"A buddy of mine is waiting for his Security Clearance to come back. Do any of you know how long it generally takes for Security Clearance granted through EPSQ, and is there any way to find out (without going through the security manager of his unit) what the status of his clearance is? He says there's an automated number that has security clearance as 'Press 1', but he isn't sure if he should be calling that number.

His unit is FUBAR, and screwed up the renewal of his clearance which is why he's kinda anxious to find this out.

Please help him!"   - xxfonziexx


The above quote is from a thread that my buddy put up the other day.  Well, I'm that guy...and I pretty much know about all the advice everyone else mentioned....3-6months, if you lived/worked a lot of palces it could take longer, etc.  I'm only going for a secret clearance, nothing higher, and I would like to get it ASAP so that I can continue my training.  The Army will not let me continue without it.  So, if anyone out there knows of a way to find out how far along the process my paperwork is or maybe knows someone (who knows someone, etc, etc) that can push things along [IN A POSITIVE WAY] that would be great.  Thanks.

According to a newsletter I recently got, the current goal is 90 days most of the time.  But mine took around 18 months a couple of years ago.

It takes a while.  A few months seems right.  They are very backlogged right now, so you might be in for a long wait.

The military side is faster than the civilian side. However, as an earlier poster stated, they are all backlogged.

I got my secret in about a month and a half, but it took about 5 months to process my top secret.

I read an story some years ago where a guy checked "other" on the what is your race question, and wrote in "mongrel."

His clearance got approved in just a few weeks. Apparently, that answer was strange enough the it looked like there might be some interesting stuff to find in checking the guy out, so people gave his case quick attention.

Of course, this was a long time ago.