The records are being checked for courts-martial, negative evaluations, failed leadership courses, removals for cause, reprimands and other disciplinary actions incurred since these sergeants made their current ranks. Among the reasons for records of reprimands and disciplinary actions are driving under the influence, sexual harassment charges, drug abuse and alcohol problems.

If such sergeants do not voluntarily retire, they will, for the most part, be discharged within six months.

“We’re trying to target those NCOs who don’t understand by looking in the mirror that they are not what the Army needs,” said Gerald Purcell, a Pentagon personnel expert and retired sergeant major who helped devise and carry out the program. “The time to learn and grow from your mistakes has kind of passed.”

After nearly seven years of suspension, what the Army calls the “Qualitative Management Program” is back, providing a means, the Army says, of ridding the service of marginal leaders. The QMP review applies to all retirement-eligible master sergeants, sergeants major and sergeants first class with 20 to 30 years of service in the regular Army, as well as the active Reserves and National Guard.

Some 19,000 senior noncommissioned officers – 3,000 sergeants major, 9,000 master sergeants and 7,000 sergeants first class – fall within the group to be scrutinized, Purcell said.

It’s unknown how many senior NCOs will see their records flagged and be forced to retire, but Purcell said that if he had to guess, he’d say upwards of 2 percent.

The Great Purge

Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin in 1936–1938. It involved a large-scale purge of the Communist Party and Government officials, repression of peasants, Red Army leadership, and the persecution of unaffiliated persons, characterized by widespread police surveillance, widespread suspicion of "saboteurs", imprisonment, and executions. According to the archive data, in 1937–38 the number of death sentences was 681,692 and many more died in GULAG labor camps.

Source : Wikipedia