Do you think NCO's with DUI, drug convictions, and Sharp instances get treated less harshly than their junior counterparts?

It does seem like it sometimes when you're the junior enlisted. But really, senior and junior members have different paths for punishment. They also value different things in terms of careers. Non judicial punishment is meant to be swift and quickly recovered from. It may take a few months or even a year to recover the rank, but in a 20 year career that's not much. If you take rank from a senior NCO they will never, ever get it back. The impact is significantly different. Also, it's very easy to NJP a junior Soldier and take their rank. It's very difficult to take a SSGs rank, and damn near impossible to take a SFC rank.

But they're also different because the same punishments aren't appropriate. If a senior nco does something that deserves for them to lose their rank, even one grade, they probably shouldn't be an NCO at all. So reducing them isn't an appropriate measure, they need to be evaluated to see if they should even remain in the Army. While NJP is meant to be swift, other processes are slow and deliberate. There's a big difference between kicking out a 20 year old kid who has 2-3 years in the Army and kicking out someone with 10+ years who was planning on retiring. There's a significant investment in time that's lost, half a Career gone down the drain. It's a decision that shouldn't be left to the whim of a CPT with a few years in, but very senior, or board of senior leaders.

There's a process called QMP that is in place for SSGs and higher. They will be reviewed by a board of CSMs once a year, and usually separated by getting a new ETS date seven months after the board makes its decision. This usually gives them less than five months once they find out the decision.

Another part to this equation is what I like to call "credit in the bank". When you're new, young in the Army, and haven't done much, your command doesn't know you. If the first instance of your name they see is bad, they aren't going to be willing to give a second chance. Your NCO leaders recommendation usually carries a lot of weight in that case as well. On the other hand, if you've been performing well for years, you have years of service behind you, your command has worked with you for a while and you have a good reputation - you've built up credit in the bank. A Soldier who has credit in the bank will get the benefit of the doubt when an issue arises. A command can look at someone who has been in the Army for years who has one mistake and come to the conclusion that this is something they can overcome. While someone who hasn't been in long and is getting in trouble is really someone displaying the start of a pattern of misconduct. No commander wants to be the guy who took the chance and retained the Soldier who is later being charged with rape or assault. That commander is going to get a personal call from the BDE CDR or the CG.

I will also point out that in your example, you can't punish a Soldier for an accusation such as assault. There is a level of evidence required depending on the punishment. A GOMOR requires a preponderance of evidence of guilt, while criminal convictions like a court martial require beyond a reasonable doubt to prosecute. In your example you have one person who was accused of something, and has every right not to be punished without enough evidence. If there was reasonable evidence to believe but not enough to prosecute, they probably received a GOMOR and will be referred to QMP.

CPL Chaini Lotus, SFC (Join to see) gave the complete brief. I would re-read it a couple of times so you understand.

To answer your question, in my experience, No, NCO's with DUI, drug convictions, and Sharp instances do not get treated less harshly. What junior enlisted see and hear is what they tend to perceive and junior enlisted are more likely to talk about their NJP/JP with someone and the word gets out. NCOs tend to keep that stuff closer to the chest.

Its culture, the pressure for NCOs to not be perceived as garbage is extremely high so they tend to minimize their punishment as no big deal. The downside is this contributes to the culture of the "untouchable" NCO. But for those of us on the board, we see what happens. Senior leaders do not go spreading tales about anyone who steps out of line, except at the next command and only as case studies ("I had a Soldier once..." type stories).

The tough spot when I get questions like this is the junior enlisted tend to force direct comparisons of issues without all the details. Like in your example: NCO with an assault accusation vs chapter a junior for missing curfew. Were these the same Command? Was the curfew the only instance of unsatisfactory behavior? Did the NCO assault another Soldier on duty? Was the NCO charged in civil court? What is on the NCO's NCOER?

Your other example, in your responses, the junior vs NCO DUI, are you sure you want NCOs to get the same punishment? How do you know they didn't? How do you know the NCO isn't being QMP'd right now? Your base premise seems to be a common one, that NCOs are untouchable. But I will disagree with SFC Boyd, Senior NCOs are not untouchable. They get JP'd all the time and instead of trading a rank and 30/30 NJP, they trade 10+ years.

I know it is tough to take the word of the very Senior NCOs you are insinuating are treated differently as evidence that they aren't, but when it happens, it happens hard and tends to make the news. And it ends their career prospects after discharge. A junior enlisted Soldier takes the NJP and continues their career in a satisfactory way if they learn from it.

You may have seen a perception of this but I don't believe it necessarily reflects reality. I have been in positions where I was able to attend legal briefings at a brigade level. I can tell you every single person that made the slide deck was punished to the full extent. I have also seen lower enlisted walk away with a much lesser charge. Commanders do have discretion of how to punish. Usually if someone gets a DWI they cannot be punished by UCMJ due to double jeopardy with the charges being brought to that person in a civilian Court. At most they will usually get a GOMAR and they might have a separation initiated on them. Anything derogatory in a soldier's file can lead to them being passed over for promotion and separated. It's kind of hard to say people are getting their charges brushed under the table when there's various articles showing that people are getting punished.

https://www.fayobserver.com/story/news/2021/08/09/former-fort-bragg-sergeant-major-faces-desertion-extortion-charges/ [login to see] /