There’s nothing I can’t stand more than having my free time taken. Even worse is when I’m summoned by Private Whothefuck. The icing on the fucking cake is when they can’t tell me why I’m being summoned. I can’t stand that shit. Nothing puts me in a worse mood as fast as Joe Jackass knocking on my door and telling me I have to be somewhere for no good goddamned reason.

Whatever. I get dressed (in PTs), grab my sensitive items, and start off to the shop. On the way I run into Private Whothefuck. He got the message wrong. I have to bring my sensitive items up at 1400, well into my sleep time. He’s already gotten this message wrong once, I’m not relying on his memory for anything. I’m already out of my room and dressed, I’m not going back until I know what’s going on. I get to the shop and they tell me I need to be there at 1400 with my sensitive items. No, no one else can take them up there for me, I need to be there with them to show them to the armorer. When I ask if I can take care of it right now, they say I need to speak with the armorer myself.

I walk across the hall, and speak with his supervisor. He tells me where I can find him. I spend a whopping two minutes looking for him, found him. I say “Hey, 1400 means I don’t get a whole lot of sleep. Can I do this now?” He literally looks at the night vision goggles in my left hand, the weapon in my right hand, and tells me I’m good. That’s it. Mission accomplished. I go to the shop and let them know that I’ve shown the armorer my sensitive items and he said I was good. If I don’t do this, they’ll assume I didn’t and wake me up at 1400 anyway. I go back to my room, read my book, and seethe.

It’s utterly ridiculous that it took one Corporal who’s willing to fight for his own sleep to fix this. There’s four other people in my shop higher ranked than me who just didn’t give a fuck. It’s not their time they’re taking. No one else is losing sleep over it. And for something so trivial that it wouldn’t have taken more than someone saying, “Can he do this later tonight? Can he do this now so we don’t interrupt his sleep?” If I were Joe Nobody with no sense of self-preservation, I’d have been up there, half awake, for no good reason.

There’s a big misconception about the Army. That every soldier is a brother. That everyone is looking out for the person to their left and right. That we’re all in this together and we’re all on the same side. But we’re not. It’s basically every man for himself and if you’re looking out for anyone else you’re needlessly burdening yourself. No one else is looking out for you.

Original: The Army’s promotion system beyond E-4 is garbage. It is not designed to promote the best people for the job but the ones who play to system’s requirements.

Lots of words ahead that no one will read. TLDR: Working hard won’t get me promoted so I have no desire to work hard.

Promotions to E-5 and E-6 are conducted in two parts, a promotion board appearance and meeting promotion points. In order to get a promotion board appearance you must have at least six months time in grade. You must also be recommended for a promotion board appearance which means your platoon sergeant tells your first sergeant you’re ready to go. In order for him to do that you must prove to him you’re ready and you can be promoted. Part of this is having the minimum number of points to be promoted by the end of the board appearance, which is 350. You get 150 from your commander and (usually) 150 from the promotion board, which means the other 100 you have to come up with on your own.