Pentagon braces for massive change to officer promotions

That would be nice, but I would also like to see NG/USAR Officers move up with out a Bachelors to at least Captain/preferably Major, but that is my thought on the subject after seeing many a good LT get either reduced back to being enlisted or getting out.

Well I struggle with that because a good number of our enlisted have at least a bachelors. Why can’t we expect that from our officers?

Requiring a degree for an officer is still a good idea. It shows a minimum ability to start and then finish something professional. What I would have liked to see is a sliding salary scale that recognized the education level of officers and enlisted. Having gone to basic training with 6 years of college and two degrees under my belt, no direct commission was offered to me (educator). I stayed enlisted for five years, long enough to reap the benefits of loan repayment. I then attended OCS and finished my career as an officer. If the military wants to compete with the private sector for the best of the best, they need to get a little more creative with how they pay. I agree that National Guard and Reserve promotions take a ridiculously long amount of time, which should be shortened per college advancement and military training achievement as well as top job performance. After all, they say the military is a meritocracy, right? Hooah!

MAJ Montgomery Granger - I don't disagree with the degree requirement, or even the officer education system. But when you get at Major and above, the up or out seems to be self defeating when they spend so much time and money to get an officer trained up to a level then kick him out because there aren't enough job openings above his rank. Yet when I was in, it was common to have Brigade and Battalion staff officers that were under ranked for their positions. At least the Navy came up with LDO so that Officers in more specialized fields could stay in service. I mean, although in theory most staff positions are branch immaterial, I don't know a lot of MP Majors on staff as the S3 in an Infantry unit, yet why let an officer with 10 years plus experience walk because there isn't a slot in the next rank. Yes, I know that in theory the promotion rate to LTC is supposedly around 50 percent, but I think that number is heavily skewed toward the Combat Arms where there are more slots for LTC and Colonels.
On the National Guard side, it's even worse. I branch transferred to the Engineers when I moved to Kentucky because they had two full Battalions of Engineers and were short on Officers. That meant four positions for majors per battalion (still had a Brigade Engineer in my day), but only two LTC slots in the state for Engineers. So at best there would be a 25 percent chance at LTC in Kentucky at the time, and that is better than most states.