[Cicero]

It's SOP for superiors to write fitness reports on all the officers under their command on a regular basis. Except in the rare case of a negative report, these documents are basically meaningless. "He's better than motherhood and apple pie, etc., etc.," is the usual form unless you really have it in for somebody.

Curiously, when I was in the army many years ago as a Hawk Missile Acquisition Radar Repairman, Specialist 5, I was given several other duties by our C.O. One of them was to be security clerk, which meant that I had to through excess classified documents into a 55-gallon drum and burn them.

Another was to write the fitness reports. He evidently was not a gifted writer, so he asked me to do the reports for him. I was happy to oblige. "Motherhood. Apple pie. Best officer in 50 years, etc. etc."

[lugsoul]

Agreed. Did you read the article? A number of the ones released by Clark address this by saying things along the lines of "I know this kind of language is boilerplate, but in this case I really mean it."

This stuff was obviously released in response to Shelton's comment that Clark was recalled from SACEUR for "character and integrity issues", on which he wouldn't elaborate. I think Shelton has an obligation to stand up and say what he knows.