get promoted to a staff
Pease no. The Pentagon is full of staff who were put there to get them out of fighting units. The problem is now in the Pentagon and DC.
That is what happened in early WWII.
An ‘unwritten law’ basically said if I were Senior to you and we were both Line Officers you - for the most part - would not be allowed to ‘advance’ above me.
So when a ‘slug’ was a CO of a ship, it was more expeditious to just put him on a staff, which in essence kept him Senior to his replacement.(EGO!!!)
The real ‘monkey’ wrench came in when the Non Acadamy Officers were given command...
That was a problem early on where ‘former’ Masters of Commercial Ships were way down the pecking order from the Regular Navy types...
Seniority considered basically EVERYTHING from USNA...year graduated, class ranking etc etc