E6 in 3 years? Is there such thing as making rank too soon?

My wife made E-7 in 7 years before going officer. Me - never enlisted - commissioned and warrant, 28 and 10 years.

Depends on a lot of factors, to include Mos, deployments (op speed). High speed low drag? Spec ops would make this easy to have happen. E-3 to direct E-5 finish selection, q course could easily be E-6 via waivers that quickly. To much goes into this made rank quick too. E1 to E4 in 11months obviously die to waivers

It took me 8 years to E6. I suppose it could be done in three at the right command if the Sailor was a workaholic and smart. I still think they'd be lacking experience however.

Depends on the situation. I was an E-5 in 90 days, and E-6 at one year and and E-7 at 18 Months in Service. This was during and in Vietnam and I was an Infantry Soldier. We lost Leadership very quickly back then and it was whoever was still alive and not WIA moved up to the next position. I was a PSG E-7 But when I was WIA and sent back to Fitzsimmons Hospital they returned ne to E-6 as there was An Army Regulation that said you had to have Seven years in the Army to be an E-7.

simple answer is yes. it all depends on the person maturity level. Some have it due to circumstances of seeing the world through the eyes of an adults eyes for what ever reason. And there are some that do not have it but are very book smart. Back in the 90's the Air Force made a major mistake in Force reduction they tried to get people to get out by offering them a large lump sum of money instead of staying in to retire thinking that those closest to retirement age would take the money. Did not think they would smart enough to understand they would be cheating themselves out on a lot of money and benefits in retirement pay over their years. Instead the middle management E-5 thru E-6 with less than 10 years in took the money an ran for the hills. This left a vacuum of experience and maturity that the AF then tried to correct by lowering the promotion score to allow people that had 2 years of college come in as E-3 then put on E-4 in a year or two and with high test scores get promoted to NCO status within 4 years of service and so on. After that it becomes a Promotion Rating game of who you know, who writes your evaluation report, awards, but that is another long subject that I believe all services have tried to fix but promotion environment won't change.

Absolutely. We're definitely 100% promoting way to early. They just don't have the day to day experience to lead. They just memorized some sh*t in a TM/AR/etc and passed a board. They're not humbled yet. They all think they're untouchable and big headed. They don't know how to handle different Soldiers differently, cause it's still just a "one size fits all" type leadership for them. Hell I knew a 1SG (SFC), with only 11 years. Dude was so toxic, but thought he was the best thing since sliced bread cause he was given the 1SG position really early.

I made E-5 in less than 3 years. I give

I made E6 in under 4 years and E7 in just over 7 years. It’s all about your work ethic and assignment/MOS. I was acting Motor Sergeant as an E4 Sergeant but couldn’t get promoted for over a year when I had more points than needed to make E6 do to no E5 allocations in my MOS. I finally received promotion with The soldier of the year in Germany in 1970. That was when promotion allocations were limited to the local Command.

We call them shake in bakes! You can recognize the difference! That is exactly why we have a huge problem in lack of mentoring and development.

Oh I guarantee that the reason I made E-6 three times is that I made it the first time in the absolute minimum in 79-82. But it was fun

I reached E6 in 4 years in the Navy. Some folks were 'Push Button' E4s right out of Bootcamp. I started as an E1 and had to earn every single promotion.
I made E6 in 4 years, and I retired as an E6 after 40 combined years of Navy, Air Force, and Army. Including almost 2 years in a non-pay status.
Not much to brag about.

It really depends on your job and your branch.
I have seen many NCO's in the Army that somehow managed to skip the Time-In-Grade requirement. Some were ok, most weren't. Conversely, I saw many capable soldiers and leaders, stuck at E-4 for no apparent reason.

Navy? That's a little different story.
Promotion requirements are different.

As an Army Instructor, and as a Civilian Contractor, I have seen many Navy NCO's holding positions, normally staffed by lower enlisted in the Army.
Not knowing what rank you came in as, I also do not know how much of a head start you had, over your pears.
Obviously, you impressed your leadership enough to advance so quickly. Just don't let it go to your head. One oops, can ruin all those ataboys you got along the way.

At the end of Vietnam we had an E-6 report aboard the USS Ranger. Associates degree in electronic engineering and made rate right out of C-school, no idea what C-school he got. Nice guy, totally lost. The chiefs wanted him to supervise the repair of systems he had never seen. Old electronics has quirks, we had a TV system for PLAT vacuum tubes and 2 inch reel to reel video tape. 6 foot tall and 10 foot wide cabinets with 64 "bugs" we could fix by the proper application of a rubber mallet on marked numbers. the list was on a clipboard. All the equipment was old; communications, teletypes, radars, and the men maintaining or operating it were used to the quirks and the poor man just walked from room to room looking over people's shoulders. You could really tell he wanted to get his fingers on the problems. I felt so sorry for him.

I made Staff Sergeant in 3 1/2 years in the Air Force during Vietnam. SSGT in the AF was an E-5. Which in my AFSC was still pretty good for the time. it did get all my stuff shipped home for free!

In today’s Navy I would say it’s not.
Sadly to say after my 20 years active duty and 10 years working elsewhere, I went back to working with the navy.
In that short 10 years I didn’t recognize the Navy I once served when I return, rank is now more important then leadership, today leadership is more about how woke a individual is, the Military for some reason is following the old Soviet Union Top Down leadership and Central Command and Control just like the way we lost Vietnam.
The only thing I can say is thank God our weapons system are smarter then most of our top leadership who can’t and won’t get out of wars now after 20 years and if you lose a body part remember that this government supports the Non Citizen over the Veterans who need better medical and support for them and their families, and now the top brass says the enemy is within your ranks.

CWO2 C.m. Reaves, I was part of a COHORT tank company 82-86, and we had a bunch of Elvis 6es,in our unit, guys who made E6 in 2 to 2 1/2 years,when we formed our company only had a handful of ncos, so the hard chargers who want responsibility and leadership were promoted at blinding speed, some folded, to much to fast, but a few blazed,so you have to take it on a case by case basis, we called these guys Elvis 6es because they made E6,like the king E1 to E6 in 2 years.

I have a friend who served 4 years and showed me his ID it said E-7 It took me 10 years to make E-7. I was Navy he was Army maybe some of you Army guys can tell me how did he make E-7 in only 4 years I know there is no way you can do that in the Navy.

What happened to time in service and rank requirements?

I think that how fast you make rank is situational and maybe a little bit of luck. However I will say you can get promoted before you are ready. I have soldiers today that struggle with responsibility because they didn't get the type of mentor ship they needed for the next rank. If that soldier can't adapt it only causes the soldiers below him/her pain because their leader can't take care of them like they need to. However you never know what your going to get until you get promoted and get that time in the new position. Success or failure is always up to the individual.

I made E-5 in four, and E-6 in eleven. The AF WAPS system seemed to be geared through time-in-grade/time-in-service scoring to preclude riding the rocket sled up the ranks. In my first couple tests, I would have had to test above 100% to make the cut for my AFSC.