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| What's the difference between a LtCol and a LtCol Brevet? The pay check. |
Let's use the rank of Major as an example of how this would work:
You halve the number of authorized regular Majors in the Marine Corps. When the board for Major convenes, you select for regular promotion the number of authorized regular Majors. You then have a secondary selection for brevet Majors to fill 04 billet line numbers. They are maintained at the 03 pay grade, but they wear the rank of Major, receive the experiences of an 04, and in the following board, after they've received one observed fitrep (or a certain amount of observed time, much like Career Designation), the Brevets are in zone for regular promotion. Any that don't meet the muster for regular promotion (i.e. pay increase), fill out their Major tour as Majors, when they finish they revert to Captain, and are subject to the career limitations of a Captain. For those who are brevetted that don't make the cut, an equal number of regular Captains will be subsequently considered for regular promotion to Major.
You can do something similar with each rank from Captain to and including Brigadier General. However, you have to be a regular Captain to have Company/Battery command, a regular LtCol to have a fleet Battalion Command, a regular Colonel to have a fleet Regimental Command, and a regular Brigadier to have MEB command.
One caveat to this is if you are a Major, or LtCol that has been brevetted to LtCol or Col, if you spend more than one tour as a Brevet LtCol or Col respectively, upon retirement you maintain the title, though you are not owed nor given the appropriate pay.
Completely unnecessary... we already have officers filling billets one grade higher (ie. Captains filling 04 Operations Officer billets in many units), they are getting the experience and have the responsibility without the brevet process. An individual should either qualify for promotion or not. Breveting a Captain seems to label them as "maybe a Major"; we'll give you the responsibility of a Major, but you're not good enough to get paid as one. Frocking is different; the officer has already been selected for promotion. Leave things the way they are.
ReplyDeleteNot true; some billets do not function well organizationally under the one up/one down personnel model--they require the additional horsepower of the grade that is expected at that level. Breveting might have some merit.
ReplyDeleteSince the point of the article is about cost cutting, it makes some sense. The flies in the ointment are that:
ReplyDelete- we have limitations against frocking too many officers, and this breveting system would appear to circumvent those limitations
- this system would have the perverse effect of treating breveted officers (so, unselected to the next rank) better than those selected but who have not yet pinned. So, the brevet system would also require a change to the promotion rates to ensure that promotion is automatic upon selection. Try selling that to M&RA!
Anonymous-3,
ReplyDeleteGood point, I failed to take into account the selection to pinning length of time. This is just an idea to get people thinking, but if it were implemented, I would assume most of the limitations against frocking officers would be lifted. A new policy might state, "If you are selected, and in a Major's billet, even if your regular number isn't up, you get pinned."
I think this is an interesting idea, but I think you're going to run into a problem of economies of scale. If you're trying to cut costs, brevetting may not get you there. It only affects officers (~10%) of the USMC, and it only saves a few hundred per brevetted Marine. I just don't know how much money we'd actual make up.
ReplyDeleteAs part of a larger solution, though, this could be a piece.
Anonymous-4,
ReplyDeleteThat's a fair point, though I imagine the savings would be less an immediate drastic reduction, and more of a contributing reduction of expense over time. Like you say, it would have to be a piece of a bigger whole. Thank you for your comment.
Sweet. Another means of the big green getting more in return from the individual than what they are willing to pay for......
ReplyDeleteI agree with Anonymous (March 27, 2013 at 2:31 PM). The additional requirement for a Capt that is brevetted to a Major is for him/her to buy the Evening Dress uniform items without increasing their pay to offset the cost of the new uniform items. We are already doing this to those that are frocked. Let's pay our Marines for the rank they are wearing. They have earned it.
ReplyDeleteApril 5, 2013 at 12:18 PM makes a good point, but the principle goes beyond uniform expenses. We all know that any Marine will be expected to perform at a level commensurate with the rank on his collar regardless of the circumstances under which said insignia was achieved. The expectation for one to produce at a level in excess of what he is compensated for is pompous and unjust. If the coffers cannot pay for the advertised rank requirement for a given billet, then the rank requirement (and therefore, expectations) should be lowered for said billet. As much as we like to preach otherwise, reality dictates that lesser resources necessitate lesser product. “More with less” only goes so far.
ReplyDeleteOkay anonymous, what is your metric for determining degree of unjustness or pompousity? I could say paying Officers as much as we do is conceited, I don't actually think that, but if I wanted to be taken seriously I'd back that assertion up with definition and a metric for determining what is more or less conceited in order to support my point.
ReplyDeleteMr. Mazzara: I will back my assertion up with the conventional definitions of pompous; "having an excessive sense of self-importance" and unjust; “contrary to what is right”. In this situation, the USMC would have an excessive sense of self importance to bind a Marine to perform beyond the level to which the USMC is prepared to compensate him for. I assert that this notion is contrary to what is right despite the likelihood of being able to get away with it based upon the individual Marine’s willingness to just suck it up and perform. I present no quantifiable metric as I did not offer an opinion regarding the degree to which the expectation was pompous or unjust, just that it was so. I do, however, offer an example: If you and I entered into a business agreement, it would be inappropriate and in my opinion, offensive, for me to ask you to increase your level of service to me for free. For the simplified purpose of this example, patriotism and esprit de corps aside, the Marine to Marine Corps relationship is a business agreement in the employee to employer sense.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the response! I appreciate the definitions, and your thoughts about how brevetting may be seen as pompous or unjust. I would agree with you if being brevetted was actual selection for promotion, or actually a promotion, it is not. It would be a separate kind of thing. This has been done in the past, most commonly, I think, during the Civil War. The process of brevetting that I'm proposing is different though than a battlefield brevet. It is more of a sort of "selection to a probationary period" than anything else.
I also just went on MOL, checked the contract that I signed when I joined the Marine Corps, and I did not see anything in there promising a specific amount of money for a given rank, or any guarantee that I’d get the money that was then being paid out for a given rank, nor did I see in there any promises of promotion. I think when you sign on the dotted line and you write a blank check (i.e. sign your life over) to the US Govt, you write a blank check. This is why our “free time” isn’t actually “free time.” It is called liberty simply because “free time” is a privilege for service members. None of our time belongs to us once you put pen to paper and receive your orders to active duty.
It appears that what Anonymous from the 8th is getting at is that the question is not whether the Marine Corps can, but whether the leadership should. Legal and right are not always the same. Institutional inertia has instilled a formidable sense of 'bend over and take it with the rest of us' sentiment in plenty such that the collective will tolerate just about anything and do it with an oorah.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous from the 12th, I get it. My point is on what basis do you judge "fairness"? How is this "less fair"? Another way to put my question, is inn what way does it violate the principle of "justice"?
ReplyDeleteI did not claim a lack of fairness sir. All is fair following the "blank check" that you speak of, but fair does not equal right either. If the lack of principle in the concept of getting something for nothing at another's expense because you can escapes the reader, then I cannot explain it. We still have the chance to walk away every few years which makes it fair enough. That, and voicing our minds to promote discussion as we are doing here, because very few of us will ever find ourselves in a position to actually change the machine. It's just unfortunate that the opportunity for the win/win in the form of a merit based system escapes our gun club over and over.
ReplyDelete