For a 13A, does not being appointed to any of these roles (FDO, FSO, PL, XO, etc.) hurt promotion chances to Captain?

1LT Private RallyPoint Member — Sat, 07 Mar 2020 11:35:30 -0500

I have spent most of my Lieutenant time in S3. Recently, I got promoted to 1LT, and now I have been appointed the BN Land and Ammo Officer. Is this a sign that I'll never hold a "real" Field Artillery job? Will I slowly be phased out of the Army and miss my chance at making O-3?

Response by SSG(P) Private RallyPoint Member made Mar 7 at 2020 11:50 AM

SSG(P) Private RallyPoint Member — Sat, 07 Mar 2020 11:50:48 -0500

Perhaps you should speak with your rater/senior rater on your concerns and desire to be in a leadership position.

Best bet is to display leadership potential.

Your position enables a battalion to perform a critical operational function. Perhaps focus on doing the best you can in your appointment positions instead of worrying about your “hurt chance for promotion”. You haven’t achieved success in the job yet.

Response by LTC Jason Mackay made Mar 7 at 2020 12:26 PM

LTC Jason Mackay — Sat, 07 Mar 2020 12:26:57 -0500

You definitely need to have a candid conversation with your Senior Rater and possibly the Battalion Commander. Why have they purposely left you at BN? Be prepared mentally for a tough response. When you say most of your LT time, what does that mean? Did you have any PL, FDO, etc time? Unrated? What was it unrated? If you had some issue or got in trouble this could be why. The question may be what do you need to exhibit or accomplish to get down to the line battery/company.

If you are out of the lane with DA PAM 600-3, you need to look after your career. Not sure what logic put a 2LT on a BN staff, but I've seen it, never goes well. If you have 12-24 months on BN staff, time for you to go to a line Battery/Company and learn the craft. You'll be yanked out of the Company level so hard you'll get G black out when you promote to Captain. Depending on your OERs, I think you'll promote to Captain. I'm thinking of the experience and learning down on the line that your are missing out on. That will hurt you later as you take command of a Battery or Company and you've never seen how that is done.

Response by CPT Barry Kaufman made Mar 10 at 2020 11:48 PM

CPT Barry Kaufman — Tue, 10 Mar 2020 23:48:07 -0400

What is the Land and Ammo Officer? I was the Bn Ammo Officer but my real job was the Service Battery XO/Bn Ammo platoon leader (in the Dark Ages cannon battalions had 3 gun batteries, an HHB, and a service battery.)

Response by LTC Tom Taylor made May 7 at 2020 5:07 PM

LTC Tom Taylor — Thu, 07 May 2020 17:07:22 -0400

Yes, you need FDC and battery XO experience. You will have two avenues toward promotion, operations S2/S3 or logistics. Rank is faster in operations.

Response by LTC Private RallyPoint Member made May 28 at 2020 10:59 PM

LTC Private RallyPoint Member — Thu, 28 May 2020 22:59:07 -0400

I would heed LTC Mackays advice. Though I would also recommend breaching the conversation with your current supervisor and they may either provide you insight - or could become your advocate.

As an anecdote - I pinned 1LT 4 months into my first job as a PLT FDO - and there were plenty of quality guys still in the wings waiting for their first artillery job.

If you decide to stay in long enough - you’ll learn that the LT slate for an artillery battalion is hugely complex because we want to expose you to all three parts of the gunnery problem.

I was lucky enough to have all three jobs ... but I was only 1 of 40 some FA LTs fortunate enough to have a nicely packaged timeline.

Alternatively, I’ve come across many leaders who used the ops shop as a way to learn the battalion prior to assuming a key position.

Trust your leaders, atleast implicitly this early in the game.

Feel free to reach out. Artillery is a small world.