Episode 72: Your NCOER Support Form is the roadmap to better evaluations

Your NCOER support form holds more power over your military career than you realize, yet most soldiers treat it like meaningless paperwork. Sergeant Cruz breaks down the harsh reality that eight out of ten NCO raters completely ignore this critical document, leading to watered-down evaluations and career stagnation for countless soldiers.

We explore the strategic importance of the DA Form 2166-9-1-Alpha and how it serves as your roadmap to evaluation success. From setting realistic goals within your first 30 days to documenting daily accomplishments, this conversation reveals why smart soldiers use the support form proactively rather than reactively. You'll discover how pages three and four contain hidden guidance on Army Leadership Requirements that directly impact your evaluation ratings.

The discussion covers the sobering truth about rater control over evaluations and why appeals processes fail without proper documentation. Sergeant Cruz shares practical strategies for maintaining monthly records, aligning with rater expectations, and protecting yourself from evaluation disputes. We also address the knowledge gap in professional military education, explaining why these critical skills aren't taught at BLC or ALC, leaving soldiers to learn through trial and error.

Whether you're transitioning from specialist to sergeant or looking to improve your evaluation outcomes, this episode provides actionable insights for taking control of your NCOER process. Subscribe for more essential military knowledge that fills the gaps in formal training.

Chapters

• 0:00 NCOER Support Form Reality Check
• 1:19 What the Support Form Actually Does
• 4:52 Setting Achievable Goals and Tracking Progress
• 7:15 Consequences of Ignoring the Support Form
• 12:22 Taking Control of Your Evaluation Process

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

GAPAM AR-623-3 is very specific that just because something is on your support form, it doesn't mean that it has to be on your evaluation. What do I mean by that? I mean, if you piss your raider off, they have the utmost control to just water it down. There are appeals process. Yes, they can work, but if you don't have no data, your appeal is going to go nowhere. If you want a better NCOER, then stop ignoring the support form, this one sheet of paper. It's going to shape how leaders evaluate you, but most NCOs they just treat it like it's busy work. Just don't be that soldier.

Speaker 1: 0:55

Welcome to the Roger Sarnt Podcast where we talk all things Army and I'm your host, sarn Cruz and today we're talking about the NCOER Support Form 2166-9-1-Alpha and why it even exists in AR and DAPAM 623-3. But without further ado, let's get started. So this is an overview of what a DA form 2166-9-1 alpha. If you want a more in-depth review of it, I did a video on it before. If you want me to walk you through one, because I have the Army Virtual Desktop at home now, just drop it in the comments and we can do a video on that. I'll do it. I'll do it live, I don't care, but just let me know in the comments.

Speaker 1: 1:45

So the 2166-9-1 Alpha it's the support form. It's literally your roadmap to a solid NCOER. That's literally it. It's supposed to be drafted within your first 30 days of your rater starting the rating period. Once they say, hey, sarn Cruz is your rater, I have 30 days to draft this document with you and sit down and we're going to discuss what your performance goals and objectives are and there's a block that you're going to write all of those and this is how I am going to make sure that you meet your objectives and your goals. Now, on the flip side, if you put something that's unattainable, then you're just hurting yourself. For instance, if you are 40 credits away from a bachelor's, you're not going to say I want to get my bachelor's degree within this rating period, because you're setting yourself up for failure. What you really want to do is say I want to accomplish 20, 15, 10 semester hours and then, within that rating period, when you do it, then that that goes on there as you are knocking out your goals and objectives. Another thing that this is really good for is you can document your daily impacts and your accomplishments right, and the good thing about that is because you have access to it. You, on your own, can go in there and you can check that block, or you can write down or you can type in what it is that you did. So if I say I need you to get HHC 72 up and you knock that out within the first quarter first two months whenever you knocked it out, you can go ahead and put it in that block, got it up and then you put the amount of time.

Speaker 1: 3:33

Another thing is make sure that you keep a running log on your own phone, on your own green book. However, it is that you write things down. I personally, I have an iPad, but use that to document what you're doing, because, whether you like it or your NCO is going to tell you give me all your accomplishments. It's going to happen. You fight it if you want to, I don't care, but it's going to happen. And what you got to do is you got to be ready to provide this information, because I can't. As an NCO, I have six other staff sergeants, another three sergeants that I'm probably going to have to rate, and it's hard to keep track of everything. Can I do it? Sure, but if you can help me, then you're helping yourself. Another thing that this form is good for it's going to align like you're aligning yourself with your Raiders expectations, because when I, as the Raider, I put this information on paper and we're discussing it, when we sit down and we do that initial counseling, the initial support form, we're discussing things that are measurable what my expectations are of you as a leader, as a soldier, as a member of the organization, as a squad leader. I'm discussing all of this with you and you and I are going to talk about how we can come together to make the organization better. And I'm going to put that in a bullet format and therefore you know and I know what is expected of you during this rating period.

Speaker 1: 5:07

The importance of it is tracking how you perform against the attributes and the competencies, because I'm not just making up this rating scheme on my own. I'm following what it is that the army tells me to do in order to accurately rate you. And, again, I've done videos on the attributes and competencies. The attributes and competencies. You can go back and watch those. I've done podcasts on it. You can also on the 2166-1-alpha let's just call it the-1-alpha.

Speaker 1: 5:42

So on the-1-alpha, if you go to page three and page four. It has the attributes and it has the competencies and it has all the bullets nested in there on how you can measure yourself against those, against the leadership requirement model, because that's what it's all called and therefore you already know you're working your way towards that. The form it's treated like it doesn't matter, but it does because at the end of the rating period it's going to help your rater write accurate and it's going to help your raider write accurate and stronger bullets. That's the thing. Like I told you, you have DAPAM, you have AR623-3, but it's not telling you exactly how to write bullets. You have AR25-50, which is army writing, but it's just telling you that you have to be clear, concise and to the point. It doesn't tell you how to write a bullet, but these pages on the Dash 1, alpha 3 and 4, they have the information you need and it's so overlooked I cannot tell you.

Speaker 1: 6:41

I made a video on TikTok on just how to write an NCOER bullet and it blew up more than what I expected. But I did know that there's a lack of knowledge when it comes to writing NCOER bullets or just NCOERs period, and that's a gap that we have. And when you're making that conversion from specialist to sergeant, you must understand how it works. You don't want to let someone put these filler bullets inside your NCOER and you don't even know that it's a filler bullet, because the information has to be quantifiable and qualifiable. Quantitative and qualitative right how much did you do for how many people, how much did you do for how many pieces of equipment? And you have to understand how to write that in two lines. You don't have a paragraph. So there's an art to writing the NCOER. But in order to write said NCOER you have to have the information.

Speaker 1: 7:44

And this information is tracked anytime you want to go into EES and update it on the Dash 1 Alpha. It just makes monthly counseling a lot easier and they make it more meaningful. Because you sit down with me and you know that I'm going to be discussing things that you've done. And now I'm going to sit down once we've discussed exactly what it is that you did and how you did it and how you updated it, and I'm updating it. Now we're going to discuss the art of putting that into a bullet format, because now it turns into a small one-on-one LPD, a little leader's time, training right Professional development. Because if we have time which we make it then I can show you something. It makes the counseling session more meaningful. One of the most important things is that it's going to show proof of your development. It's going to show proof of your actions.

Speaker 1: 8:37

I'm not just making things up. You're not just making things up. It's documented and it's there. And if I were you, as a junior NCO or senior NCO whoever's listening to this as a specialist moving over, even as a junior one, two or three, if you're ahead of the curve and you're now looking at this stuff, I'm talking to you guys. This podcast is mainly for junior troops to learn.

Speaker 1: 9:03

Yeah, if you are tracking everything, what I would suggest is, every time you make a change and you guys both discuss, just run a copy. Keep it with you in your I Love Me book for the rating period, because the DAPAM AR623-3 is very specific that just because something is on your support form, it doesn't mean that it has to be on your evaluation. What do I mean by that? I mean, if you piss your raider off, they have the utmost control to just water it down. There are appeals process. Yes, they can work, but if you don't have no data, your appeal is going to go nowhere.

Speaker 1: 9:44

Now you have to depend on someone else. If they witnessed it, now you're looking for witness statement. It's way too much work. Else, if they witnessed it, now you're looking for witness statement it's way too much work. So every time you update it and you uh discuss it with your counselor which with me, let's say, for instance, I'm counseling with your leader you run a copy, have them sign it. What, however, you want to do? It, just do it. I'm telling you it'll pay in the future and then it gives you control over your own evaluation process, because now you have something to visit every single month, because a lot of times what you're going to do is you're going to wait four or five months, six months, seven months, and you never know, I might get pulled out and put into another position, I might get swapped out for someone else, I may be in an E8 slot and I'm an E7 and an E8 comes in and I got to go.

Speaker 1: 10:33

Now you have a change of radar situation in which now you, if you didn't use the support form, now you're struggling because you got to go and fabricate all this information. Try and remember everything. It's just, it just doesn't work. Okay, and this is just what I have to say to you just make sure you use the form. Now let's talk about what happens to the ncos that skip the form, because you may use the form and that's good, but a lot I'm talking about. I would put my hand on fire and say eight to nine out of ten liters do not use this form.

Speaker 1: 11:11

So if you don't use the form, you're going to get vague NCOERs, your achievements are going to get overlooked and you're going to have missed opportunities because now you're going off off off the top of the dome, and we all know that in the army there's too much going on to remember any and everything that you've done in the past 120, 160, 180 days, whatever it is right. So that's when you start getting those, those filler bullets, those made the hard right instead of taking the easy left, whatever it is that that they talk about you're gonna forget. Like I said, you're gonna forget things that you've done. They're gonna forget because they have so much, so many people now they're looking at old ncoers that you've done. They're going to forget because they have so much, so many people Now they're looking at old NCOERs that they've made and then they're trying to pair something and it's just oh man, it's just something you just don't want to go through. So just make sure that you keep track of the expectations you got, to keep track of the roadmap to success, man, like I just previously stated, because if not, it's just gonna. It's not the one you want.

Speaker 1: 12:13

Okay, the 2166-9-1 alpha isn't just a requirement, it's a strategy. If you're a smart soldier, they don't just react to ratings, they shake the ratings. They get into the habit of being proactive, which is what I want you guys to do be proactive. We we always talk about the army's reactive. We don't do things until something happens. And it's the same thing with your ncoer. You're not going to be upset until they forget bullets and you get a trash ncoer, and now you're upset. So do me a favor share this with your team leaders, your squad leaders. Drop a comment If you've actually filled one of these out this quarter or ever like. Subscribe. Follow for more.

Speaker 1: 13:02

Roger Sarns soldier breakdowns that they don't teach at BLC or ALC Cause I'm telling you I was a BLC teacher instructor, and if it wasn't me doing it, it's not in the curriculum. We go over the what is that called the leadership requirement model and we're not required to go into the NCOER, but we did, though. But yeah, they don't teach this over there at BLC, they don't teach it at ALC. Once you're at ALC, you're MOS specific, so where are you going to learn it? I'm going to teach it to you and then remember you don't have to embrace the suck if you got the right tools in your rug. I'm Sarn Cruz and I'll see you in the next one. Peace, roger Sarn.