Have you been in a unit where waivers are given not on the basis of work ethic, competency and leadership but for time in the organization?

There definitely seemed to be a lot of waivers available to the 'favorites' when I was looking to get one. Don't look at it as a negative mark towards your performance. If you trust your NCO then believe that they chose the individual who should have gotten the waiver. If you don't trust your NCO, there's a bigger problem, and it's either with your perspective or your NCO's actions. If it's your NCO's actions, there's really too much you can do about it without hard evidence; learn from it so you can be a better NCO when you get to that position. If it might be your perspective, just try to view the positive things about the situation, and continue to seek mentorship to grow professionally. If you view the situation negatively, it will likely affect your behavior (justified or not), and hurt your mindset when you're trying to move forward in your career. The best soldier is not always selected for promotion or retention. It's something the Army, in whole, needs to do a better job at.

SPC Bruce Nichols what about being in an Unit where there are no Early Promotion Waivers at all? What about having a Soldier who won the Soldier of the Quarter Board, then Soldier of the Year Competition, GAFPB, 300 APFT as a PFC but, no, there was no waiver for him so he had to wait to get the SPC. Everybody have to wait the whole year for PFC and 2 years for SPC, and if ever a waiver appears will be just ONE for the whole BN and 1SG's have to submit MFR's stating why their Soldier deserves the waiver. Yes, some people got it worse...

yes, and it angered me.