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Background. DOPMA revised the laws providing for the establishment of separate Regular Army (permanent) and Army of the United States (AUS) (temporary) lists and established a single, con­solidated Active Duty List (ADL). DOPMA, as revised, provides for the following:

(1) Establishment of an initial ADL. No later than 6 months after 15 September 1981, all officers of the Army serving under Chapter 36 of Title 10 USC, as amended by DOPMA (except for those identified in section 641 of Title 10 USC) be placed on the ADL in the same relative seniority that they held on 14 September 1981.

(2) Adjustment to the ADL. To maintain the relative seniority among officers of the Army as it existed on the day before the effective date of the law, under provisions of Title 10 USC 741, the Secretary of the Army did establish and/or adjust the ADL date of rank (DOR) of any officer who was serving on active duty on 14 September 1981. Any Regular Army (RA) or U.S. Army Reserve (USAR) officer who on the effective date of DOPMA (15 September 1981) was serving on active duty in a temporary (AUS) grade that was equal to their permanent (RA or USAR) grade was awarded an ADL date of rank equal to that held in their AUS grade.

As required by Title 10 USC, the Army maintains a single ADL on which officers are to be carried in order of seniority. They are considered for promotion each time a selection board is convened to consider officers in an established DOR zone of consideration for their competitive category. The provisions of Title 10 USC 741 relate to rank among commissioned officers of the same grade as follows:

(1) Establishes relative rank of the various commissioned officer grades.

(2) Provides that rank among officers of the same grade or equiv­alent grade is initially determined by date of rank. An officer with an earlier date of rank is senior to an officer with a later date of rank.

(3) The Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of the Army have prescribed rules for breaking date-of-rank ties and general rules for establishing dates of rank when breaks in service, service credit and placement on the ADL determinations must be made. DOR and rank/precedence criteria have been published in AR 600-8-29, chapter 2.

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Above information derived from Army Pamplet 600-3