THE Fighting Illini

To continue on the thread of career management, what should you do if you’re fed up with your current job? Find a new one.

It is possible to change units before you hit your normal PCS checkpoint, which is when you head to MCCC, at approximately the 3.5-4.5 year mark of your career. While simple in theory, it is very uncommon and requires a bit of legwork on your part to get it accomplished.

Several options exist that I’m aware of for LTs, in order of difficulty

• Changing units to a different post
• Ranger Battalion
• Long Range Surveillance Company
• Old Guard
• Changing units at your current post
• Filling other shortages listed on your Branch HRC page (for example, IN 1LTs can currently volunteer to deploy to be a Aide-de-camp, TF Paladin Team Leader, and LNO to ISAF).
• Volunteering to be a Basic Training XO/CDR or Warrior Transition Unit XO

Generally speaking, each of these will require approval from your Battalion and Brigade Commanders, successful time as a platoon leader already, letter(s) of recommendation, and very successful AERs/OERs in the past. They usually involve an interview/try-out, and can be highly competitive. Changing units on the same post, to try to go to one that is deploying for example, is most likely the easiest course of action, while trying to get PCS orders to a new unit (other then Ranger/Old Guard) will be the most difficult; HRC has a policy against moving people that quickly after arriving at a new unit. Trying to get out of a unit to avoid a deployment is almost guaranteed to fail.

If you want to go to a deploying unit at your current post (for example, if you’re not slated to go anywhere for a while), you would need to get in touch with that unit’s commanders and S1 and see if they have a slot for you to fill. If they do, then you’d have to go through the process of getting released from your current unit, and orders cut to transfer you over to your new unit.

Several issues I ran into – if you’re good enough to compete for a slot, your BN commander may not want to release you. Your BN and BDE S1s will also be involved and don’t have a lot of experience with releasing LTs, so continuous follow up is necessary. Just recognize that the Army Bureaucracy is a formidable foe and things move at a glacial speed with regard to the paperwork, but all things good are worth waiting for.

As for me, I’m just waiting on my orders next week to take me to my new unit, and I started the process about 1 1/2 months ago. If anyone has any questions feel free to post in comments, or if you want more specific details, I’ll talk with you offline about it.

D-Rock
1LT, IN
FT Hood, TX

New lieutenants have been conditioned from Day 1 on to expect to be a Platoon Leader. And why not? All of our training during ROTC and OBC (at least for us infantry folk) revolves around that rifle platoon. It’s an exciting job to be a PL, one that many officers look back on as their best time in the Army due to the high level of interaction with your troops. Leading 42 of America’s Finest into combat is the primary goal that you prepare for through 4 years of ROTC, half a year of OBC, Ranger School maybe, until you finally get to your unit.

And then you find out it’s not going to happen… yet.

Maybe they just rotated in a bunch of LTs and you have to wait a few months, maybe you get thrown into a staff section, or maybe they have a more pressing need and you just happen to be the lucky guy to show up right then.

So now what?

In my case, my first job was as a Company Intelligence Support Team (COIST) OIC. This is one of the up and coming positions in the Army; for now it is non-doctrinal and only filled during deployments. It allows for the fusion of intelligence and operations at the Company level to drive operations and fulfill priority intelligence requirements.This job has given me the opportunity to participate in mission planning at the BN/CO level, learn the assets available to support operations overseas and how to request them, yet still go out on patrol everyday and interact with the other PLs, Soldiers, and Iraqis.

In any case, in a short time I will get my shot at being a PL. I believe that while this experience wasn’t along the “ideal” track for an Infantry Officer, it gave me a much better understanding of things that I wouldn’t normally get until I went through MCCC and became a Company Commander. I think in the end it will be a positive enhancer for my career to have experienced something outside the norm.

Several links below detail what the COIST Section is, how it’s structured, and how it will help you as a PL/CO in the future. This is highly recommended reading for any company level leader.

• Infantry Magazine, March-April 2008, by Brandon Colas
• COIST Handbook (AKO access required)

Now, questions to the crowd: What kind of jobs have people had that have been considered outside the normal platoon leader track? How did you approach that? Did you just quit on the Army because the Army screwed you or did you make lemonade out of lemons and drive on? Whats your prospects for PL time? Do you believe it has negatively/positively impacted your career?

D-Rock
1LT, IN
FT Hood, TX