedrec process for anyone who has been through in the last five years.

https://www.ngaus.org/newsroom/news/survey-guardsmen-wait-years-promotions?utm_source=MagnetMail&utm_medium=email&utm_term= [login to see] &utm_content=November%2020%2C%202017%20%28WR%29&utm_campaign=Guard%20Officers%3A%20Long%20Wait%20for%20Promotions

Congrats to my fellow FedWreckers (Thanks Chief,) of P08-17 and P09-17! We have joined the miserable legions of The Forgotten in wallowing on a scroll for over 200 days. I'm going to go home and yell into a beer in your honor.

This FedRec process is similar to those moving walkways in the airport, except for many of us waiting on our respective scrolls it seems like we are walking in the opposite direction. That is, it takes extra effort just to maintain continuous momentum to go forward, then once we stop moving (e.g. the JAG office reviewing the scroll) the walkway sends us backwards, almost to the point where we started. Yet we struggle to get to that exact point where we stopped, and then continue with that struggle to move past that point (e.g. JAG or Asst Sec Army) to try and reach the end. Along the way, however, and because we are exhausted, we stop, only for the walkway to send us backwards again, past that first stopping point and almost to the beginning--again. The cycle continues almost interminably, sort of like Sisyphus rolling the proverbial boulder uphill, thus condemning all of us to the eternal FedRec process. As an added measure, every night I go to sleep by placing one coin on top of each eye, for I fear that U06-17 is dead. I am, therefore, prepared to pay Charon to ferry me across the river Styx to meet my fate at the hands of Hades, the holder of the scroll in the deepest bowels of FedRec hell.

Okay, admittedly my mind went off track on this posting; I have no idea how I envisioned this silly analogy.