His Promotion

Do you know what they call a Gunnery Sergeant Select?

A Staff Sergeant.

Apparently, it is a funny joke among Marines, especially Staff Sergeants who just found out they will be promoted in the next month or two. Which just happens to be the case for my husband.

Woohoo! The husband finally got promoted to Gunnery Sergeant. It's a long time coming for him. I know 8 years of waiting has created a lot of frustration. The most frustrating thing is he hasn't even been considered for promotion until this year. The first 6 years of his military career he went from Private to Staff Sergeant. Then everything halted in his MOS (military occupation speciality) and started moving at a snail's pace. A lot is happening in the military and some of us old timers are seeing some new policies played out. Some are negatively impacting our peers and it's hard to stomach. At this point, re-enlistment and promotion are worthy of celebration! And celebrate we will. There are traditions to uphold and every Staff NCO promotion means a "wet down". Otherwise known as a party. But we have to wait until he is a Gunny for that. And you better believe it will be blog worthy!

I want to take a minute to explain more of this promotion stuff for my readers without military affiliation. Military promotion is done a little differently than in the civilian workforce. Generally speaking, military members are promoted based on time in rank than personal merit. Therefore, a great staff sergeant who has only been a staff sergeant for a a year will not be considered for promotion against a mediocre staff sergeant with three years in the rank. The new stellar staff sergeant has to be meritoriously promoted or wait until he is "in the zone". I am not a military person and I don't claim to know if this system is a good one. But compared to a civilian job, I believe it is dysfunctional and promotes complacency. The military system doesn't encourage anyone to be amazing because most of the time amazing won't be rewarded.
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