Rank among SFQC grads
 

I’m a QP but went through SFQC a long time ago and was medically discharged in 1993, so I’m seriously out of the loop now. So hopefully I’m not too far off base asking this one here.

In a comment on military dot com someone posted that everyone wearing the long tab was an E-6 or higher. That sounds odd to me so I thought that I’d ask it here. At the point when a candidate graduates SFQC are they promoted to a certain pay grade? What is the lowest rank that someone can be at the point in their career that they’re awarded the long tab?

Well, MTOE for an ODA is E6 is the lowest rank.

Active duty Army going through the Q course, rank can vary, from E5 through E7.

18Xrays, generally start OSUT as an E1 - E3. They may make up to #4 in the course though, maybe even E5.

Yes, the Q course is absurdly to long now.

I was an E-3 (might even have been an E-2) when I graduated. Can't remember as I'm too damned old...too damned tired and don't GAF. I was also a knucklehead and probably didn't have any business around the guys for a couple of years until I matured.... (some would say I still need to mature).

In '88-'89 a lot of us were E-5/6 and some E-4Ps but everyone either showed up to graduation as an E-6 or E-5 after MOS changes and language course.

I did have a few E-5s under me on teams during the '90s but we got everyone promoted to E-6 pretty quickly.

I retired before they brought back the X-Ray program so never saw someone below E-5 on a team and not for long.

X-rays are E-3 and E-4 going to Sage but by graduation after language they all show up to Group as E-5's. this has been the trend for the last few years.

I was an E-4 upon SFQC graduation. Was promoted to E-5 the same time I arrived to a Special Forces company / A-Team.

So if the Long Tab were out then I'd been wearing it at E-4.

Thanks, that makes sense. I graduated in Dec 1989 and we had some E-4s in the Q Course but I don’t recall ever seeing any on the Teams.

I was seeing some responses to a recent story on military dot com that weren’t making sense in terms of rank so I thought that I’d get the latest information before I said anything.

The weirdest one was that anyone that graduated SFQC below E-6 stayed in support until they made E-6 which made no sense at all to me.

Started as an E1 and graduated and signed into A-1/7 as an E2. :p

What year did you graduate?

March '83.

I remember this. At the monthly Group readiness discussions (I was the Asst Ops SGT for the MI Co, 5th). The early 80's were one of the times Army was offering an SF enlistment/bonus option. Lots of PV2/PFC coming into the groups and had to be assigned to SFODAs to fulfill the terms of the enlistment bonus.

The discussion that happened just about every month was that the group was having to declare older, more experienced NCOs as excess because they had to put the bonus recipients in the MTOE positions.

By 83 there were very few old timers in the line companies of 5th Group.

Sure, there were some old Team Sergeants around but lots of teams had an older Team Sergeant, a couple of junior SFC's and then a bunch of SSGs and SGTs. Most E-4s were promoted shortly after getting to group. We deployed a full 12 man team in 85. Enlisted were 4 SFCs, 3 SSGs, 2 SGTs and a SP4.

Late 70s and early 80s lots of senior Medics, Commo and Engineers went off to leg land to be 1SGs when they came out on the 8 list. If they were lucky and made SGM they might get back and get a company. If not they retired.

Nov 1974 two thirds of our class made PFC on graduation day - I was one of them and reported to 5th Group that afternoon.

I've seen plenty of times a ghost SD somewhere holding down a slot that couldn't be filled. I did have an advantage being on a dive team when dive pay came out. Those slots got filled with divers or we moved them on.

The same in 1/7th. Most of the Team SGTs were SFCs. When I left in '86 to go to Panama they were full or almost full with MSGs.

I had a couple of good SFC Team SGTs but when they made MSG they were outstanding.

I was a PFC/E3, REP 63 in the MSARNG when I signed into the Q Course in March 1980. Made SP4/E4 in April of that year and graduated the Q as an SP4.

On a somewhat different note, has anyone ever heard of the Q Course being referred to as “A School”? I heard that one the other day and don’t know if it was something really old, pretty new or the guy was full of shit. It was an online comment, so I couldn’t Judge by his age.