It's evaluation season, you've got a stack of 11B Infantrymen to rate, and the cursor is blinking on an empty NCOER bullet field. You know your Soldier ran the range OIC, led a squad through a brutal FTX, and mentored two junior Soldiers to promotion — but turning that into three tight lines that survive a senior rater's red pen is a different skill than leading troops. If you've ever typed "performed duties in an outstanding manner" and hated yourself for it, this one's for you.
What Makes a Strong 11B NCOER Bullet
Infantry bullets live or die on specificity. "Led squad during training" tells the board nothing. "Led 9-man rifle squad through 5-day FTX, executing 3 movement-to-contact lanes with zero safety incidents" tells them everything — scope, complexity, and outcome in one line. Every bullet should follow the same pattern: what the Soldier did, the scale or context, and the measurable result. For an 11B, that means weapons qualification scores, ranges run, Soldiers trained, missions planned, or equipment maintained — real numbers, not adjectives.
Align each bullet to the correct NCOER attribute (Character, Presence, Intellect, Leads, Develops, Achieves) per AR 623-3 and FM 6-22. A bullet about training junior Soldiers on weapons handling belongs under Develops, not Achieves — a mistake raters make constantly, and one that weakens the whole report when a board reads it against the wrong attribute.
Key Areas to Cover for 11B Evaluations
Infantry NCOs generate a wide range of bullet material across a rating period. Make sure you're pulling from all of it, not just the last big field problem:
- Weapons and marksmanship: range OIC/NCOIC duties, qualification rates achieved by the squad or platoon, expert badge percentages
- Training and readiness: squad or platoon training plans executed, lanes training, live-fire exercises, EIB/EFMB support
- Leadership and mentorship: Soldiers counseled and developed, promotions earned by subordinates, NCOPD sessions led
- Physical and mental resilience: ACFT scores, resiliency training, suicide prevention or SHARP training conducted
- Equipment and maintenance: weapons accountability, PMCS rates on assigned vehicles/equipment, sensitive items accountability
If you're mentally scanning the last 12 months and coming up blank, pull the squad's training calendar or your own counseling files — the material is almost always there, it's just scattered.
Real NCOER Bullet Examples for 11B
Here's how a raw accomplishment turns into a board-ready bullet. Say your Soldier ran a company-level land navigation course during a field exercise:
This works because it leads with the action (planned and executed), quantifies the scale (68 Soldiers, 3 days), and closes with a measurable result (94% pass rate, zero incidents). Compare that to "ran land navigation training for the company" — same event, zero credibility with a board.
A second example, for a squad leader developing a junior NCO:
Again — specific number of Soldiers, specific outcome, specific metric. That's the formula for how to write NCOER bullets for 11B infantry Soldiers that actually stand out in a stack.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
The most common error is vague quantification — "several Soldiers" or "numerous training events" instead of real numbers. Boards read hundreds of NCOERs; specificity is what makes yours memorable. Second, raters frequently misfile bullets under the wrong attribute, which confuses the narrative arc of the report. Third, don't recycle the same bullet structure for every line — if all six bullets start with "led," the report reads flat even when the content is strong. Vary the verbs and vary the structure.
Final Thoughts
Writing strong NCOER bullets for 11B Soldiers comes down to specificity, correct attribute alignment, and pulling from the full range of what your Soldier actually did during the rating period — not just what you remember from last week. If you're staring down a stack of evaluations and short on time, NCO Kit's free NCOER Bullet Builder turns plain-language input into AR 623-3-aligned bullets in seconds, and flags when your bullet fits a different attribute better. Check it out at NCO Kit.