Officer Separation Board (OSB) Statistics: What do you think we all can learn from this?

I think the link to your google document no longer works. Would you mind reposting your slides? It sounds really interesting.

If you're an officer affected by the OSB, and most especially if you have less than eight years of commissioned service, then a journalist from the New York Times would like to speak with you. He's writing about the situation and would like to make sure that he gets the facts straight. I've already loaded him up with the HRC presentations on this thread and connected him with a few of my readers.

I've worked with a lot of the media over the last few years, and this one appears to be legit. He's trying to go through official channels and he says "I'm getting no help from big Army on stats, so the more folks I can talk to, the better."

Please contact me through RallyPoint or NordsNords at Gmail and I'll forward his phone number and e-mail to you. He didn't mention a specific deadline but he's probably trying to put this together by Monday 20 October. If you're not comfortable speaking with him directly then I'd be glad to forward your anonymous feedback.

Saw this today;

http://www.army.mil/article/131280/Army_Statement_on_Major_Officer_Separation_Board/

"ARLINGTON, Virginia (Aug. 5, 2014) -- The Officer Separation Board for majors was composed of colonels and generals that represented a diverse cross section of our Army leadership. The board was given objective criteria to guide their selection of officers to retain or release from active duty based on performance and requirements for the future Army as we meet drawdown milestones. With respect to diversity, board members are reminded in a memorandum of instruction that the strength of our Army comes from our diversity and that we need leaders who understand that unit effectiveness depends on the ability of people of different backgrounds to work together. The Army Leadership is aware of the lack of diversity in some specialties. To that extent, the Secretary of the Army and Chief of Staff of the Army issued an action plan in March 2014 to address diversity trends through analysis of available data, implementation of appropriate solutions, and continuous monitoring of the trends.

These are tough decisions involving people. There is no single force shaping method among the choice of accessions, promotions, retention and separations that will achieve the Army's end strength goals, without the use of involuntary separation measures both now and in the future.

We recognize that this is a particularly challenging time and, as such, have instituted a process by which these Soldiers will be notified and then given maximum time to transition to civilian life. The first general officer in the individual's chain of command will notify each officer in person regardless of duty location to ensure they can take advantage of the time and all resources available to make informed decisions about their transition goals. Officers serving in Afghanistan and deployed abroad elsewhere will be brought home within a month, regardless of the length of their deployment. Though the Army will decrease our overall size, what will remain constant is our absolute commitment to taking care soldiers and their families."

Question: What were the objective criteria?


Also saw on facebook that there were 16 generals and colonels on the board and that the board lasted a week. 8500 majors in the target population. 16 generals and colonels. 1 week (let's assume 5 days, 8 hours a days). 5 x 8 x 16 = 640 work hours. 8500 / 640 =13.3 files / hour = about 4.5 minutes per file. A few assumptions in my math here, but that's about twice as long as what I expected.

Doctrine Man has some interesting points on the process, on facebook at Doctrine Man!!

Thomas Ricks ran a story in FP as well: http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/08/07/a_letter_from_a_major_fired_by_the_army.

Its a letter from a major separated by the OSB. Worth reading. Begs the question: when will the instructions to the board "leak" from HRC? It would be interesting to know what board members were instructed to highlight. For example, were they told to separate those with bad paper over all others? What if a guy had a DUI as a 2LT but then ACOMs for the next 15 years?

What about investment: in this case, the Army sent this officer to SAMS and selected him as a GO aide; that represents a substantial investment. Does a DUI outweigh that? As this process of OSB/ESERB is going to continue for the near future, these seem to be things the Army should be explaining to the target population, rather than the weak attempt HRC made today on Facebook by sharing this link: http://www.thebayonet.com/2014/08/05/643291/hrc-head-offers-army-reshaping.html#.U-OUxVEjVIk.facebook.

Doctrine Man also has a post about HRC harassing them because the slides that "leaked" were apparently FOUO.

On a related note, the CPT pick-up rate this last go around averaged around 65%. A FAR cry from the 95% + we've had in during the last 12 years or so. MAJ rates should be dropping significantly as well....

"Until they passed the new rules that only a certain % could get above center mass, you had to jack up royally to get center or below center of mass."

I have not found this to be remotely true, at least since I've commissioned. COM was the norm for most everybody, including many far better than me.(I've received ACOM enumeration/verbage on an immature profile but no ACOM yet in 3 block checked OER's) They seemed to be saving it for Audie Murphy. We'll see how that plays out in a different unit, post career course now.

Thanks for the re-posting of my post.

Not so sure if the statistics are helpful at this point: now I"m trying to devine my status out of these 31 slides!

My thoughts are that no one is safe. We had highly experienced instructors with multiple deployments get cut on this RIF. People that no one in the unit would have picked for separation.

From SMA Chandler: (http://www.armytimes.com/article/20140818/NEWS/308180012) "So far this fiscal year, about 44,600 soldiers have left the Army through normal attrition, but about 13,200 have been separated for not meeting Army standards. This could be for misconduct or unsatisfactory performance. The goal is to drop to 490,000 by the end of fiscal 2015 and drop to 450,000, or as low as 420,00 if sequestration returns in 2016." 44,600 + 13,200 = 57,800. That's a lot of folks. No data on new recruits, though.

Majors: 550
Captains: 1,188
Senior NCOs (E-6 and up): 666 (his numbers, not mine, in 2012 and 2013)
Senior NCOs (E-6 and up): 880 (scheduled for 2014)

He also says the Army might offer voluntary separations, if needed.

One wonders what the quota for cuts will be for other ranks in FY2015.

The stats that get me from the OSB stats slides are that only 138/232 majors with Below Center of Mass OERs were selected for separation, meaning 94 majors with BCOM on one or more OERs has been allowed to stay in the military over higher rated officers and/or over someone with DEROG of some sort or other; while 59 majors with files assessed as "COM +" and 13 majors assessed as "ACOM" are getting the boot. Some of these COM+ and ACOM officers probably had bad paper, which probably justifies separation; some of this bad paper probably is outweighed by the "body of work." Of those with "COM" assessed files, only 339 of 4070 were separated.



One would assume that guys assessed as BCOM were identified as high-risk and counseled, as well. Thus, while maybe they didn't have a GOMER, they still had bad paper (in the form of one or more BCOM).



I'd like to see more data on the 550 to better understand what is acceptable / not acceptable and the Board's rationale. What isn't clear is the number of officers with bad paper that got to stay in the Army over officers with no bad paper. But the slides do say 80% of selects had BCOM or DEROG. 80% of 550 = 440. 550-440 = 110. So, 110 majors with no bad paper and no bad evals are getting separated. That is illogical when there are 94 majors with BCOMs and x majors with bad paper that are staying in.



For the next round of OSB/eSERB (coming in February, I understand), the 94 BCOMers not selected this round are probably squarely in the target group and still at high-risk, and some will still probably get to stay over officers in the COM, COM+, or ACOM category. Bad paper (BCOM and/or DEROG) will probably continue to be weighed heavily. But as we continue with force shaping, the ratio of those with no DEROG and no BCOM getting separated will increase substantially from the 20% witnessed in this round.