A "general" question....literally!

Officer promotions are by a selection board of senior officers for O2 (1st lieutenant) through O8 (major general or 2-star). Major General is the last permanent promotion.

The board selects the best officers that are qualified for promotion. There are multiple requirements for each grade and the board is the ones to make sure the ineligible officers are weeded out (like not attending the proper schools or don't have enough time in their current grade). They basically come up with a 1 to whatever number promotion list.

The board puts together a recommended list for the President to nominate. That way the President only sees names on the list that were the best qualified for promotion. The list is then submitted to the Senate for confirmation.

General officer promotions are based on vacancies. As vacancies arise due to death or retirements, officers are promoted off the list.

Three and four star generals are nominated for the various vacancies. Technically they hold that rank as long as they hold that job, but normally do not drop back down once they get it. So when they retire, they will retire at the highest rank they attained. In very rare instances, the Senate won't sign off allowing the officer to retire at the highest rank. The 3-star who was in command during Abu Ghrib retired as a 2-star, or so I believe.

That's a very simplified explanation, but it's not like the President flips through officer records to hand pick generals.

As far as politics, I know my promotion to major was held up due to politics. The Army does not have quotas per se, but instead has goals. In other words, the Army wants to promote officers in the same percentages as the population in the Army.

For instance, if 75% of the eligible officers are white males, 15% blacks and 10% women, it has a goal to try to make sure that the promotion list includes at least 15% blacks and 10% women.

The year of my promotion (1999) the selection rate was one of the lowest (77%) of all time. The Army was trying to downsize and basically trying to cut a quarter of the officers in this rank for that year group. But as the line was being raised, a disproportionate amount of the minority officers were not making the cut. Think about the 1 to whatever number on the list, let's say 1000. So the cut off list was the #770 person with the #771-1000 officers being passed over for promotion.

So in order to try to meet the goals, the list is kicked back in order to be scrubbed to make sure the percentages are correct, that any of the names of #1-770 aren't dead, resigned or committed a crime or did something else to get taken off the list. There are tales that some minority officers were bumped above white males who were more qualified in order to meet goals.

The promotion list is normally released at the beginning of the fiscal year (October 1st) but was sent back at least twice and the list was not released until late December and promotions began on January 1st.

Interesting read Rob. Thanks for enlightening us..

Couldn't agree more!  Thank you for the very insightful response.  I just never knew how it all worked and I greatly appreciate the info.  

Best wishes,

Eric

I was fortunate, or unfortunate depending on your view, to experience a couple of officer selection processes. I also worked for a Reserve officer when stationed at Ft. Dix. She was a black colonel from Washington, DC and was a school teacher so she had summers free to sit on promotion boards.

She had a lot of experience in the selection process and prepared me in the first time I was tasked to sit on a promotion board. The analogy of the two things you don't want to see being made, legislation and sausage, expanded to three things in my mind.