how fast can you make rank in the army?

Question

I will be entering as an E-1 with prior Air Force Service 20 years ago

Answer 1

My goodness there are a lot of uninformed people that post on these boards.

I'm assuming that your post means that you had SOME Air Force service 20 years ago, but not 20 years of Air Force Service. If you had 20 years of AIr Force, I would really question your motives for coming into the Army as an E-1.

Anyway, between E-1 and E-2 is 6 months, and you'll be promoted by the computer. If you have unfavorable actions against you, this promotion might not go through. It's a company grade promotion, meaning yoru company commander might do this earlier if you're good at what you do.

For E-3, it's 4 months as an E-2 in time and grade and theoretically 1 year time in service.

For E-4, it's 6 months time in grade as an E-3 and 24 months time in service.

Again, your commander can waive the time in grade and time in service requirements based upon your performance and the needs of the company. If there is a shortage of E-4's, and he sees that you are a squared away Soldier with prior service, he could promote you early, or at least ahead of the other E-3's who have roughly the same amount of time in grade as you.


When you get to the noncommissioned officer ranks, things change a bit. For E-5 and E-6 there are two "zones" primary and secondary.

For E-5, for primary zone it's 8 months time in grade as E-4 and 36 months (3 years) time in service. For secondary zone, it's 4 months time in grade as an E-4, and 18 months time in service. Depending on the needs of the Army and how many folks they have elligible for promotion, they might promote off the primary zone and secondary zone, or just primary zone.

By the time you're elligible for E-6, I'm sure you'll know all this stuff, so I'm not going on.

As far as making E-5, you have to attend a promotion board (typically in front of senior NCOs at BN level or above) where they will ask you general military questions...your "score" on the board factors into your 'promotion points' which is what the Army promotes from. Additional means to earn promotion points are college credits, military correspondence courses, duty performance (as determined by your commander), military awards, your physical fitness test score, and your rifle qualification score. All these points get added together to form a number of points that you have. When going for E-5 and E-6, when they have slots available in your MOS, the person with the highest # of points gets the promotion...race gender, etc. have nothing to do with it.

Unlike the Navy and Air Force, there is no written qualification test for any Army promotion. You can be pretty much terrible at your job and make E-5 and E-6 if you can get the promotion points...For E-7 through E-9, it's more based on your evaluations from your superiors, so it's theoretically more difficult for the idiots to make those ranks, but it still happens, if they can con their raters into giving them good evaluations despite their incompetence.

Answer 2

You can get E-2 just for completing a list of tasks with your recruiter, such as the PT test, reciting the general orders, etc.

But either way, you can gain rank FAST. At least up to Specialist. My friend is in the National Guard and I saw him maybe 6 months ago and he was an E-2, then I saw him a few weeks ago and he was an E-4 Specialist.

Answer 3

You'll be the highest paid E-1 in the army with 20 years prior service.

E1/20

Rank comes with time, how quickly you learn, and if you pass your tests to get to the next rank.

Answer 4

7 years

Answer 5

It depends on what your MOS is , your performance, and your NCO's. To get from E-1 to E-4 can take anywhere from 18 months to 4 years.

Answer 6

First 4 are pretty easy usually. After that it depends on points. The points will be low if they need E5's, E6's, etc.
The points will be high for those ranks if they have enough and then promotion will be more difficult.

It depends on the MOS mainly....

Answer 7

well that depends on what kind of job you have. admin and support jobs really dont promote great, but if you are a true soldier and go combat arms, you get rank depending on how fast you want to get it. if you are always messing up and cant run or do push ups and sit ups your chances go down, if you cant shoot your weapon your chances go down.

Answer 8

My understanding is that combat MOS's or time in the field will get you rank faster than a support MOS.

Answer 9

i made SFC in 9 years

im getting out now , but if you show up youll get promoted hella fast regardless if your ready or not

all about numbers these days

Answer 10

depends on your MOS and where you are sent....combat support in Iraq make rank real fast...