Posted on Aug 3, 2014
Officer Separation Board (OSB) Statistics: What do you think we all can learn from this?
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This 31 slide deck breaks down which FAs/Branches had the most cuts. It talks about the selection criteria. It appears that the majority of officers either had derogatory events or never got higher than "Center of Mass" (COM) evaluations. What are your thoughts? [edit: My assessment (FWIW) is now in the comments]
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B87O4lCzt8ZDTFdlaWRoT0t0ajQ/preview?pli=1
I also want to link this discussion posted by MAJ (Join to see) because it deserves more air play. https://www.rallypoint.com/answers/strategic-messaging-branding-of-officer-separation-boards
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B87O4lCzt8ZDTFdlaWRoT0t0ajQ/preview?pli=1
I also want to link this discussion posted by MAJ (Join to see) because it deserves more air play. https://www.rallypoint.com/answers/strategic-messaging-branding-of-officer-separation-boards
Posted in these groups: 
Officer Separation Board (OSB)
Officers
Officer Separation Board (OSB) Officers
Edited >1 y ago
Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 22
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If you are paying attention, this is just round one of the cuts. In the next rounds, all of the low-hanging fruit will be gone. I think it is important to look at who was selected and try to make yourself look as different from those Soldiers as possible.
Some take-aways:
- Derogatory events, no matter how old, can come back to bite you. I know people who didn't feel they were guilty but chose not to fight. BAD MOVE.
- Get your military education squared away. (I am totally guilty on this one.)
- Fight for KD positions. If you are a branch qualified CPT or MAJ and haven't done your KD time, talk to your leadership now.
- 01A positions (branch immaterial) were hit hard. I'm not saying I would advise against those, but I would if you are not KD. Some of the 01A positions are the coolest out there, but as I'm constantly saying, don't chase shiny objects. Make sure you are squared away by your branch standards first.
- For MAJs/Sr CPTs, the FAs that were hardest hit were ones that are completely dominated by DoD Civilians and Contractors. Green suiter roles are being phased out. In other words, there might be nothing wrong with you as an officer, but you might draw the short straw because there just aren't enough jobs to go around.
- MI and MI related FAs were spared along with Aviation and acquisition; I was shocked by the JAG cuts.
- Heads up to CPTs: Sr CPT is projected to by way under-strength (76%) post cuts, but MAJ will still be over-strength (110%); I would translate this into longer windows in promotion to MAJ. You are more needed as a CPT than as a MAJ.
- Combat experience was not helpful. 74% of CPTs had more than a year of combat experience and 88% of MAJs had more than 2 years. The bigger determinant was lack of KD experience. So if you chased deployments and didn't get to school and get your KD time, you were worse off than a non-deployer who had schools and KD squared away.
- I think the commissioning source data is kind of a red-herring. There are more OCS because prior service OCS have the highest TIS. They had to survive the early retirement review and the OSB. If you have a high TIS, you should anticipate that you are going to be viewed more critically.
- I also wouldn't put a ton of stock in the minority data. Unfortunately, for reasons I don't understand (tradition?) there are clusters of minorities in certain branches and career fields. When those fields take cuts, the minority numbers will appear to rise.
- Note the lack of any mention of specialty training (other than SF) being a factor. Please, please, please stop trying to beg your way into airborne training or ranger school and make sure you have the basics covered.
Of course, the next round of cuts might take totally different factors into account, but I would consider this a good set of indicators. Good luck everyone!
Some take-aways:
- Derogatory events, no matter how old, can come back to bite you. I know people who didn't feel they were guilty but chose not to fight. BAD MOVE.
- Get your military education squared away. (I am totally guilty on this one.)
- Fight for KD positions. If you are a branch qualified CPT or MAJ and haven't done your KD time, talk to your leadership now.
- 01A positions (branch immaterial) were hit hard. I'm not saying I would advise against those, but I would if you are not KD. Some of the 01A positions are the coolest out there, but as I'm constantly saying, don't chase shiny objects. Make sure you are squared away by your branch standards first.
- For MAJs/Sr CPTs, the FAs that were hardest hit were ones that are completely dominated by DoD Civilians and Contractors. Green suiter roles are being phased out. In other words, there might be nothing wrong with you as an officer, but you might draw the short straw because there just aren't enough jobs to go around.
- MI and MI related FAs were spared along with Aviation and acquisition; I was shocked by the JAG cuts.
- Heads up to CPTs: Sr CPT is projected to by way under-strength (76%) post cuts, but MAJ will still be over-strength (110%); I would translate this into longer windows in promotion to MAJ. You are more needed as a CPT than as a MAJ.
- Combat experience was not helpful. 74% of CPTs had more than a year of combat experience and 88% of MAJs had more than 2 years. The bigger determinant was lack of KD experience. So if you chased deployments and didn't get to school and get your KD time, you were worse off than a non-deployer who had schools and KD squared away.
- I think the commissioning source data is kind of a red-herring. There are more OCS because prior service OCS have the highest TIS. They had to survive the early retirement review and the OSB. If you have a high TIS, you should anticipate that you are going to be viewed more critically.
- I also wouldn't put a ton of stock in the minority data. Unfortunately, for reasons I don't understand (tradition?) there are clusters of minorities in certain branches and career fields. When those fields take cuts, the minority numbers will appear to rise.
- Note the lack of any mention of specialty training (other than SF) being a factor. Please, please, please stop trying to beg your way into airborne training or ranger school and make sure you have the basics covered.
Of course, the next round of cuts might take totally different factors into account, but I would consider this a good set of indicators. Good luck everyone!
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MAJ (Join to see)
I'd actually agree with that. In my career, the worst written OERs I've had were written by RC Officers, while the best ones were written by AC Officers. There's a style to writing an eval - regardless of whether the actual eval rating is good or bad - and in my experience the RC does a horrible job training it. You're left to the luck of whether that particular RC officer cares enough to educate themselves on writing evals.
The CAD group was Reserve, but suddenly finds themselves being compared against AC equivalents with - often - much better written evals, but the system doesn't take account of their RC past.
The CAD group was Reserve, but suddenly finds themselves being compared against AC equivalents with - often - much better written evals, but the system doesn't take account of their RC past.
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COL Randall C.
CPT (Join to see) looks like MAJ (Join to see) answered the OER question for me :)
Regarding the FA29s, the Army established the branch not to be expert EW folks, but rather to be the coordinator/integrator of EW effects at the unit level (http://usacac.army.mil/cac2/cew/FA29.asp).
While the civilians with the PhDs would be the ones to develop the EW systems, the FA29s are the ones that will be downrange with the units using them and will be trained in how best to effectively integrate them with operations and plan for their use on the battlefield.
Again, after all the pain that went into creating the branch, I was just surprised to see that critical shortages in branches didn't seem to have much impact (maybe it's karmic payback for their attempted takeover of cyber...)
Regarding the FA29s, the Army established the branch not to be expert EW folks, but rather to be the coordinator/integrator of EW effects at the unit level (http://usacac.army.mil/cac2/cew/FA29.asp).
While the civilians with the PhDs would be the ones to develop the EW systems, the FA29s are the ones that will be downrange with the units using them and will be trained in how best to effectively integrate them with operations and plan for their use on the battlefield.
Again, after all the pain that went into creating the branch, I was just surprised to see that critical shortages in branches didn't seem to have much impact (maybe it's karmic payback for their attempted takeover of cyber...)
US Army Combined Arms Center and Fort Leavenworth Public Home Page
The Electronic Warfare Team consists of all unit 29-series, which includes the 29A Electronic Warfare Officer (EWO), the 290A Electronic Warfare Technician (EWT), 29E Electronic Warfare NCO, the ASI 1J and 1K (identified and EW school trained Soldiers from other MOSs), and the 25E Spectrum Manager. As a team they have one major overarching task: To integrate EW into all unit operations to achieve the commander’s desired effects and end-state....
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MAJ (Join to see)
COL Randall C., CPT (Join to see),
I think this raises a larger issue of the eval system, and how well it actually measures an Officer's potential versus their Rater and SR's writing skills. Despite hating to learn a new eval system, I like the fact that the new eval breaks into groups based on your responsibility level, but I don't feel it really addresses the issue that a good COM rating by a skilled writer is worth far more than an ACOM rating by a poor writer. The CAD group may have gotten screwed by this (I'm IMA Reserve, and my experience is surely anecdotal, but I've long heard the same problem from many other Officers with a mix of RC and AC raters).
I think I may break this out into its own topic question, or perhaps a survey...
I think this raises a larger issue of the eval system, and how well it actually measures an Officer's potential versus their Rater and SR's writing skills. Despite hating to learn a new eval system, I like the fact that the new eval breaks into groups based on your responsibility level, but I don't feel it really addresses the issue that a good COM rating by a skilled writer is worth far more than an ACOM rating by a poor writer. The CAD group may have gotten screwed by this (I'm IMA Reserve, and my experience is surely anecdotal, but I've long heard the same problem from many other Officers with a mix of RC and AC raters).
I think I may break this out into its own topic question, or perhaps a survey...
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CPT (Join to see)
COL Randall C. I missed your post earlier, sir. I am aware of the EWO role as designed on paper. There are other factors that seemed to prevent the desired endstate. There are a lot of days on my civilian job, sir, where I really feel we need a full halt to check our 6 to see if anyone is still following us.
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Thanks! Funny that I found out that I was safe under the ethnicity slides.
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CPT (Join to see)
Wow! Funny, but not, sir. I'm in a similar boat demographically. I feel like whenever I fill out the introductory info on a survey, it could easily be traced back to me.
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I echo the comments on here that the transparency in these slides is great, but also that the strategic communication of this has been jacked up. As mentioned earlier, if I'm the attache in Yemen, I'm not very pleased right now.
Also, I understand getting on board with the ASU, but by mentioning that an officer was in greens in his DA Photo (which we know are authorized until 4th QTR FY14), the slides are stating that was a factor in selecting that officer for separation. That troubles me. That officer may have had other issues such as weak OERs or derogatory information on file, but why would you put that out there? By putting it out there, it means the board factored it into their decision, when the officer was still within the law of the land.
Also, I understand getting on board with the ASU, but by mentioning that an officer was in greens in his DA Photo (which we know are authorized until 4th QTR FY14), the slides are stating that was a factor in selecting that officer for separation. That troubles me. That officer may have had other issues such as weak OERs or derogatory information on file, but why would you put that out there? By putting it out there, it means the board factored it into their decision, when the officer was still within the law of the land.
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LTC Paul Labrador
MAJ (Join to see) , my comment came directly from my branch during a branch brief. They STRONGLY suggested having a DA photo in the new ASU and were telling officers who had current photos in the old A's to take new photos....even if the uniform was current.
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MAJ (Join to see)
Sir: Roger--as FAOs, at least, we had very similar direct guidance to ensure the DA Photo was in ASUs. The OSB results have emphasized the importance of wearing the "right" uniform (even if both the Class A and the ASU continue to be authorized for wear).
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MAJ (Join to see)
When I was going through my BZ board for Major I actually called branch to ask them how they weighted the DA photo in greens or blues. She told me officially you can wear either uniform until the wear out date. Then she told me most board members look at this as someone who doesn't want to get on board with the current policies where the Army is heading. This was back in 2012.
To play the devils advocate here what circumstances would have kept you over the past five years the Army released that they were getting rid of the greens to get a photo in the blues. This didn't happen six months ago but several years.
To play the devils advocate here what circumstances would have kept you over the past five years the Army released that they were getting rid of the greens to get a photo in the blues. This didn't happen six months ago but several years.
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MAJ (Join to see)
I agree with all the above comments, and I can definitely buy that, at this point, if you don't have the ASU, it is foot dragging. Naturally an officer in the old uniform in their photo is likely going to send a signal to the board member. My bigger issue, I suppose, was that it was listed by HRC on the slides as a reason. I totally understand that bias existing, but just think it was a poor move to officially come out and say it, even if those slides were never supposed to see the light of day. Ending someone's career for being in the right according to the law of the land (assuming the A's were the only issue, which as I've already said, likely was not the case) is just wrong. Long story short/lesson learned; don't drag your feet.
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