PSS, or Personnel Service Support, consists of a team of subject matter experts on the only thing the Army loves better than blowing stuff up: the Bureaucratic Machine. PSS performs all types of paperwork and administrative support for Soldiers. The various areas are as follows: Promotions, NCOERs, OERs, Records, Actions, and as a special treat for the forward detachment, ID Cards. They are outlined below.

Promotions: Points. That’s what it’s all about. In the Army, for promotion to the grades of E5 and E6, each MOS will have a monthly “cut-off” score, somewhere between 350 and 798 points. If you have the points for the month, you get promoted, it’s that simple. The job of the Promotions section is to process your documentation and determine how many points you get for each area – Military Education, Civilian Education, PT, Weapons, Commander’s Points, Awards, and I don’t know what else. They have complex formulas and must consort regularly with demons to determine the proper number of points to assign a customer, and that’s some evil I’m just not interested in getting into. Here they are, hard at work:

NCOERs: Once you become an NCO, you are no longer only subject to the scrutiny of your supervisors. At the grade of E5, or “Buck Sergeant,” the institutional scrutiny begins. To facilitate this bureaucratic examination of your value as a human being and an Army asset, we use Noncommissioned Officer Evaluation Reports. And if I said before that the Promotions Section had to consort with demons to perform their duties, then the NCOERs clerks must have to speak with Satan Himself to get this job done. I’ve paged through the regulations that govern these archaic reports, and my life will never be the same, believe me. They detail where and when you can use a period for crying out loud. How these people do this job and retain their sanity I’ll never know. Anyway, here they are:

OERs: This is a lot like NCOERs, except that they cover Officers. Which means that the tomes required for the administration of this section make those for NCOERs look positively angelic by comparison. These clerks have not retained their sanity. They also, cruelly enough, run the Records section, which basically means that they translate all of the wonderful certificates, citations, admonishments, and death threats the Army issues into hard statistical data which the Army can then use to determine your actual value to the organization. Or to the human race for that matter. These data ultimately take the form of the ERB and the ORB, Enlisted and Officer Record Brief, respectively. I’m glad this is not my job. Here they are:

Actions: Well, back in the rear, Actions was a pretty big job. Here it’s not. Nobody really cares about requesting Airborne Training here. JAG handles the Citizenship applications. And I can’t even remember right now what else the Actions section does. Onward!

ID Cards: If I haven’t worn out the consorting with demons thing by now, I actually believe that the door to this office is actually a portal to the ninth circle of Hell. Most people who have been there would agree with me. Here in Balad we issue replacement DOD ID cards for US Service members, US Contractors, US DOD Employees, and TCN (Third Country National) Contractors. We don’t do initials. You gotta go to Baghdad for that. Thank God. Anyway, here are some pics of our ID Card folks. They’re not well, but it’s not their fault.

What is PSS anyway?

PSS, or Personnel Service Support, consists of a team of subject matter experts on the only thing the Army loves better than blowing stuff up: the Bureaucratic Machine. PSS performs all types of paperwork and administrative support for Soldiers. The various areas are as follows: Promotions, NCOERs, OERs, Records, Actions, and as a special treat for the forward detachment, ID Cards . . .

CLT

The job is difficult in many ways and very detail oriented as I’m sure you all can imagine. These guys, and gals, on my team have perfected the art of detective work . . .

boredsoldier.com