Does anyone have or know where to find what the criteria was for being promoted to these ranks?(Time in grade/service/etc)

I'd never heard of Spec. 7, 8, and 9.

I've never met a Spec. 6, but had heard of it before.

Jesus, my brain can't even begin to comprehend a sham shield wearing e-9 specialist.

I'm trying to figure out where I'd fit in on that rank structure

In all my days I never encountered a Spec 6 or above.

Minimum time in grade and technical MOS.

When I was in the Army in the 80s and 90s every Tom, Dick and Moesha was a Spec 4.

My dad was a Spec 6 radio operator, if you have anything in particular you want me to bounce off him I will, should be talking with him a little later tonight.

I'm trying to find out what the specific time in grade/service requirements were for each Specialist grade. Like, how much time was he an E4 before he got promoted to SPC5 and so on. Thanks

Yep, Corporals are few and far between.  The only Corporals I saw were pogues working in PAC and one female linguist promoted to Cpl prior to deployment despite never had been in a leadership slot.



So we have thousands of SP-4s as team leaders, heck, mortar squad leader in my case, in the Army.  Same pay, same responsibilities, no admission to the NCO club though....

The unit that relieved us on our firing point at Liberty (2007) hand probably five CPL's. They all were frocked to that so they could be trained as Paladin gunners because I guess their unit SOP was that you had to be an NCO to be a gunner on a Paladin.

My Dad was in the National Guard in the late 60's early 70s. He was a cook* and left the service as a Spec 6.

I was a Spec 4 twice!

LOL, first post strikes again!

When I first read this thread's title I though it was talking about those guys that seem to be specialists forever because they are too lazy, immature, or whatever to get promoted any further, lol.  It seems like every lower enlisted guy that has had any sort of experience in anything is a specialist now-a-days.  I guess it does not help that a lot of guys start as a specialist either.  When I spent a month with a basic training company at Ft. Jackson, it seemed like a 1/3 of the trainees were specialists because they stood out so much for one reason or another.  Brought a whole new meaning to the term sham shield for me, although most were fairly squared away and enthusiastic.

The Spec 5 and 6 ranks were used mostly to promote technical people.  It was actually a good idea.  You hear about how hard it is to get promoted in the technical fields in the Air Force and Navy but the Army solved that problem.

You could get promoted to the ranks based upon your time in service and technical competency, not NCO leadership slots.

The only thing I remember from being in during the 1960s is that they became defacto NCO ranks.  For instance, a Spec 5 was expected to show leadership just like an E-5 Sgt.

I met a Spec 7 once.  He was an intelligence specialist.  If I remember correctly he was a crypto equipment operator.  There were probably only a few people in the military with his skill set.

THESE

Well, he never got to Spec-6, I had that wrong.  PFC out of basic, promoted to E-4 after radio school and tropo school, and just before sending him to VN, he had under a year in at that point.  He was promoted to Spec-5 while they were processing to go home. Said a Sgt he didn't recognize just walked up and said, "Hey, wanna be a Spec-5?" and handed him his paperwork. Said it was probably a desk Sgt. he didn't know, the papers all had his name on them so it wasn't as random as he thought at first. He was in less than 2 years total at that point, and had spent a little less than a year as an E-4.

Then they sent him back to Ft. Monmouth where, "everybody was a Spec-5.  Thought I was gonna get out of KP, no such luck, was pretty mad about that."  He separated within the year at that rank.

Sorry, thought he said Spec-6.  Would've been more useful for your purposes if so I suspect.  Got my dad talking to me about his service though, and that's both rare and appreciated, so thanks

Dad was in the army durring the Vietnam era.  HE entered service as a private and in 2 years 10 months and 6 days he left the army (for school) as a spec 5, and was up for promotion when he left.
His MOS was 71H and he has told me, but not in detail, that he had a promotion taken away for being promoted too quickly.  I guess if you make (basically) E-5 or E-6 in under 3 years while not being in combat you're moving too quickly?  OP that should give you your time frame, at least for one point in time.