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46SE1-E3

Public Affairs Mass Communication Specialist

E-1 to E-3 (Junior Enlisted) · Army

E1–E3E-4E-5E-6E-7E8–E9
HEADS UP

DINFOS at Fort Meade is roughly 26 weeks of photography, videography, writing, graphic design, and broadcast journalism. It is one of the longest non-combat AIT pipelines in the Army. The first PA shop you report to will read your DINFOS academic evaluation and look at the portfolio you built during the course — bring it, organized, on a hard drive and a cloud backup.

The Honest MOS Read
You enlisted, signed for 46S, and you are either heading to or just left the Defense Information School (DINFOS) at Fort Meade, MD. DINFOS is a joint school — you will sit in classrooms with Navy MCs, Air Force 3N0X-series, and Marines alongside your fellow 46S students. The course covers photography (DSLR/mirrorless camera operation, composition, exposure, captioning), videography (camera operation, field production, editing in Adobe Premiere Pro), writing (news releases, feature stories, hometown news releases, all in AP Style), graphic design (Adobe Photoshop, InDesign), broadcast journalism (on-camera presence, audio recording and editing in Adobe Audition, script writing for AFN), and an introduction to social media management and communication planning. It is a genuinely broad curriculum and you will leave DINFOS with a portfolio that, honestly, exceeds what most entry-level civilian journalism or communications graduates produce in four years of college. The pipeline matters: BCT at Fort Jackson or Fort Leonard Wood (your reception battalion depends on your ship date and MEPS), then PCS to Fort Meade for DINFOS. Some soldiers arrive at DINFOS expecting a relaxed school because it is not a combat MOS pipeline. They are wrong. DINFOS has academic standards, portfolio deadlines, and a broadcast evaluation that requires real on-camera work under time pressure. Soldiers who fail the course get reclassed — the Army does not carry a 46S who cannot produce content. Your gaining unit after DINFOS is almost always a Public Affairs office — brigade PA, division PA, corps PA, or a specialized unit like the Army Multimedia and Visual Information Directorate. The assignment determines your first two years more than your DINFOS grades do. A brigade PA shop at a BCT installation puts you in the field with maneuver units regularly. A division or corps PA shop gives you more production capacity but less field time. A CONUS installation PAO shop (garrison-level) can feel like a civilian communications office with uniforms — community engagement events, garrison social media, and command information products. The DVIDS ecosystem is your professional home. The Defense Visual Information Distribution Service is where every photo, video, and written product you produce gets uploaded, cataloged, and distributed to media outlets and the public. Your DVIDS contributor profile is your professional record — editors at Stars and Stripes, military.com, and civilian news outlets pull content from DVIDS. Learn the metadata standards, the captioning format, and the release authority workflow in your first week at the unit. A 46S who uploads sloppy metadata or wrong captions to DVIDS is a 46S whose PAO stops sending them to cover important events. The civilian translation of this MOS is genuinely strong. Photography, videography, writing, graphic design, social media management, broadcast journalism — the DINFOS curriculum maps directly to civilian creative-industry jobs. The soldiers who build a civilian-facing portfolio (website, social media presence, competition entries) alongside their military work are the ones who walk into civilian jobs at $50K-$70K within months of ETS. The soldiers who treat the Army work as the only work and never build the outside portfolio start the job search from scratch.
Career Arc
  • 01BCT at Fort Jackson or Fort Leonard Wood — standard 10-week cycle.
  • 02PCS to DINFOS at Fort Meade — roughly 26 weeks of multimedia production training.
  • 03PCS to gaining unit (brigade PA, division PA, corps PA, or garrison PAO) — assignment determines your first 2 years.
  • 04Month ~6 TIS: E-2 (automatic per AR 600-8-19).
  • 05Month ~12 TIS: E-3 / PFC (4 mo TIG, waivable to 6/2).
  • 06First major coverage assignment (change of command, CTC rotation, deployment exercise) — your PAO's read of you forms here.
  • 07First DVIDS feature publication — the milestone that signals you can produce content without adult supervision.
Common Screwups
  • ×Sleeping on TSP enrollment under BRS. The 1% automatic plus 4% match if you contribute 5% is the most valuable financial decision of your first enlistment — and PA soldiers are no more exempt from financial literacy than anyone else.
  • ×DUI / drug pop — separation under AR 635-200 ch.14 and a re-enlistment code that follows you out the gate. The PA career field is small enough that everyone hears about it.
  • ×ACFT failures — repeated fails trigger flagging, no promotions, no schools, eventual chapter action. The PA shop being a staff section does not exempt you from the physical standard.
  • ×Not building a civilian portfolio alongside military work. The DINFOS training and the daily production work give you a portfolio that most civilian communications graduates spend four years and $100K in tuition to build. Not maintaining a personal website or competition-entry habit wastes the single best career-translation asset the MOS offers.
  • ×Getting comfortable in a garrison PA shop and never volunteering for field coverage. The 46S who only covers change of command ceremonies and community events is the one who gets passed over for the CTC rotation, the deployment, and the school slot.

A Day in the Life

  • 0500Wake. Uniform check, PT clothes on. Charge camera batteries and check card capacity — if there is a morning event to cover, batteries must be full and cards formatted.
  • 0530-0630PT formation with HHC or the PA shop. Cardio days the section runs together; strength days you may break out into the gym. The PA shop sometimes does PT with the brigade staff — the brigade XO sees who shows up and who does not.
  • 0700-0900Hygiene, change uniforms, breakfast. Check the day's coverage schedule on the shared calendar. Load camera bags if there is a morning event — two bodies, three lenses minimum (wide zoom, standard zoom, telephoto), audio recorder, fresh batteries, formatted cards.
  • 0900First formation. PAO NCOIC reads the day's coverage assignments. You get your tasking: event coverage, edit bay time, social media production, or DVIDS uploads from yesterday's events.
  • 0915-1130Morning work block. If covering an event: travel to location, shoot (200-500 frames for a standard event), record interviews, take notes for captions. If in the edit bay: process yesterday's photos in Lightroom, edit video in Premiere Pro, write captions and news releases.
  • 1130-1300Chow. DFAC if you have a meal card; off-post if you have BAS. Check DVIDS for any metadata corrections on yesterday's uploads.
  • 1300-1500Afternoon work block. Continue editing, writing, or covering events. Social media scheduling for the command accounts. Submit products to the PAO for security and accuracy review. Upload approved products to DVIDS.
  • 1500-1600Administrative time. Back up all files to the shop's NAS or external drives. Update the coverage tracker. Brief the PAO NCOIC on tomorrow's coverage requirements.
  • 1600-1630Final formation. PAO NCOIC briefs the next day's schedule. Equipment accountability — cameras, lenses, audio equipment, laptops. You account for every serialized item.
  • 1630Released. Usually. Late-breaking coverage requirements (evening events, last-minute command requests) extend your day.
  • 1700-2000Personal time. The smart cherry 46S uses at least some of this time working on their personal portfolio — editing personal projects, entering competition submissions, updating their website.
  • 2000-2200Study time. Watch tutorials on advanced editing techniques. Read the AP Stylebook. Review your DVIDS uploads and compare them to the Top 10 featured products. Phone call to family.
  • Field rotationThe clock collapses. You are embedded with a maneuver unit or operating from the PA tent at the TOC. Shoot during the day; edit and upload at night if connectivity allows. Power management becomes the constraint — battery packs, solar chargers, vehicle power. Sleep is 4-6 hours. A 14-day CTC rotation produces more portfolio-quality content than 3 months of garrison work.

Weekly Cadence

The Mon-Fri rhythm for a cherry 46S in a brigade PA shop is driven by the command's event calendar and the communication plan cycle. Monday is planning — the PAO NCOIC reviews the week's coverage requirements, assigns teams, and identifies any special products (videos, feature stories, command information campaigns). Tuesday through Thursday are production days — shooting events, editing in the bay, writing, uploading to DVIDS. The density depends on the command tempo; during a deployment exercise or CTC train-up, you may cover three events a day. During garrison lulls, you may spend the entire day in the edit bay working on a feature package. Friday is typically administrative — weekly social media analytics report, DVIDS upload reconciliation, equipment maintenance and inventory, and whatever mandatory training the brigade has scheduled (SHARP, EO, OPSEC, ATFP). Friday afternoon is also when the PAO NCOIC does informal counseling and portfolio reviews with the junior 46S soldiers — the smart cherry brings their best work from the week and asks for feedback. The week's second rhythm is the communication plan cycle. Most brigade PA shops operate on a monthly communication plan with weekly execution meetings. The PAO builds the plan; the 46S soldiers execute it. Knowing what is on the plan two weeks out is the difference between being ready for a coverage requirement and scrambling for a camera bag at 0800 on a Tuesday. The cherry's career-killer is to be the 46S who was not tracking the schedule and missed the brigade commander's key engagement because they thought it was next week.

Key Skills — How to Drill Each

  1. 01
    Shoot publication-quality still photography with a DSLR/mirrorless camera — exposure triangle, composition, proper captioning per DoD Visual Information standards.
    Shoot every day. Not just at events — during lunch, during PT, during downtime. The exposure triangle (aperture, shutter speed, ISO) becomes instinct only through volume. Learn your camera's autofocus system cold — back-button focus, eye-tracking AF, zone AF — so you can choose the right mode for the situation without thinking. Caption discipline is the invisible half: who, what, when, where, why, and the correct unit designation per the UIC. Write the caption in the field, not at the desk. The details you forget in the edit bay are the details that were obvious when you were standing next to the subject.
  2. 02
    Shoot and edit video packages (30-60 second social media cuts and 2-5 minute feature packages) in Adobe Premiere Pro to DINFOS broadcast standards.
    Every video starts with a shot list. Write five shots you need before you press record. The sequence — wide establishing, medium action, tight detail, interview, cutaway — is the grammar of video storytelling. Edit in Premiere Pro with a three-track minimum: interview/voiceover on A1, nat sound on A2, music on A3. Color correct before export. The social media cut is 30-60 seconds and must work without sound (text overlays). The feature package is 2-5 minutes and must have a narrative arc (beginning, middle, end). Watch DVIDS Top 10 videos weekly to calibrate your standard.
  3. 03
    Write a news release, feature story, or hometown news release in AP Style and route it through the PAO for approval per AR 360-1.
    The lede is the first sentence. It must answer the most important question in the story. AP Style is not optional — buy the stylebook app, use it, learn the differences between military and civilian conventions (ranks, unit designations, weapons nomenclature). The hometown news release is the most personally impactful product you will produce — it goes to the soldier's local newspaper and their family reads it. Write it like you are writing about your friend. Route every product through the PAO for security and accuracy review before it leaves the shop.
  4. 04
    Design basic graphic products (flyers, social media graphics, command posters) in Adobe Photoshop and InDesign to the command's visual identity standards.
    Learn the command's brand guidelines — logo placement, color palette, approved fonts, layout templates. Most brigade and division PA shops have a brand guide; if yours does not, ask the PAO for one or build one as a project. Every graphic product should pass the five-second test: can someone understand the message in five seconds of looking at it? If not, simplify. InDesign for multi-page layouts (newsletters, programs); Photoshop for single-page graphics and photo composites.
  5. 05
    Operate audio recording equipment and edit broadcast-quality audio packages in Adobe Audition for Armed Forces Network (AFN) or command radio.
    Audio is the skill most junior 46S soldiers underestimate. A clean interview requires a lavalier mic or a shotgun mic on a boom — not the camera's built-in mic. Learn to set levels before the interview starts (peak at -6dB, average at -12dB). Edit in Audition with noise reduction first, then EQ, then compression. The audio product that sounds like it was recorded in a studio instead of a motor pool is the product the PAO trusts you to produce again.
  6. 06
    Archive, caption, and upload visual information products to the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service (DVIDS) with proper metadata and release authority.
    DVIDS is your professional record. Every upload must have: correct release authority (the PAO signs off, not you), complete caption (5 Ws + unit designation + photographer credit), correct category tags, and proper keywords. Upload within the command's timeline — usually 24-48 hours from event. Check your uploads the next day: DVIDS editors may reject for metadata errors. A clean DVIDS contributor profile with high-quality, correctly-tagged products is what gets your work pulled by Stars and Stripes and civilian outlets.

Manuals & References — What Chapters Matter

  • AR 360-1 — The Army Public Affairs Program.
    This is the regulation that governs your entire professional existence as a 46S. Chapter 3 covers the commander's PA responsibilities; Chapter 4 covers the PA officer's role; Chapter 7 covers visual information management. Read Chapter 7 in your first week — it defines what you can and cannot photograph, the release authority chain, and the security review process. Everything you produce is governed by this regulation.
  • FM 3-61.1 — Public Affairs Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures.
    The doctrinal manual for how PA operates in a tactical environment. Chapters on media operations centers, embedded media management, communication planning, and the integration of PA into the military decision-making process (MDMP). Read the media operations chapter before your first CTC rotation — it tells you how the MOC is organized and where you fit.
  • DA PAM 360-1 — Handbook for Public Affairs.
    The practical companion to AR 360-1 — how-to guidance for PA operations, media engagement, community relations, and command information. Less regulatory language, more actionable procedures. Read it alongside AR 360-1.
  • AP Stylebook — the editorial standard for all Army PA products.
    Every news release, feature story, caption, and script you write follows AP Style. Military conventions differ from civilian AP in rank abbreviations, unit designations, and weapon nomenclature — DINFOS teaches the military modifications, but you need to own the base stylebook. Buy the app or the book. Use it every time you write.
  • DoD Instruction 5040.02 — Visual Information.
    The governing directive for all photography, videography, and graphic products across the Department of Defense. Defines what visual information is, how it must be managed, archived, and distributed. The annual VI inspection at division level runs off this instruction. Know the archival and metadata requirements — they drive how you upload to DVIDS.
  • STP 21-1-SMCT — Soldier's Manual of Common Tasks, Warrior Skills Level 1.
    You are a soldier first, 46S second. Every common-task validation — weapons qual, first aid, land nav, CBRN — comes from this manual. The PA shop goes to the field; you carry a rifle when you do. The common tasks are not optional because your MOS has cameras.

Standards — How to Hit Each

  • AIT graduate from the Public Affairs Mass Communication Specialist course at DINFOS, Fort Meade (roughly 26 weeks).
    DINFOS is a portfolio-based course. Every module — photography, video, writing, design, broadcast — produces graded work that goes into your portfolio. The soldiers who leave DINFOS with a strong portfolio are the ones who treated every assignment as a real product, not a homework exercise. Ask the DINFOS instructors for feedback beyond the grade; they are working professionals who can tell you what a civilian editor would say about your work.
  • ACFT 500+ to be left alone — the PA shop still wears the uniform and the BDE CSM still reads the slide.
    The PA shop often does unit PT with HHC or the staff. The CSM does not care that you spent the weekend editing video — you will be on the PT slide on Monday. Build your ACFT score with deadlift and sprint-drag-carry volume (the two events most easily improved with targeted training) and steady-state running for the 2-mile. A PA NCO who is a fitness failure is a PA NCO nobody takes seriously.
  • Photo and video products published to DVIDS within the command's timeline — usually 24-48 hours from event to upload.
    Build a field workflow: shoot → transfer to laptop → select and edit → write caption → submit for security review → upload to DVIDS. The bottleneck is almost always the security review, not the edit. Have the caption written before you submit for review so you can upload immediately after approval. Carry two card readers, a backup hard drive, and a power bank rated for your laptop.
  • Zero security-review violations on published content.
    Before you submit any product for review, scan the background of every photo and every frame of video for: grid coordinates, call signs, radio frequencies, classified markings, weapons serial numbers, personnel who have not consented to be photographed, and any information that could identify a specific unit's location or movement timeline. The security review checklist at AR 360-1 is real. Use it every time. The one time you skip it is the one time the classified item is in the frame.

Technical Mistakes — Concrete Consequences

  • Publishing a photo or video without completing the security and accuracy review.
    One classified item in the background of a training photo — a grid coordinate on a whiteboard, a call sign on a radio display, a classified document on a desk — and the product is recalled from DVIDS, the PAO reports the incident to the division security manager, and the command team loses trust in the PA shop for months. AR 360-1 makes the security review non-negotiable. Skip it once and the PAO will never let you upload without a second set of eyes again.
  • Missing the caption standard on a DVIDS upload — wrong unit designation, missing names, wrong date, incomplete 5 Ws.
    DVIDS editors will reject the upload or flag it for correction. If the product has already been pulled by a media outlet with the wrong caption, the correction request goes from DVIDS to the division PAO to your PAO to you — and everyone in the chain remembers the 46S who could not caption a photo correctly.
  • Sending a news release to a media outlet without PAO approval and release authority.
    AR 360-1 is explicit: the PAO is the release authority. A 46S who sends content to media without authorization has bypassed the command's communication chain. The consequences range from counseling to Article 15 depending on what was released and whether it contained sensitive information. The PAO's trust in you — which is the entire basis of your job — is broken.
  • Shooting an event and coming back with unusable footage — out of focus, blown exposure, no audio, wrong aspect ratio.
    The event does not happen again. The command has no visual record of the change of command, the re-enlistment ceremony, the training milestone. Your senior 46S rewrites the communication plan to explain the gap. The PAO stops sending you to solo coverage assignments. Recovery takes months of consistently good work.
  • Going to sick call only when something is broken — especially back, shoulders, and knees from carrying camera equipment and body armor in the field.
    Document the injury when it happens or the VA fights you about it in year ten. Camera bags with two bodies and four lenses weigh 30-40 pounds. Add kit, weapon, and helmet for a field coverage assignment and you are carrying infantry loads without infantry-level conditioning. The cumulative damage is real. Sick call creates the paper trail.

Career Decisions at This Rank

  • TSP enrollment under the Blended Retirement System (BRS).
    Everyone enlisted after January 2018 is on BRS by default. The government matches 1% automatically and adds up to 4% more if you contribute 5% of base pay. At E-1 base pay, that 5% is roughly $105/month — most cherries say they cannot afford it. The math: starting TSP at 19 with 5% contribution + 5% match, compounding over 20 years, produces a retirement balance roughly four times what starting at 26 produces. This is the single most consequential financial decision of your first enlistment. Talk to S-1 in your first week.
  • Build a civilian portfolio alongside military work — or wait until ETS.
    This is the decision that separates the 46S who walks into a $55K-$70K civilian creative job from the one who starts the job search from scratch. The DINFOS training and daily production work give you a portfolio that most civilian communications graduates spend four years and six figures to build. Start a personal website now. Upload your best military work (cleared and published — do not post unpublished or restricted content). Enter NPPA competitions, DINFOS Military Photographer/Videographer of the Year, and local photo contests. The portfolio you build during your first enlistment is the resume that civilian hiring managers actually look at — not the DD-214.
  • Stay 46S vs. reclass at the first re-enlistment window.
    The 46S career field is small — roughly 800-1,000 soldiers across the Army. That means fewer promotion slots, fewer school slots, and a narrower career path than the big MOS fields. The upside: you are learning skills that translate directly to civilian creative jobs at market rates. The downside: if you want to make E-7 and beyond, the competition for those few slots is intense and the broadening assignments (DINFOS instructor, Drill Sergeant, Recruiter) pull you away from the content production work that attracted you to the MOS. Common reclass paths out of 46S: 25-series (signal/cyber, if you want to stay technical), 35-series (intel, if you want the clearance), or the civilian market (if the portfolio is strong enough to walk).
  • Volunteer for deployment or CTC rotation coverage.
    The PA shop gets tasked to support CTC rotations (NTC, JRTC) and deployments. Volunteering for these is the single best career and portfolio accelerator in the MOS. A 14-day CTC rotation produces more portfolio-quality content than three months of garrison work. The field experience also separates you from the garrison-only 46S soldiers on the promotion board — the board sees the deployment and CTC bullets and reads them as operational credibility. The downside is real: field conditions, limited connectivity, limited sleep, and the physical demands of carrying camera equipment in full kit.
  • Marriage and barracks-to-off-post move.
    Getting married as an E-3/E-4 is a financial windfall (BAH from barracks-rate to with-dependents) and a logistical commitment. The PA shop's hours can be unpredictable — evening events, weekend coverage, early-morning ceremonies. A spouse who understands that you may get a 1600 call to cover a 1800 event will survive the first year. A spouse who does not will not. The honest test: if the marriage is real and the relationship survived BCT and DINFOS, the Army's family infrastructure is functional. If the marriage is for the BAH, the relationship will not survive the first PCS.

How the Seat Varies by Unit Type

  • Brigade Combat Team (BCT) PA Shop — Light, Stryker, or Armored
    Cherry 46S life in a BCT PA shop is field-heavy and event-dense. You cover everything the brigade does: ranges, gunneries, FTXs, CTC rotations, deployment exercises, community events, and the command team's priority engagements. The BCT PAO is usually a CPT; the PA section is 4-6 soldiers. You are in the field regularly — carrying camera gear and kit alongside maneuver soldiers. The upside: your portfolio fills fast and the content is genuinely interesting. The downside: the OPTEMPO can be relentless and the edit bay time is compressed because the next event starts before you finished processing the last one.
  • Division PA Section
    Division PA is bigger (8-15 soldiers), more structured, and more production-focused. You have dedicated edit bays, better equipment, and more time to produce polished products. The division PAO is usually a MAJ; the NCOIC is an E-7 or E-8. You cover division-level events — CTC rotation overviews, division change of commands, division-level training milestones, strategic communication campaigns. The work is higher-profile but less frequent. You spend more time in the edit bay and less time in the field than a BCT 46S.
  • Corps / ASCC / Army Service Component Command PA
    Corps-level and above is strategic communication — media engagement, Congressional visits, senior leader communications, and the kind of content that appears in Army-level publications and DVIDS featured products. The production quality bar is higher; the turnaround expectations are often faster because the content serves a senior leader's timeline. The civilian-market translation is strongest here because the work resembles what a corporate communications team produces.
  • Garrison / Installation PA (IMCOM)
    Garrison PA is community relations, installation social media, tenant-unit coordination, and the steady drumbeat of installation events (Armed Forces Day, Veterans Day, community outreach, garrison commander priorities). The pace is more predictable than operational PA. The content skews toward community engagement rather than tactical storytelling. Some 46S soldiers love the work-life balance. Others feel like they are producing content for a city government newsletter instead of covering the Army.
  • Special Operations (USASOC / ARSOF PA)
    ARSOF PA is a different world. Security review is more restrictive, the content is often embargoed or limited-distribution, and the operational tempo is high. You may cover training at the JFK Special Warfare Center, SOF exercises, or inter-agency events. The clearance requirement is higher. The content you produce may never be publicly released — some of the best work you do will sit in a classified archive. The upside: the professional network you build in the SOF PA community opens doors that no other assignment does.

What Good Looks Like at This Rank

The good cherry 46S is invisible the right way: camera ready, audio clean, captions written in the field, DVIDS uploads done before the PAO has to ask. They learn the names of every commander and senior NCO in the brigade by week three — because a 46S who does not know who is in the photo cannot caption it correctly, and a PAO who has to identify faces for the 46S stops trusting them with solo coverage. By month nine, the PAO is sending them to cover events alone — not because the PAO does not care, but because the photos come back sharp, the video is usable, and the captions are clean. They have shot a feature story that made the DVIDS homepage or got picked up by Stars and Stripes. Their DVIDS contributor profile has 50+ uploads with zero metadata corrections. They are asking the senior 46S about video editing techniques they saw on YouTube, not waiting to be taught. By month eighteen, the brigade XO knows their name because the social media engagement numbers are up. The PAO NCOIC is talking about their BLC slot. They have a personal website with their best military work organized into a portfolio that a civilian editor could review. They are entering their best photos and videos into the DINFOS Military Photographer of the Year and Military Videographer of the Year competitions — not because they expect to win, but because the competition forces them to curate their work to a standard higher than daily production requires. The retention NCO has already gotten a heads-up from the PAO that this is a soldier worth keeping; the re-enlistment conversation is on the table because the shop has decided they are somebody who makes the PA section better.

Preview — The Next Rank

E-4 Specialist (or Corporal, if the chain puts you in a leadership billet before BLC) is the next rank, and the job shifts from producing content under supervision to producing content independently and starting to train others. At SPC you are the experienced 46S in the shop — the senior 46S assigns you the harder coverage (low-light events, field exercises, feature stories with tight deadlines) because you have proven you can deliver. The promotion-point system under AR 600-8-19 applies: 36 months TIS / 8 months TIG (waivable), the promotion-point worksheet (DA Form 3355), and the monthly cutoff score. The 46S career field is small, which means cutoff scores can swing widely — check the current HRC SELCONT message for your MOS before assuming a number. BLC is required to pin SGT under STEP; get on the BLC roster early. The real differentiator at E-4 is the portfolio and the field credibility. The SPC who has covered CTC rotations, produced DVIDS feature products, and built a reputation for clean work under pressure is the one the PAO recommends for the SGT board. The SPC who has stayed in the edit bay for two years and never covered a field event is the one the board reads as garrison-only — and the 46S career field does not have room for garrison-only NCOs.
FAQ

46S E1-E3 — Frequently Asked Questions

Q01What does a E1-E3 46S (Public Affairs Mass Communication Specialist) actually do?
You came out of AIT at the Defense Information School (DINFOS) at Fort Meade, MD — roughly 26 weeks of photography, videography, writing, graphic design, and broadcast journalism crammed into one pipeline.
Q02What's the most important thing to know as a E1-E3 46S?
DINFOS at Fort Meade is roughly 26 weeks of photography, videography, writing, graphic design, and broadcast journalism.
Q03What does a typical day look like for a E1-E3 46S?
Time-blocked day at the E1-E3 46S rank tier: 0500 Wake. Uniform check, PT clothes on. Charge camera batteries and check card capacity — if there is a morning event to cover, batteries must be full and cards formatted, 0530-0630 PT formation with HHC or the PA shop. Cardio days the section runs together; strength days you may break out into the gym. The PA shop sometimes does PT with the brigade staff — the brigade XO sees who shows up and who does not, 0700-0900 Hygiene, change uniforms, breakfast. Check the day's coverage schedule on the shared calendar.…
Q04What mistakes get E1-E3 46S soldiers fired or relieved?
Sleeping on TSP enrollment under BRS. The 1% automatic plus 4% match if you contribute 5% is the most valuable financial decision of your first enlistment — and PA soldiers are no more exempt from financial literacy than anyone else; DUI / drug pop — separation under AR 635-200 ch.14 and a re-enlistment code that follows you out the gate. The PA career field is small enough that everyone hears about it; ACFT failures — repeated fails trigger flagging, no promotions, no schools,…
Q05What career decisions matter most at the E1-E3 46S rank tier?
TSP enrollment under the Blended Retirement System (BRS) — Everyone enlisted after January 2018 is on BRS by default. The government matches 1% automatically and adds up to 4% more if you contribute 5% of base pay. At E-1 base pay, that 5% is roughly $105/month — most cherries say they cannot afford it. The math: starting TSP at 19 with 5% contribution + 5% match, compounding over 20 years, produces a retirement balance roughly four times what starting at 26 produces. This is the single most consequential financial decision of your first enlistment. Talk to S-1 in your first week;…
Q06What's next after E1-E3 for a 46S (Public Affairs Mass Communication Specialist) in the Army?
E-4 Specialist (or Corporal, if the chain puts you in a leadership billet before BLC) is the next rank, and the job shifts from producing content under supervision to producing content independently and starting to train others.
Q07What manuals and regulations does a E1-E3 46S need to know cold?
AR 360-1 — The Army Public Affairs Program (the regulation that governs everything your shop does).; FM 3-61.1 — Public Affairs Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (the doctrinal manual for PA operations).; DA PAM 360-1 — Handbook for Public Affairs (the practical companion to AR 360-1).

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Published by the Honest MOS Editorial DeskVerified against DoD/.gov sourcesUpdated May 2026Editorial standards