It’s obvious you are an active component officer (what used to be called the Regular Army) & your insights are appreciated.
Those two who were nonselect for O-4 must not have gotten their required schools if performance was not an issue. I’ve known some fine officers who neglected that simple detail & were passed over.
The captains I saw RIFd in 1973 were all company commanders in a BCT battalion; in fact nearly all the O-2s & O-3s in the brigade were VN qualified & most of us were aviators.
As I had noted, during the worst combat attrition years, year group 1967 through 1969, degree requirements were lowered. When RIF time came with most of those officers having fine combat performance records, some criterion had to be found.
In the current climate, officers thought to be less than subservient to the Obama agenda & are being separated are mostly O-7 & above, or so the suspicion goes.
But the cycle of cutting too deep w/o planning for future conflicts hasn’t changed. Real question: does the Army still have ten maneuver divisions?
We have about the equivalent of 10 maneuver divisions. We do the Brigade Combat Team thing now, so it doesn’t quite match up.