Not such an impressive officer, afterall

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-17-2004
Not such an impressive officer, afterall
16
Tue, 08-24-2004 - 12:40am

The following are the "raw notes" of a field grade Army Reserve Officer concerning certain aspects of LT(JG)/LT Kerry's military records that have been made public. The writer of these notes is an active reservist with over twenty years of service that includes service in both the National Guard and U.S. Army Reserve. These notes are based on one of the authors specialties/functional areas: "Personnel Programs Management." While the writer is not a Naval Officer, the regulations concerning all military commissioned officers are very similar.

Typical Officer or One of the Top Few? The mainstream media has focused on John Kerry's evaluations from his Vietnam Service, "Report on the Fitness of Officers" Form NAVPERS 1611/1. The following is an example of such reporting by the mainstream media:

"Hibbard rated Kerry 'one of the top few' in initiative, personal behavior and cooperation in an evaluation dated Dec. 17, 1968".

The media has failed to take into consideration one of the "dirty little military secrets" concerning officer evaluation reports. They are extremely inflated. All of the military services realized that they had a problem because almost all of the officers received top overall ratings. It was no longer possible to distinguish between officers. A civilian reading Kerry's fitness report would see him with an "overall evaluation" as "one of the top few" and would reasonably conclude that he must be the best officer in the unit. He must be "one out of a hundred."

To combat rating inflation, a process began called senior rater profiling. This required the disclosure as to how many officers in that particular grade received the various overall ratings from that rater. This was a tool specifically designed so officers could be fairly compared to one another.

We are fortunate that this process was in effect when Kerry began his tour in Vietnam. Kerry's first Vietnam evaluation was from November 8, 1968 until December 6, 1968. The rater was LCDR Hibbard. In Block 18 of the evaluation form, "Overall Evaluation", there is "Not Observed" along with five rating categories ranging from "One of the Top Few" to "Unsatisfactory." During this initial rating, Kerry received a "Not Observed." The first significance of the report however, was that LCDR Hibbard had rated a total of 13 officers of the same grade to that date. Of the 13, 2 were "Non Observed" (one being Kerry), 6 were "One of the Top Few", 5 were "Excellent" and there was not a single "Fine", "Satisfactory" or "Unsatisfactory Officer." The unique position of "one of the top few" is filled with half of the units officers. This is the rating that is referenced by the above mentioned Bloomberg article. The second significance is that Kerry received his first Purple Heart on December 2, 1968. Yet, Kerry's senior rater LCDR Hibbard was still only able to provide an overall evaluation of "Not Observed." How do you earn a Purple Heart, engaged in combat against the enemy, and your immediate commander is only able to provide a "not observed" overall rating?

Kerry's first and only Vietnam evaluation with a profiled "Overall Evaluation" was December 14, 1968 to March 26, 1969. The rater was LCDR Elliot. Kerry was rated as "One of the Top Few." The "dirty little secret" was that LCDR Elliot had rated 15 officers of the same grade and amazingly almost 50%, 7 out of 15 (including Kerry) were "One of the Top Few." The remaining 8 all were rated "Excellent" and not a single officer was rated in any of the lesser three categories. Not a single officer was "Fine" or even just "Satisfactory."

The next evaluation report is when Kerry leaves Vietnam. This is from March 27, 1969 to July 31 1969. During this time period there are two weeks of leave. The interesting point is that the rater, RADM Schlech is unable to rate Kerry because he is "Not Observed." Further examination of the evaluation reports shows that many of the performance evaluation categories are also "Not Observed" to include the category "Management." Considering that we are examining these records to determine "fitness" to be President, I am less concerned that he may have "Outstanding Performance" in "Shiphandling" than I would be with his "Management" skills as being "Not Observed."

Concerning the written phrases by the raters in the comments sections, there are guides in every Post/Base Exchange that detail "how" to write "effective" officer evaluation reports along with hundreds of phrases that are intended to be copied with slight word changing to fit the situation. If you were to compare the evaluation reports of LT(JG) Kerry with other officers in his unit you would find comments that mirror, almost identically, one another. However, there is one unique comment that sticks out concerning Kerry, "He is impressive in appearance and always immaculate."

The key point of my observation is that Kerry, as an officer, was simply similar, most likely identical, to the rest of the officers in his unit. The evaluated record of John Kerry is being distorted by making him into something that he was not. I could rightly claim, that you could pick any record of any other swift boat officer serving alongside Kerry and it would be very similar. If John Kerry is qualified to be President based on this time period, then any of the other officers he served alongside with are equally qualified. The key point is that John Kerry?s service was not unique for that grade and position at that time.


Link to documents concerning John Kerry here  http://polipundit.com/2004_08_22_polipundit_archive.html#109329257442579878

Renee ~~~

Renee ~~~

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iVillage Member
Registered: 04-04-2003
Thu, 08-26-2004 - 12:00pm
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That was a point I have tried to make on numerous occasions. Always when someone is running for office (Dem or Rep) the marketing machine grabs them and starts spinning them as someone better than they are (or really tries to play on things that might be deemed a strength of the candidate). However, this Swift Boat issue is simply those trying to spin things in the opposite direction and paint Kerry as being someone who is much much worse than he is.

Quite frankly, there are more important things to discuss in this electoral campaign than what these candidates were doing 30 years ago, be it repeatedly getting let off the hook on DUI charges or being swept along by a system that in hindsight could have exaggarated officer evaluations or the granting of purple hearts (to many many) soldiers where the injuries may not have been all that life threatening.

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Exactly....but these men AREN'T running for president and the subsequant events in their lives led them along a different road. So what??? What is the significance of that comment?

Also, if john Kerry is like the thousands of others serving and being granted medals at that time in history then perhaps we should all take a look at those medals now and see if we can't find people (of which there will be many) who might not have "deserved" those medals according to the opinions and heresay of others, paticularly those with an axe to grind or partisan opinions.

Frankly, it's a collosal waste of time to go back and try to reconstruct fairly inconsequential events from 30 years ago and pick apart word of mouth impressions when the nation is facing one of it's most important elections in modern history. It's getting tiresome and old and it's profoundly disappointing and frustrating.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2004
Fri, 08-27-2004 - 11:58am
Hey....that is actually pretty good if true and he should be proud of that accomplishment (wink), as I have yet to see a drunk that drives well, and know many people that dont even drive well when completely sober.
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-07-2004
Sat, 08-28-2004 - 9:11am
Ah but Kerry is not running against any other swift boat officer, he's running against Bush. So why compare him to other officers? Let's compare him to Bush.



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iVillage Member
Registered: 08-21-2004
Sat, 08-28-2004 - 9:31am
Even if the over-inflation is true, curious how you square Kerry's time in Vietnam to Bush's MISSING IN ACTION in Alabama? Additionally, during that time in our nation's history, it is a known fact that wealthy Americans and Americans of influence stashed their children away in the Air National Guard...why not have the Bush family come clean on how they moved their sons name from 500 to number one on the list to get into the Air National Guard just six days before his deferment was to expire. Speaking of deferments, how can the Bush people send Cheney out to a stump speech to attack Kerry's war record when Cheney had not one, but FIVE deferments, thus stating for the entire world that he was not willing to be a MAN and serve this nation during a time of war.
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-28-2004
Sat, 08-28-2004 - 11:26am
Picking apart John Kerry's record on service in Vietnam piece by piece, with no detail small enough to criticize and judge.

If Bush were a piece a meat he would be served with a beer marinade and a heavy cocaine rub. Wait, that's how he did serve.

How pathetic to even stoop to comparing the two. Wait again, it's not COMPARING it's just attacking Kerry ad nauseum. Let's talk about Bush the cute frat guy with the beer mustache shall we - no shrapnel in that cute little tushie, is there?

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-04-2003
Sat, 08-28-2004 - 11:32am
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Obviously, that's not working. Not because Bush comes out better in such a comparison, but because somehow, we are living in some sort of Alice and Wonderland shadow world where logic and truth have no meaning.

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