OER masking rules for upcoming boards issued

By Jim Tice, Staff Writer

February 22, 2015 

The Army is issuing new guidance to selection boards as it phases out the practice of masking junior officer evaluations.

Under old policy, junior officer evals went unseen by the selection board once an officer was promoted to captain or chief warrant officer three. The restricted file was not seen by selection boards, accept in rare instances.

But in a change ordered Jan. 30, Human Resources Command is moving all previously masked reports to the performance section of an officer's Army Military Human Resource Record, or AMHRR, which normally is included in the documents packet seen by promotion, school and command selection boards.

The new policy does not apply to the documents packets that will be viewed by selection boards that convene before July 1 for Regular Army, National Guard and Army Reserve officers.

Included in that category are the fiscal 2015 active component Army Competitive Category colonel, major, captain and chief warrant officer boards; the Medical Corps and Dental Corps major board, and the Army Medical Department captain board that will consider Nurse Corps, Medical Service Corps and Medical Specialist Corps first lieutenants for promotion.

Also slated for the first and second quarter of fiscal 2015 are the reserve components Army Medical Department, Judge Advocate General's Corps and Chaplains Corps major boards, and the chief warrant officer five, four and three boards.

Here are the rules that will apply to all of the above boards, according to guidance issued by the HRC in mid-February:

• Second lieutenant, first lieutenant and WO1 evaluation reports will be masked. Evaluation reports issued on promotable first lieutenants will not be masked.

• Enlisted documents that do not cross over from the enlisted to officer ranks are masked. As a general r•ule, documents relating to achievements for both officers and enlisted soldiers, such as certifications from Airborne School and the Combat Lifesaver Course, will not be masked.

• Awards, decorations and certificates of achievement will not be masked, and will be seen by the boards.