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  • "Acting" rank

    I was wondering if during their service any of our members (or anyone they know) had ever been "frocked" or assumed an "acting" rank. By frocked I mean given the rank but without the accompanying pay. If so what were the circumstances, not enough time in grade, top percentile, new billet, etc.
    Reddite igitur quae sunt Caesaris Caesari et quae sunt Dei Deo
    (Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's and unto God the things which are God's)

  • #2
    Whenever the boss takes a vacation ... often with little advance notice ... which is how you get USMC Colonels in full command of Canadian Mechanized Brigade Groups (a div(-)).

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    • #3
      I was an 'acting' Major with 4 years of service.

      Then when I went to a peace station (where only substantive ranks were allowed) I became a Captain.

      I married as a "Major" and then when my wife joined me I became a Captain.

      My mother in law was real saddened that her daughter was married off to a discipline case who was 'court maritalled' and reduced in rank! :)

      No amount of explanation could pacify her!


      "Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."

      I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.

      HAKUNA MATATA

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      • #4
        Originally posted by Ray View Post
        My mother in law was real saddened that her daughter was married off to a discipline case
        My mother-in-law and your mother-in-law could comfort each other Ray.
        "Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves, therefore, are its only safe depositories." Thomas Jefferson

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        • #5
          Yeah.

          But of all the three sons in law she has now, I am the apple of her eye! ;)

          The others (again both my cousins) must be real junk! :)

          Such is the irony of Fate!


          "Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."

          I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.

          HAKUNA MATATA

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          • #6
            Frocked, acting and turf

            When I was promoted to Sergeant I didn't have enough time in grade. I got "frocked" meaning I got a post dated promotion. I got the stripes but not the pay.

            My CO had multiple "hats" and was not always available. This meant I became "acting" CO until he became available.

            I remember one HQ in which the different sections were each commanded by a Sergeant. Sometimes there were "turf" wars when the Sergeants wouldn't make "nicey-nice". This ended when one of the Sergeants was placed in charge and made Acting Sergeant Major. He got the rank but still collected a sergeants pay.
            Reddite igitur quae sunt Caesaris Caesari et quae sunt Dei Deo
            (Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's and unto God the things which are God's)

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            • #7
              I was able to have one of my SSgt's (E-6) frocked to GySgt. He was already selected, but was not due to pin it on for months. He was filling a MSgt's (E-8) billet and having to interact with E-8's from other Services. The frocking was somewhat of a reward for doing a damn good job, but it also gave him some additional standing to help him execute his job. To actually get him frocked was a month long process. I had to write a justification for doing so and get it approved by the base CO and then forwarded to HQMC (Manpower) for final approval. We had to constantly check on the progress of the request, nag the person whose desk it was on, and fought pretty hard to get it done.

              In contrast, I watched a 1stSgt get frocked to SgtMaj in less than a week, but the requestor here was the base CO (a Colonel).

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              • #8
                never saw it happen apearently it was just to much paperwork, what kept happening with my unit was less stellar people with rank kept being placed under the direct command of people they outranked. It made for interesting circumstances.

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                • #9
                  I have assumed billets that were above my rank. An "Acting" Company Gunny as a SSGt and an Acting "First Sergeant" as both a SSgt and Gunny.

                  I never introduced myself, nor did I ever met anyone that called themselves the "acting XXX'. I would say "hello, Im SSgt Grape, the company Gunny".
                  And God help the young Lt that came back with a "Oh, your the "ACTING" Gunny"?

                  (sea story alert)
                  I once heard a phone recording of a certain 1stSgt chewing the Commandant out. Gen Krulack called the unit this 1stSgt answered (Gen Krulak never told you who he was when he called)

                  CMC ask "What do you do there 1st Sgt?

                  1stSgt answers "I'm the Sergeant Major."

                  CMC says "Oh, your the Acting SgtMaj?"

                  1stSgt answers "No, I'm the SgtMaj, I aint acting a *&%#^*%$ Damn thing."

                  Phone call went down hill from there. I think everyone in MMEA-6 (retention) passed along copies of the CMC getting a butt chewing.

                  (end of sea story)


                  As JCT said, its hard for an enlistedman to be Frocked in the Marine Corps.
                  Maybe a 1stSgt to SgtMaj or a Gunny to 1stSgt. I never say a Gunny get frocked to MSgt.. Or anyone of lesser rank frocked.
                  Last edited by Gun Grape; 15 May 07,, 00:23.

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                  • #10
                    It didn't involve rank, but it did involve position:

                    I was made the Flight Commander while I was at Ft Meade. I had 60 people on my Flight...and five of 'em out-ranked me. One of those was my superviser, which is an intolerable position to be in for BOTH of us.

                    It should never have happened, and it was a VERY unhappy time for me. I wasn't ready, and I was constantly across the street in the commander's office, getting hammered for something, usually late paperwork. When 9/11 happened, I was The Man, and immediately afterward, when it was clear to all that one of the senior NCOs should've taken over because I was in over my head...I had to shoulder the whole dam' load, and do the best I could.

                    If it seems I'm still a bit bitter about it, it's because I AM. My people deserved better than I was able to give 'em, and the guys that were getting paid more than I was should've been FORCED to shoulder what should've been their responsibility anyway.

                    I tried to quit. I told my superviser to make an appointment for both of us to go see the commander. He asked what the appointment was for, and I told him he was about to get a crappy job, and I was going to get a job more suited to my talents. But when we got in her office (and note this: I was determined not to leave that office still as a Flight Commander), she wouldn't accept my resignation. My boss was no dam' help, either, claiming how busy he was, how he felt the turmoil of a leadership change would disrupt the Flight even worse, blahblahblah.

                    She said, 'Sgt Bluesman, you're about to sew on Master, and you're going to have to learn this stuff anyway. Now's as good a time as any. Do your best.' I came back at her by asking if she was going to cut me some slack on some of the stuff that I kept getting slammed for, and she said absolutely NOT, I would be held to the same standards as all the other Flight Commanders (who were all senior NCOs, dam' her cold black heart ). But she said I had her total confidence, and that I had been recommended to the position by the XO of LTG Hayden, then the Director of the National Security Agency, which is a pretty strong endorsement. Hard to argue with that. I left the office as a Flight Commander.

                    I almost went nuts. I ended up with insomnia and a pretty grim evaluation for the year. I did sew on my stripe, but by then, my career had eaten some pretty severe tire damage. My people couldn't see what I was going through on their behalf, they only saw how much poorer a job I was doing than the other Flight Commanders, so I didn't get a lot o' 'attaboys' from the troops. I can't fault 'em for that: most of us have no idea what our leaders put up with on our behalf, but the dropped balls are out there for all to see.

                    A bad time for me. I think my chain failed me, and when it was clear that I was floundering around, no mentors stepped up to get me through it. (Actually, that's not true: I had a great friend from waaaay back on first duty station in Okinawa who was then a senior NCO himself, although he was VERY far removed from my chain, so the part he could play was advice only.)

                    If I were the only one to pay a price, so be it, but my folks, the ones that were working so dam' hard in the months following the attacks, the ones being gigged with STOP/LOSS and long hours and short-notice 'round-the-world TDYs...THEY shouldn't have been putting up with it, not when the solution was so easy: make one of these slack SOBs that have more stripes than me do it.

                    I sure learned a lot, but the price was purty steep. I recommend NObody get promoted - either in rank or position - before they're ready for it. It sets 'em up for failure.
                    Last edited by Bluesman; 25 May 07,, 03:06.

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                    • #11
                      Seen it a lot in civvy as well, good enough to do the job but not worthy of the pay, once had to act up as Guard commander, I was only a trooper, when based in the south of England, we must have been desperate back then, but even worse was the guy the MPs brought to the guardroom, and placed in my care, who had been arrested, after being AWOL for 14 years, apparently he had given himself up???? 14 days later he was a free man

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                      • #12
                        I can fully sympathise with Bluesman. I knew somebody who found himself in a similar position. Unfortunately after a few months in the deep end with increasing commitments and reduced staff he walked in front of an express train. We had been on courses together and I knew him as an entirely decent and honourable man.
                        Semper in excretum. Solum profunda variat.

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                        • #13
                          Glyn, I have to say not my preffered method of exit from this life but all the same, thoroughly effective, its always the decent types who resort to this type of action, its just a pity more the of the street dweller types, and general scum, that prevail these days, dont take that option

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                          • #14
                            Disturbing. I'd heard of a similar happenstance where the victim had been drinking gin and tested positive for drugs. He was described as not the drug "type" and was allergic to juniper berries.
                            Reddite igitur quae sunt Caesaris Caesari et quae sunt Dei Deo
                            (Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's and unto God the things which are God's)

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                            • #15
                              I was feeling pretty desperate at one point, and thought of turning in my security clearance, so they'd be forced to get somebody else. But apart from utterly ruining (as opposed to just damaging) my entire military career, I would've also endangered my family's well-being. That move would've denied me the promotion I'd worked for and earned, and the privation and straitened lifestyle that we were living while at Ft Meade would've just went on and on, until I got out...and there would've been no career after service life to look forward to, either.

                              Basically, it would have assured that we stayed as poor as we'd always been, AND whatever I had been able to contribute to my country as an intelligence analyst would've come to an end...exactly at a time when we were desperately short of experienced intel people.

                              It would've been selfless in the sense that my flight would've been better off; it would've been selfish in the sense that my conscience would be soothed at the cost of my family's welfare and the intel mission that would've been short one well-seasoned NCO.

                              Obviously, I didn't do it. But y'all can see just how awful that situation was for me that I would even think it over. I can see why some guys would do what glyn's buddy did.

                              I haven't ever felt so sorry for myself that I've cried since I was just a kid. But I came as close as dammit when one of my best men, a great Senior Airman (not an NCO yet, but he would've been a good'un) came to me after he'd gotten STOP/LOSSed. He had applied for (before 9/11) and been accepted (after 9/11) into a super-high-end academic slot at University of Arizona, a real once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to slingshot himself into position to become a serious heavy-weight of the policy world, like a Kissinger or a Alan Dulles-type of guy.

                              I tried my ass off to get him out of the Air Force (not EARLY, mind you, but at his regularly-scheduled end-of-term...which had just been extended for everybody as a war measure). I spoke to the wing commander (sympathetic but unable to help); I asked for permission to write to the Air Staff (denied); I wrote a cover sheet to the kid's letter to his congressman (a promise to look into it was all we got).

                              None of it worked; he couldn't give a commitment to the school that he'd be there for his courses; he was passed by, and the slot went to somebody else. His life's trajectory was forever altered. It broke my heart almost as bad as it did his. (Big difference between us, though: he could get just as bitter about it as he wanted; I had to back up the decision and act like it was the right one. I fought as hard as I could, but because I had to take the line that HQ knows best, the guy ended up hating me, and thinking I'd undercut him, or that I hadn't done my best for him; THAT hurt, but of course you can't show THAT, either.)

                              This was just one thing (but a BIG one) that worked on my conscience as I flailed around, trying to do the best job I could, and coming up short so many times. I don't know if ANYbody could've made the story come out right, but I know I failed, and I was junior and inexperienced and unable to do or know what was the right way to move the mountain. So I still think about that gawd-awful two years when I hear about some high-speed troop that is fast-tracked to an early promotion and is vaulting past his peer group to more responsibility and higher expectations, and I just think that we're doing some of them (and far, far more importantly, the people they're going to be in charge of) a gross injustice, but we think that we're being good to 'em.

                              Promote 'em ON TIME, if they're ready (and hold 'em back if they ain't); decorate 'em if they're doing a great job. But don't use rank and positional authority as some kind of 'honors' system. It should be more than that, and the repercussions of pushing them upward too fast spread out far wider than a single person.

                              When I see Army Sergeants First Class (a senior NCO) with only six years in (I made the Air Force's equivalent rank, Master Sergeant, in 17, which is dead on the average), I just KNOW there's a junior officer out there who's being under-trained and poorly-advised. When I see a low-time Army Sergeant serving as Platoon Sergeant (usually a position for an experienced Staff Sergeant), I just KNOW there's platoon out there that's being short-changed on their admin stuff and mentoring. Those guys are probably really high-speed, excellent soldiers, and maybe they earned their rank or position by being as good as required. BUT...seeing those situations become almost normal, and the expectation by many is that if you DON'T get there that quick, you must not be doing very well in your present capacity. And the bar gets lowered, because now EVERYbody has to be the Super Soldier or his career gets retarded, and that terrific soldier that was doing great things is perceived as just another face in the crowd, and he thinks of himself as going nowhere, and he leaves the service.

                              I'm sorry to just go OFF in this thread and make it all about ME, but as you may perceive, it is something I feel very VERY strongly about. It's simply not a good idea to push people into greater rank and authority too fast.

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