 Are you ready to get promoted? A new policy is helping enlisted soldiers advance. Hi, and welcome to SITREP, Army News that affects you. Activity and Army Reserve active guard reserve specialists and sergeants have an improved chance to get promoted. The Army has changed the policy to the semi-centralized promotion process so more soldiers will appear on the promotion recommendation list. Under the old policy, the opportunity to appear before a promotion board required a commander's recommendation. But under the new one, every fully qualified soldier in the primary zone is now required to appear before the promotion board. And those that are approved are immediately placed on the promotion recommended list. The Army then uses that list to select soldiers for the next pay grade based on the amount of promotion points we've earned. Now for a soldier to be deemed fully qualified, you must have a high school diploma or GED, pass your APFT, be eligible to re-enlist, meet weight standards, and not be involved in the Army substance abuse program under command referral. If you're a specialist, you also have to have completed SSD-1 and sergeants, we have to have finished SSD-2. A specialist primary zone for the promotion board is 35 months time in service and 11 months time in grade. And sergeants reach theirs at 71 months time in service, 17 months time in grade. And for you high speed soldiers out there in the secondary zone, you'll still need to be recommended to the promotion board by your commander. The intent is to improve readiness by reinforcing counseling requirements, improving morale, and by maximizing unique talents of each individual soldier. For more information, you can visit army.mil or talk to your S-1. And if you have questions or topic ideas for Sitrep, let us know on Facebook or Twitter. Sergeant Martin, out. In the picture, number one.