Wait time after submitting an award, (DA Form 638)

CPT (Join to see) , how does it go, "Do unto others..."

First off, nothing should sit in a commander's box unless there is a reason for reflection, research or more information. As LTC (Join to see) said, the XO needs to ensure the paper keeps moving.

Secondly, leaders really miss the point of the administrative awards (in contrast to awards for valor et al, which need a deliberate process for what I hope are obvious reasons). Submitting someone for an award on a DA 638 is less about the four achievements; it is about the soldier's service or a particular achievement that can be adjudicated in a conversation or a phone call in three minutes or less; e.g. "Hey sir, I want to submit 1LT Rosa for an AAM because he kicked butt during annual training." As a commander, the answer is either "ok" or "nope", possibly, "let's talk about it" but the first two are probably the norm.

For service awards, it has to do with overall performance and level of responsibility. A CSM and a commander in any command can tell you right now who are the exceptions -- the PSGs or SSGs who we want to push for an MSM or the ones we want to give less than the norm -- i.e. the Lieutenant that only rates an AAM.

So what takes so long? Procrastination. Inefficiency. Lack of respect. One thing I detested in the military was the "staffing", whereby people who had no real interest in a matter kept an action for weeks to sign off on that action. The common one is to hear that the S1 shop has to review the DA 638 for errors, because if their are errors on the form, it would like bad in their files. While I have never known a typo on an award form to cost an NCO a promotion to Master Sergeant, I do know that the total document is less than about 1000 words -- does it take weeks for multiple soldiers, NCOs and officers to review a two-page document for typos, especially with spell-check?

When you command, treat every award as if it was for you, meaning if you knew your boss sat on an award for a period of time out of apathy or laziness, how would that make you feel. Commanders and their senior NCO counterparts are responsible for ensuring the efficiency of the processes. In my experience, the Army does not do a good job in this regard.

Awards approved at battalion commander level authority should take 1 week for turnaround on average. 2 weeks max if the unit is really busy with training etc.

As a BN XO now, all awards run through me. I insist upon a 72 hour turn around from the S1 shop and command team for corrections, as well as with the Batteries when the corrections are sent down.
With respect to signatures, it is your BN CDRs perspective of when he signs but in my opinion the BN XO is failing if he allows his boss to sit on awards for more than 72 hours.