When I joined the Army Reserve during my Junior year of High School in 1985 we still had Spec-5 and Spec-6s in my unit although they would change later that year to hard stripe NCOs. Until the late 70s there was an also E-7 version. They were abbreviated SP4 through SP7. When they dropped all but the E-4 version the abbreviation became SPC.

The current rank is a leftover from a period during the Cold War Army which had a traditional striped NonCommissioned Officer track for combat arms Soldiers and a Specialist track for technicians. Allegedly, there were two super grades which would take a Soldier all the way to SP9 but I have yet to actually see any evidence of SP8 or SP9 and the ranks were discontinued in 1968 due to concerns a Specialist could be working for an NCO with a lower pay grade. However, the E-4 through E-7 versions were out there in droves throughout the Vietnam-era. Today, the pay grade of E-4 is the largest single pay grade in the Army and is crucial to getting things done. We salute you!

E-Mafia is offering a bundle of OCP embroidered Specialist Rank from Spec-5 through Spec-9 along with a slew of E-4 Mafia morale boosters.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 20th, 2025 at 10:00 and is filed under Army, History, Morale. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.