Army putting finishing touches on new, revamped Expert Soldier Badge

God help us... This is just stupid. Someone with the power to make policy must have gotten all pissy because they don't have any/enough shiny shit on their uniform... Give me a break.

Now here's the question... is attending the event to be awarded this participation trophy going to be on a volunteer or voluntold basis? I could see this turning into a $#!t show in one way or another.

Not sure how a lot of non-combat arms units will be able to do this unless they do it as a consolidated post-level type of train up/testing or prioritize soldiers who are non-combat arms but are habitually assigned to support combat arms units. EIB testing is usually done at the battalion or brigade level and infantry units devote about a month to the event for set up, to train and validate the cadre, do all the initial training, and then do the testing itself. I don't see an issue for armor, cav scouts, artillery, combat engineers ect doing this because a lot of the skills are directly tied to their primary jobs, but I think it would be hard for something like a finance battalion or maintenance battalion to dedicate soldiers for that long since it takes soldiers away from their primary duties.