Author: Joel Schofer, MD, MBA, CPE
Throwback Thursday Classic Post – All the Posts About Letters to the Board in One Place
The question most people ask me is answered in these posts:
Should You Send a Letter to the Promotion Board?
Do You Still Need to Send the Above Zone Letter?
The bottom line is:
Pretend that you did not send a letter to the board, the board is over, and you were not selected for promotion. Are you going to be kicking yourself for not sending the letter? If the answer is yes or maybe, then send the letter. As long as you keep it short and sweet, there is no real downside.
Frankly, I think that when officers send letters to promotion boards they are often just making themselves feel better, and there is nothing wrong with that. You want to make sure that when the promotion board results come out, no matter what happened, you feel like you did everything you could to get promoted.
Letters to promotion boards have a new due date. You can’t send them the day before the board anymore:
Letters to Promotion Boards Now Due 10 Calendar Days Before the Board
If you know you are getting out of the Navy and really don’t care about getting promoted, you should read this post:
What is a “Don’t Pick Me” Promotion Board Letter? Why Would You Send One?
Have you been on active duty for less than 1 year? Read this:
How to Be Considered for Promotion if You’ve Been on Active Duty for Less Than 1 Year
You now need to use your DoD ID number and not your Social Security number on letters to the board. Read this:
Use DoD ID Number and Not Your SSN on Letters to the Board
You can now submit letters electronically:
Director for Mental Health at NMRTC San Diego
See the announcement for all the details:
Applications are due 2 APR 2021 (POC in the above file), and anyone applying needs Detailer clearance to do so.
Estimate Your Retirement Income Needs
Jonathan Clements was a longtime personal finance columnist for The Wall Street Journal, and he offers great advice at the best price you can get (free) on his blog Humble Dollar. Here is one piece of advice from his site:
“ESTIMATE YOUR RETIREMENT INCOME NEEDS. Take your annual salary. Subtract how much you save each year and pay in Social Security payroll taxes. Also subtract your annual debt payments, including your mortgage—assuming these debts will be paid off by retirement. Result: You’ll know roughly how much you will need each year for a comfortable retirement.”
I’ll take this action one step further. Once you have the rough estimate of how much annual retirement income you need, go to this calculator and figure out how much your military pension will be worth. Then go to this calculator and figure out how much Social Security you’ll get. What is left is what you need to generate with the rest of your investments. Now take that number and divide it by 0.04. That is approximately how much you need to accumulate in your investment accounts to be able to retire.
For example, let’s say you use Mr. Clements’ method and get a number of $120,000/year for a comfortable retirement. The calculators tell you that you will get about a $42,000/year military pension and $18,000/year from Social Security. That leaves $60,000/year you need to generate from your investments. Divide that by 0.04 and you get $1,500,000, which is how much you’d need in your investment accounts to retire.
Support the Blog by Donating to My Brother’s Trek Across the US to Fight Cancer – Run Forrest, Run!
My brother Jarad is famous for having run every street and alley in Washington DC:
A DC Man Ran Every Single Street (and Alley) in DC
He scored a sabbatical from his teaching job and today he started his walk/run across the entire US, Forrest Gump style, to fight cancer. If you’ve ever appreciated the blog, you can show it by donating to his cause here:
https://fundraise.cancerresearch.org/fundraiser/2703781
He’s chronicling he journey on Instagram if you want to follow along and see how he’s doing.
What’s New in the FY22 O6 Promotion Board Materials?
This article is a more detailed breakdown of all the FY22 O6 board material I posted a few days ago.
This looks fairly standard to me, except they inserted this page to emphasize the new policy that you can’t discuss opting out of promotion boards or taking a break for the Career Intermission Program:
Merit Reorder Slides
Here is what I would note from the merit reorder slides:
- To quote, “strict adherence to the career progressions depicted in the slides is not a prerequisite for promotion.” In other words, if your career has not followed these paths, please don’t get too stressed about it.
- Depending on your rank and career stage, I’d use this slide to guide your future decisions. This is what the promotion boards are looking for…
Community Brief
- To quote, “strict adherence to the career progressions depicted in the slides is not a prerequisite for promotion.” In other words, if your career has not followed these paths, please don’t get too stressed about it.
- I’ve done a detailed breakdown of the new career path in this post already, so I’d read that if you want more interpretation of the slides below, which are completely new this year due to the updated career path:
Here is what is new in the FY22 O6 convening order:
- The new maximum promotion opportunity for all boards is 95%. This came from the 2021 NDAA.
- The percent to select went from 91% down to 90%.
- The text on page 2 under “Fully Qualified” and page 4 under “Additional Considerations” has been completely updated. In brief, it now emphasizes knowledge of Great Power Competition (GPC) and the INDOPACOM AOR, professional education (JPME, et.), continual performance improvement, operational employment, character, and diversity. I think this is consistent with the recent push emphasis on JPME and being operationally relevant.
- Page 9 has a paragraph about not disadvantaging anyone whose fitrep was adversely impacted by COVID.
Black Men in White Coats Virtual Film Screening
America’s Navy is proud to support the mission of Black Men in White Coats and to provide Navy Medicine’s Active Duty, Reserve, and HPSP members with the opportunity to join.
The screening will take place over a 72-hour window, from Tuesday, March 16 – Thursday, March 18. The below link will allow participants to view the film either at home or in a socially distant group setting.
https://www.indiescreening.com/screenings/452
As each participant registers for the screening via the link above, he/she will receive an email with a coupon code to access the film. Once the screening window begins on March 16, participants will have three days to complete the screening on their personal devices. They will be able to start and stop or return to the film at another time during the three-day window. Automated reminders will be sent to those who register.
The Navy is also hosting a post-screening virtual event on Friday, March 19 at 12:00 PM CST, featuring current and prospective black Navy doctors. Included will be a discussion about the film, a Q&A session with panel members and information about Navy medical scholarships. We ask that you please share this opportunity with everyone who screens the film, especially other personnel in the hospital who may be interested in pursuing a career in the Medical Corps. The link to register is included below. Space is limited!
https://a_path_forward_become_a_doctor_the_navy_way.eventbrite.com
Please reach out with any questions regarding the film screening or the follow-up event. You can email LCDR Jennifer Eng-Kulawy (contact in the global) in the Corps Chief’s Office with any questions.
Finance Friday Articles
- Coping With a Crazy Market
- How Do Women Really Invest?
- Is Diversification Finally Working?
- Mortgage Financing Guide for Doctors
- Nine Roads to Ruin
- Owning Individual Stocks vs. Owning the Stock Market
- ‘This Is Unprecedented’: Why America’s Housing Market Has Never Been Weirder
- Two Worlds: So Much Prosperity, So Much Skepticism
- What? Spend It? A Discussion about Bitcoin
- Will the Real Retirement Income Number Please Stand Up?
Throwback Thursday Classic Post – U.S. Naval War College Launches Streamlined Program for Earning JPME-I Credit
By Jeanette Steele, U.S. Naval War College Public Affairs
NEWPORT, R.I. (NNS) — U.S. Naval War College’s College of Distance Education has launched a streamlined version of its online program for delivering professional military education coursework required by the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The new Online Naval Command and Staff Program allows students to finish the intermediate joint professional military education requirement, known as JPME-I, in 10 months. The previous framework, called the Web-Enabled Program, usually took 18 months to two years to complete.
“The closure of the college’s CD-ROM Program necessitated the development of a pathway to JPME-I certification in less than 12 months to satisfy the Navy’s requirement for the joint education of its officer corps,” said Dean of the College of Distance Education Walt Wildemann.
Officials said they were able to condense the time frame without sacrificing quality by doing away with administrative pauses and some redundancies in the coursework of the legacy Web-Enabled Program.
“The goal was to deliver JPME-I education in a shorter period of time while maintaining the graduate-level standards and professional military education career requirements,” said Tim Garrold, deputy dean of the College of Distance Education.
Adding to the efficiency, students will now only register once for the program, instead of having to register three times – once for each core course – in the past. The new design is a single program made up of five blocks.
The first eight seminars in the new program started Nov. 15, and similar numbers will follow each quarter. The seminars, which accommodate 20 students each, are moderated by full-time and adjunct faculty members.
The online program is intended for Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard officers whose career commitments make them unable to complete the certification in residence at the War College or in the face-to-face classroom model of other College of Distance Education programs.
Eligible Navy unrestricted line officers, Marine Corps and Coast Guard officers receive the highest enrollment priority, followed by those services’ staff corps officers. Based on availability, the program is also open to Navy Reservists, officers from other U.S. military branches, Coast Guard officers, federal civilian employees grades GS-11 and higher and U.S. Public Health Service officers.
Unlike the Naval War College’s 10-month resident program and the non-resident Fleet Seminar Program, the online program is not accredited to award the Master of Arts degree in defense and strategic studies. However, the program fully covers the concepts and skills required for the award of JPME-I credit.
The program engages students in the complexities of the national security and theater security arenas and develops their critical-thinking skills.
Successful students will gain an understanding of the fundamentals of U.S. national security policy and military strategy – and appreciate the relationships between the two. Students will also learn to plan and conduct military operations that achieve national-level goals and objectives.
The program also introduces students to the role of both political and military leaders in the formulation of policy, the planning of joint and combined military operations and the conduct of war.
Students who completed College of Distance Education core courses through the Fleet Seminar Program, the former Web-Enabled Program or the former CD-ROM Program will receive credit for the appropriate blocks of the new online program.
To submit an application for the Online Naval Command and Staff Program, or for more information, go to https://usnwc.edu/college-of-distance-education/Online-Program.
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