SHIELD BASE — After barely making the promotion list for his year group, Capt. America has been promoted to major and will now be serving in a staff role, according to sources.

Col. Nicholas Fury, America's commanding officer, confirmed the move but says it represents “nothing more than career progression.”

“It doesn’t matter how good you are at combat, you’ll eventually get promoted to doing paperwork,” Fury commented. “Besides, after his recent altercation with Air Force Lt. Col. James Rhodes, he’s lucky he gets to stay in the service at all. We think he’ll cool off up at battalion S4.”

America, formerly the commander of Alpha Company, 1st SHIELD Group, feels like he has more potential in a combat role. “I’m a patriotic superhuman with a great team under me,” he said. “Where would Lt. Smith and Sgt. Hawkeye be without my leadership and vibranium shield?”

Fury sees every leader, no matter how strong, as replaceable. “They’ll do fine under their new commander, Capt. James ‘Bucky’ Barnes.”

When America asked for an exception, Fury said that it’s in America’s best interest to do staff time if he wants to ever become Lt. Col. America.

“He submitted very weak bullets for his last OER, such as ‘thwarted alien invasion’ and ‘destroyed evil robots,’” Fury said. “Come on, America, we need quantity. How many aliens did you thwart? How will this affect unit readiness? Did you update your training calendars?”

“He’ll figure that stuff out at battalion.”

America remains optimistic that he will find a solution to stay in action. "I tried to get a DUI to prevent my promotion, but my super soldier metabolism prevents me from getting drunk," says America. "I suppose everyone has their shortcomings."