What's the most unusual way you have seen someone receive notification of promotion?

I got an early promotion to E-3 and my sergeant came up to me, unclipped the mosquito wings from my collar tabs and said "You're out of uniform. Go get some PFC pins."

I re entered military service in the VT army National guard late in life after a very long break in service coming back in as an E1. We were at Camp Atterbury Indiana for preparation to deploy. So all day training and briefings on into the nite. Late nite. So here say this 39 year or so old PV1 in this brigade level brief wanting nothing more than to form up and get back to our billets. At the end of the briefing the Brigade commander held all of us up and said there was one more thing that needed attention to. Surprisingly I was called to report up on stage to the Brigade Commander. Attention to orders and before I knew it I was a PV2. Pfc and Spc were a bit more informal. A phone call from our S1 shop. Hey Duchaine. Congrats. Go pin on Pfc /spc. And got my E5 on the way out courtesy of big army during my Medical retirement process.

So only time I was ever properly pinned was in front of the entire Brigade of very tired soldiers. Sorry guys.

Unfortunately, I was not able to attend but a short version of the story. We had a kid who got off to a rough start, but he made a great turn around. One day during GQ, he was called to the front and the CO started off as if conducting a public Captain's Mass asking the Chief's if they believed he was guilty. When all confirmed guilt, the young sailor was promoted to PO3 under the Command Advancement Program.

7 months post Desert Storm. I was well entrenched in the unit as a aviation guy but had more than a couple years both as a Ranger and in 7th Grp SF... Was on Terminal Leave after 13 yrs, was called by the CSM to come in to a (Cav) Squadron HQ since I still lived in the area (Hunter Airfield). Walked in and was met by the CSM (I was in shorts, tee shirt and hadn't shaved in a few days) and he promptly walked me out back to a full squadron formation standing at parade rest... LTC called the formation to attention and they read the 'orders'. The formation was disbanded yet no one left and the CSM and LTC both sat there for the next hour trying their damnedest to talk me out of ETS'ing. Loved that unit.

When I was the CO of a Naval Reserve unit, I learned just before our monthly drill that one of my officers had been selected for promotion. When the unit formed up for the morning muster, I loudly told the officer he was out of uniform and presented him with his new rank insignia.

In 1955, while on Louisiana Maneuvers, I made PFC. Big deal as at this time, PFC were DA allocations. Well, went out to a bootleger to celebrate and the 1Sgt caught me. The CO busted me . I was PFC for about 3 hours. While crying on my "beer" in the Orderly Room tent, the CO walked by, saw me, and for some reason took pity on me. He said, Snyder, your a PFC again. He was a good CO.

My paycheck went up a few dollars. Ironically I was fighting for women's equality in pay. This was given to me to shut my mouth.

The year I made E7, I made the list in September but didn’t pin until January. My CO handed me my orders as I was coming off the jetway on the way to a mid-year planning conference at Ft McCoy.

I returned from a 13 month tour in Viet Nam as a Marine Corporal E-4 and was stationed at MCAS Yuma. My squadron was filled with young Marines .... many of whom had been at Yuma for their first and only duty station. The clique was embedded not only with the enlisted Marines, but their CO as well. When I checked in I was given the cold shoulder by these wet nosed kids. One day I heard a couple of them talking about my promotion to Sergeant E-5 ..... I was taken aback. I went to the CO and he told me he forgot to tell me that my promotion came down from CMC in Washington DC. So, the bottom line was his favorites were not promoted even though the CO submitted there names and I, the new guy was the only E-4 promoted.

Might not exactly be notification of promotion, but knew a guy who transferred as a PO3 to a new ship, don't recall if he had even taken the test for PO2 yet or if it was in between tests. But gets to the new ship, checks in and his admin department is confused because his orders were for a PO2, all his paperwork was for a PO2. So he was suddenly a PO2 due to paperwork errors.