In the military, if you don’t make promotion lists at certain junctures in your career, you’re done. Whether or not you make said list depends on your boss’s completely subjective assessment of your performance. My boss was a toxic diversity hire and I knew from the day he took command that it was going to be a rough time for the unit so getting a pair of negative evals from him was kind of like having Paul Ryan tell you that you’re a failure.
I thought I’d be more angry or sad or something but truth be told I’m mostly just relieved. I didn’t want to fight for this new president or this congress and I don’t want to watch the organization I’ve devoted tens of thousands of hours of my life to slowly fall apart over the next decade and now I won’t have to.
So I guess I’ll just take my four deployments worth of combat experience, go back home, play with my kids and wait... for something.
Vet here, I was in a similar position to you. Barred from re-enlistment due to lack of promotion. Granted it was too difficult for me to get the points needed as a single parent in a foreign country. I accepted my date, did my job to the best of my ability and rode out my contract.
I'll tell you though, the best decision I ever made was to get out and spend real time with my family that I lost from my deployments. And you can use your experience to get yourself a good job. Look into veteran hiring programs (stuff like Helmets to Hardhats). You've proven you'll do the hard work already and there are companies out there who will pay well for it.