Why are the required promotion points higher for a medic than infantry?

Question

My husband requires a great deal more points to be promoted to E-5 than the other guys in his unit (82nd ABN DIV), why is this?

Answer 1

Because Congress determines how many slots are available in each pay grade.

Then the service chiefs determine how many of those slots, to give to each MOS, based on the current manning charts.

So after the Army determined, it had say 50 E-5 slots to promote medic E-4's.

They then rated all the Army E-4's and made the promotion point cut off to be able to promote the top 50.

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They do not first determine a promotion point score, then promote anyone who has enough promotion points.

They determine how many people will be promoted first, then set the promotion point cut off, to only promote that number of people.

Since each MOS has a different number of promotion slots available, no two MOS's will have the same promotion point cut off score.


Different MOS's aren't competing against each other for promotion.

It comes down to, the more soldiers who are in a certain MOS, the easier it is to be promoted.

Units only have so many E-5 slots and you have to have an open slot, to be able to promote someone into that slot.

Reenlistments really effect some promotions, if a higher than normal number of soldiers in a MOS reenlist in a certain pay grade, that will prevent other soldiers from having as many promotion opportunties.

Answer 2

Has to do with the Command structure. A medic (or doctor, nurse, dentist, minister) is considered a non-combatant and not in the chain of command. So there is not a big need for higher ranking medics. Also having an E6 medic in the field is not appropriate for the rank. What few they do have are assigned to the medical facilities or the instructor programs to teach more medics.

Answer 3

It has always been that way!
The medical field is one of the most diffuclt MOS to get into, ASVAB scores need to be higher than other MOS's
Combat Arms MOS's promotion cut-off scores are always lower! thus, promotions are faster in these fields.
In the medical field, A soldier has to constantly seek ways to get promoted, ie: civilian education, military schools, Soldier boards, Audie Murphy, Morales clubs, correspondence courses, tough and difficult assignments, non - traditional jobs - Drill Sergeant, recruiter, Equal oppurtunity NCO, MOS instructor and ROTC assignments to name a few, and of course EFMB & CMB, Purple heart, Bronze star awards, etc...Combat tours will help get a soldier promoted ahead of his peers!

Answer 4

it varies by job... the way it works is on how bad they need e-5 or e-6 in that job. for a job like infantry, NCOs are always needed.. promotion is easy...

as for medics, the promotion points are higher.. it keeps people from making rank as quickly so they dont get over strength.

its the armys solution to "too many chiefs, not enough indians"

Answer 5

Because there are more openings in the Infantry. They lower the score in order to be able to fill all the openings.

Answer 6

Join the expeditionary forces to Iraq and be aggressive in work so that promotions will come in surely.