Infantry

You are the rifle platoon leader. The Army gives you the platoon and the OER and tells you to be useful in 12 months. The platoon already runs on the platoon sergeant's back — your job is to learn to plan, command, and resource from the LT seat, not to out-NCO the SFC standing next to you.

You commission, get sent to IBOLC (Infantry Basic Officer Leader Course) at Fort Moore (renamed from Fort Benning in 2023) — 17 weeks under the 199th Infantry Brigade and the Maneuver Center of Excellence — and then hit your first BCT as a brand-new rifle PL. You own 30-40 soldiers, a SFC platoon sergeant, three or four SSG squad leaders, and the platoon's piece of the company OPORD. Your week is troop-leading procedures, OPORD development, range packets, training-event approval, soldier counseling, the company training meeting, and the OER support form conversation with your rater. You ruck with the platoon, you brief the company commander, you sign for the platoon's sensitive items, and you spend more time on the company training calendar and DTS than the OCS / ROTC pipeline implied. The platoon sergeant runs squad-level execution; you run platoon-level planning, resourcing, and command — and you protect the platoon's time from the battalion staff when the tasking gets unreasonable.

• 01Brief a clean five-paragraph platoon OPORD in front of the company commander — situation, mission, execution, sustainment, command and signal — graphics readable, scheme of maneuver tight, FRAGO discipline visible.
• 02Run troop-leading procedures (TLP) end-to-end per ADP 5-0 / FM 6-0 — receive the mission, issue the WARNO, develop the plan, conduct rehearsals, issue the OPORD, supervise. Hit the rehearsal step every time; it is the step LTs cut first and the one BN CDRs read in your OER.
• 03Apply METT-TC (mission, enemy, terrain, troops, time, civil considerations) in mission analysis — not as a checkbox, but as the framework you actually plan from.
• 04Write defensible DA 4856 counselings on your platoon sergeant and platoon leadership per AR 623-3 — initial within 30 days of assumption, quarterly thereafter, plus event-driven.
• 05Build a platoon training plan that aligns with the company METL, gets resourced through the BN S-3 calendar, and survives the QTB — not a wish list, a slide the CO can defend.
• 06Read the platoon sergeant the way the platoon sergeant reads you — listen first, push back in private, never undercut in front of the squad leaders.

• —ADP 3-90 — Offense and Defense; ADP 3-21 — Infantry Operations (the conceptual spine of every platoon mission you will plan).
• —FM 3-21.10 — Infantry Rifle Company; FM 3-21.8 / ATP 3-21.8 — Infantry Platoon and Squad (the manuals your CO and platoon sergeant both quote from).
• —ADP 6-22 — Army Leadership and the Profession; AR 600-100 — Army Profession and Leadership Policy.
• —AR 600-20 — Army Command Policy (SHARP, EO, unprofessional relationships — the policy you enforce and the one you can end your career on).
• —AR 623-3 + DA PAM 623-3 — Evaluation Reporting System (the OER side — read both before your first rater-ratee touchpoint).
• —DA PAM 600-3 — Officer Professional Development and Career Management; AR 350-1 — Army Training and Leader Development.

• —IBOLC graduate (17 weeks at Fort Moore under the 199th Inf Bde). Class standing is not slated formally but the read travels with you to the first unit.
• —Ranger School slot — pre-PL (with RTAC integrated into IBOLC) or post-first-PL hold. Not officially required for an 11A in a line BCT, but the implicit math at the BN CDR's OER is real.
• —Airborne / Air Assault / Pathfinder / Mountain Warfare school slots — unit-allocated, career-visible, and the differentiator between LTs the company commander remembers and LTs the company commander tolerates.
• —ACFT 540+ floor, 580+ if you are pushing for Ranger or specialty schools. Your platoon does not respect a PL who fails the test they have to pass.
• —O-1 to O-2 is automatic at 18 months commissioned under AR 600-8-29; O-2 to O-3 is a board at roughly 4 years commissioned with historically very high select rates — pull the current HRC promotion board release before drawing conclusions from rumored percentages.
• —ADSO clock: 8-year total obligation for ROTC and OCS commissions (typically 4 years AD + 4 years RC unless branch-detailed or specified otherwise); 5-year AD ADSO for USMA. Read your commissioning packet — branch-detail and additional-school ADSOs stack.

• —Trying to out-NCO your platoon sergeant. The SFC has 15+ years in the squad room; you have 17 weeks. The PL job is platoon-level planning and command, not squad-room SME — LTs who try to run drills the platoon sergeant should run lose the platoon inside two months and the read reaches the BN CDR before the next OER cycle.
• —Cutting the rehearsal step in TLP. You will get away with it once. The second time, the company commander watches the platoon fail react-to-contact in a CTC lane and your OER bullets get rewritten.
• —Missing a sensitive item — weapon, NVG, radio, crypto. As the LT signing the property book, one serial number unaccounted for is a 15-6 investigation with your name in the findings, and the BCT CDR sees the AR 15-6 outbrief.
• —Skipping or sloppy counseling. No initial counseling on the platoon sergeant within 30 days, no quarterly on the SSGs, no event counseling on a soldier issue — the company commander has nothing to defend you with when the soldier files an IG complaint and you have nothing on paper.
• —Posting OPSEC-relevant content. Unit patch, training location, weapon serial, soldier name in a deployment photo — the collection effort is real and the BCT S-2 will know your name for the wrong reason.

The good rifle PL is the LT the company commander sends to brief the BN CDR without rehearsing the brief first. His OPORDs do not get rewritten by the CO. His platoon sergeant trusts him enough to push back honestly in private and align publicly. By his second OER cycle he has a Ranger Tab (if the slot existed for his cohort), a clean property book, a platoon with the strongest collective lane scores in the company, and a senior rater profile that the O-3 board reads as "top block, future battalion commander." The platoon does not love him. The platoon respects him — which is the only adjective that matters at this rank.

You are the company commander, or the senior captain on staff, or the just-pinned major writing the OPORD the captains execute. Company command is the load-bearing OER for every promotion board through O-6 — the Army decides what kind of officer you actually are by reading this OER.

You move through the company-grade / field-grade pipeline in a visible order: post-LT staff utilization (BN S-1, S-4, AS3, or BCT staff slot) → MCCC (Maneuver Captains Career Course at Fort Moore, ~22 weeks under the 199th Infantry Brigade and the MCoE) → company command (rifle, weapons, HHC, or specialty — 18-24 months under AR 600-20) → senior captain billet (BN S-3 or XO) → MAJ pin and ILE / CGSC at Fort Leavenworth. As a company commander you own 100-130 soldiers, four platoons, the company training program, the property book, the UCMJ authority, and the boundary between what the battalion needs and what the soldiers can deliver. As a senior captain post-command you run battalion operations, write the battalion OPORD, slate platoon leaders into their KD jobs, and brief the BCT CDR. As a major you live on staff — BN XO, BN S-3, BCT plans, or a joint billet — and the institutional read of your captain years is now a fixed input the boards cannot un-see.

• 01Write and brief a company OPORD inside the battalion scheme of maneuver — graphics tight, fires plan integrated with the FSCOORD, sustainment plan defensible, command-and-signal annex that the platoons can actually execute.
• 02Run a CTC rotation as the company commander — NTC at Fort Irwin, JRTC at Fort Johnson (renamed from Fort Polk in 2023), JMRC at Hohenfels, JPMRC at Schofield. The takehome AAR follows your file the rest of your career; the O/C/Ts writing it are senior captains and majors at observer/coach/trainer billets.
• 03Manage company-level UCMJ — counseling, summarized and company-grade Article 15 authority, separation actions, working through the BN S-1 and TDS. Documented, defensible, AR 27-10 compliant.
• 04Sign for the property book and survive a CSDP / change-of-command inventory. AR 735-5 / DA PAM 710-2-1 are the references; the AR 15-6 is the consequence if the inventory does not reconcile.
• 05Run a BN-level staff section (S-1, S-4, AS3, BCT plans) at senior-captain or junior-major rank — the BN XO and S-3 are reading your staff product before they brief the BN CDR.
• 06Translate commander's intent two echelons down. As CO, the BCT CDR's intent has to live in your platoon leaders' OPORDs without you rewriting them; as MAJ on staff, the division CG's intent has to live in the brigade's plan.

• —ADP 3-0 — Operations; ADP 5-0 — The Operations Process; ADP 6-0 — Mission Command (the field-grade conceptual spine).
• —ADP 3-90 — Offense and Defense; ADP 3-21 — Infantry Operations; FM 3-21.10 — Infantry Rifle Company.
• —AR 600-20 — Army Command Policy (you exercise UCMJ authority now; you also are accountable to it).
• —AR 600-8-29 — Officer Promotions, Active Duty; DA PAM 600-3 — Officer Professional Development (the IPZ / BZ / AZ math, the KD timing windows, the FA designation conversation).
• —AR 623-3 + DA PAM 623-3 — Evaluation Reporting System (the OER side — you write OERs on your LTs now, and the OER your rater writes on you is the most-read document in your file).
• —AR 735-5 — Property Accountability Policies; DA PAM 710-2-1 — Using Unit Supply System Manual Procedures (you sign the property book in command).
• —AR 27-10 — Military Justice (you wield Article 15 authority — read the procedural side before you sign anything).

• —MCCC (Maneuver Captains Career Course) graduate — Fort Moore, ~22 weeks under 199th Inf Bde / MCoE. Class standing and small-group leader read travel to your branch manager.
• —Company command tour — 18-24 months, slated by the BN CDR / BCT CDR / HRC. The single OER the O-4 board cares about with the same intensity that the rifle PL OER mattered at LT.
• —CTC rotation as a company commander — the most-observed performance window of your career to date.
• —Functional Area designation at ~7-8 years commissioned per DA PAM 600-3 — FA40 Space, FA47 USMA Faculty, FA48 FAO, FA49 ORSA, FA50 Force Management, FA51 Acquisition, FA52 Nuclear/CWMD, FA53 IT, FA57 Simulations, FA59 Strategist. The FA selected in the background of company command shapes O-5/O-6 utilization.
• —O-4 board at the IPZ window (~10 years commissioned per current AR 600-8-29 cycles). Selection is no longer a rubber stamp; pull the most recent HRC promotion board release for the current FY rate before drawing conclusions.
• —ILE / CGSC at Fort Leavenworth — resident or non-resident, gated by HRC slating. Resident CGSC is the field-grade staff officer credential and a visible input to senior-officer competitiveness.

• —Coasting through MCCC. The small-group leaders are former company commanders evaluating you against your peers, and the read travels back to your branch manager before you arrive at the gaining BCT for command-slate consideration.
• —Phoning the staff tour. The BCT CDR's read of your S-3, S-4, or AS3 work IS the input to whether you get a command slot — CSMs and BN S-3s talk, and the command slate is a small conversation.
• —Losing the company command OER. AR 15-6 investigations under your command, lost sensitive item events, range incidents, GO inquiries, IG complaints upheld — these do not kill the career immediately, but they materially compress the O-4 board read in a way the rater's narrative cannot recover.
• —Failing the change-of-command inventory. Property book gaps under AR 735-5 trigger a Financial Liability Investigation of Property Loss (FLIPL); the BCT CDR signs the FLIPL and the OER comment lives forever.
• —Mishandling UCMJ at the company level. Skipping the TDS consult, signing an Article 15 the soldier successfully appeals, or carrying a separation packet that the BN CDR has to fix on your behalf — the BN CDR remembers which CPTs needed adult supervision in their UCMJ packets.
• —Ignoring the Functional Area designation conversation. The FA you pick at 7-8 years shapes the O-5/O-6 path in non-line tracks; LTCs who designated by default into the broadest-access FA without intent regret it at the senior service college selection window.

The good company commander runs a company that the BCT CDR is willing to send to the worst CTC rotation because they will not embarrass anyone on the AAR. The property book reconciles cleanly. The Article 15 packets are TDS-defensible. The four platoon leaders inside his company are reading OERs that the senior rater can profile honestly — and at least one of them is on the short list to make captain early. The good senior captain post-command is the BN S-3 or XO the BN CDR briefs with, not at — the LTC reads the staff product once and signs. The good just-pinned major is the staff officer the BCT CDR named in the next command slate conversation, and the one whose ILE / CGSC selection arrived as confirmation of what the brigade already knew.