How does an E6 have 6 service stripes?

In my time, 68-75, that might have caused a few raised eyebrows. But in today's Army, it is everyday. My son graduated top of his class at Corry Station, FL then spent 4 years basically running his team at Ft. Meade. Got out as an E-4.

I knew SSG Cowell myself and it was an honor serving with him. He is a great NCO. You don't control the promotion rate in your MOS. Some MOSs are very slow when it comes to promotion. That does not make less of you as a Soldier.

The United States Marine Corps recognize an E-6 as a SNCO, the DOD supports this and does Grant retirement to those at 18 yrs, it does however take some recommendations to stay active duty passed 18yrs as a E-6 or SSgt, but it has happened many times before and it will continue that way, because the USMC's structure.

Why be confused? He is a SSGT with 18 years. Lots of good reasons why that may be - but your question smacks almost of a back-handed accusation. Why is it even important to you?

Now this is Navy but when was in I had an AE1 POIC on one of my deployments that had 20 years in. He was good enough at his profession for the Navy to retain but he didn't seem to get past the Chiefs board for reasons he would never go into.

OK so now the fun begins I was A 91S40 when I retired I had 6 service stripes and 4 combat stripes but because I was in an MOS that there were 973 of us in the Army, and because people tended to stay I was promoted real slow real slow like needed 793 points slow, then retired as a 5 because I didn't had TIS OR TIG as a 7 so I got part of my 7, part of my 6 and a lot of my 5 pay> in any case the stripes on your sleeve don't represent any thing more than how long you have been around

It all sort of depends on the SSGs MOS and whether or not this guy is in the Guard or not.

Not every MOS is just a quick trip up the ladder. I spent 4 years active duty and never made it to E-5 because the points were just too high. The lowest I ever saw the points go was the upper 700s. That's because I was in an MOS that people stayed in and made careers out of. Career Infantry are a rarity, but career Computer Programmers, Intel Specialists and Admin Clerks are a lot more common.

In the Guard the problem is that you cannot move up until someone moves out. Rather than having the ability to take a slot anywhere in the world, the Guard is limited to just one state which is usually around 5,000 total members and a bunch of those are a different MOS than you. Typically a state will have a single battalion of people in your MOS which makes getting past E-6 REALLY HARD. You;re waiting for that E-7 to get a MSG or 1SG slot and those guys are waiting for a SGM slot. With 1 or 2 SGM slots and only 4 or 5 1SG slots, for the dozen SFCs in the state, it's basically a waiting game and not everyone will get there despite having impeccable service records, extra training and numerous awards.

I, myself, retired at 21 years as an E-6 and I didn't make that until after 18 years of service simply because we had a bunch of guys that stayed in for 25 or even 30 years as a 1SG waiting for a SGM slot to open up.

because they did 18 years , and were at the rank of E6 at that time?

There are some MOS's that just do not promote that well. He may have been in one of those jobs at least for some of his career.

It's not hard. Relatively simple in fact. Simple math shall we?

Soldier Johns joins the Army bright and eager at the tender age of 17, he joins as a split option DEP. This means that he goes to basic between his junior and senior years. Then he goes to his AIT and let's say that he was a hard charger and his recruiter did him a solid so Airborne and Ranger along with his AIT. While nifty, that puts him in school for the better part of 7 months. At this point he has been in almost 10 months and is arriving to his first duty station. All of this as a blank sleeve, and E-1. Now it takes by regs 6 months TIS minimum to reach E-2 but a training house generally will not promote a soldier so he is stuck at E-1 until he reaches his unit and then it takes his SNCO, 1SGT and CC a minute to get him promoted to E-2. Promotions are not automatic. They still must be initiated by Command. Now, approximately 6 months later he is first eligible to get promoted to E-3 and then roughly 3 months later up to two years later eligible to promote to E-4. So he is at the minimum 2 year mark to get his E-4. Let's say that his command is average and he was at 30 months to get his E-4.

Now is where things slow down as to get to E-5 there is no simply thing of a commander puts you in. Now you have to go before a board, then attend leadership school and have a few Army mandated courses under your belt. Then you have to wait. Here is where staffing matters for various MOS's and if the army is over staffed in E-5's for a given MOS you could sit and wait. An extremely squared away troop that is motivated and hard charging can achieve E-5 in 3-4 years. It is not unheard of to see E-4's go longer, like 8 years or so without promotion to E-5 through no fault of theirs. That alone puts them at at almost 3 service stripes.

Then there is the walk to get from E-5 to E-6 and if there are combat deployments in this time you can extend that time by years. If you look on his other sleeve you will see several stripes... each one indicating a combat tour.