Kerry Sandbagged Into Releasing Bad Performance Report From Navy Service In Vietnam.

The Smoking Gun ^ | U.S. Navy

[Oldsailor]

The Kerry image as a war hero with high decorations is starting to unravel and with some agressive tugging by those of us who know him to be only a "Paper Hero", will show the truth.

He left the war zone after only a bit over 4 months and had at least one (maybe more) phoney purple hearts and questionable silver and bronz star awards.

Now we hear of a poor fitness rating.......Real heros just don't act the way Kerry is acting and the real heros should be offended by his using this issue the way he is doing.

[BadAndy]

I read the comment section on the fitrep and it seems positive to me. What am I missing?

[EternalHope]

Keep the relevant dates in mind. The system was so flawed that evaluations were essentially useless and changes had to be made. I was there. By the time you were looking at records, Kerry was long gone.

[kabar]

Kerry's selective release of him military records raises more questions than it answers. One very curious question arises over Kerry's bronze star citation. It was signed by John Lehman (no date provided) who was Secretary of the Navy 5 Feb 1981 - 10 Apr 1987. Since the event he was awarded the Bonze Star for took place in 1969, I wonder what were the circumstances surrounding this belated award. Someone had to initiate this request well after the fact. Perhaps Kerry was trying to burnish his record in preparation for his first run at the Senate. It is also curious because the event cited involved the same guy who showed up at the Kerry campaign in Iowa. Someone needs to raise this question.

http://wid.ap.org/documents/kerry/stars.pdf

[EternalHope]

I don't know when you served, or if you are on active duty now. But back then, at least in the Air Force, anything less than perfect was the kiss of death.

The system was so flawed that it was useless except to identify a real problem child (such as Kerry). It was changed in the early 70s (I do not recall the exact year).

[xzins]

water walker OERs -- they sure made ya feel good, though, didn't they??? LOL!

[BluH2o]

These poor fitness reports could explain why Kerry came out of the Navy with an attitude. He spent the next several years denigrating the U.S. military Vietnam effort, in public forum, at every opportunity.

[MindBender26]

>"That's absolutely right. I would not tap his VN record and hope for some smoking gun. His fitrep wasn't great, but did not indicate anything terrible either. There is so much more to work with by outing his VVAW record and his record in the Senate."

EM rankings were always more realistic, but OER's were a joke. One O-1 Arty FO dropped 155mm rounds among the friendlies on two occasions in RVN (no one hurt), was sent back to Ft. Sill and shot out of safety zone sinking an unoccupied civilian boas on local lake, was drunk most of time and still got a 96% on his "Little Men at the bottom of the form" ranking from his rater.

I refused to write a concurring review. Finally got it knocked down to a 92.

[xzins]

No, I"ve just read his positions. He shoots Kerry out of the water.

[ASA Vet]

It seems that an awful lot of Democrats are abandonning the presumptive nominee
and Hillary is making herself more and more visible.

The only question is when will throwaway candidate Comrade John F'n Kerry
be forced to withdraw so that Comrade Hillary can step in to "save the party?"

I think it will be in the week before their commie convention.

[Saundra Duffy]

Kerry has only one message - HATE BUSH. People are getting sick of his wining, his complaining, his criticism. It's like that's all he can do - bash Bush. As the word slowly gets out about this creep, his numbers will keep going down. Kerry doesn't even support our troops at a time when they are in harms way, FOR GOODNESS' SAKE!

[EternalHope]

I read the comment section on the fitrep and it seems positive to me. What am I missing?

Officer evaluations at the time were ALL glowing. To understand what was really being said you have to compare Kerry's with the typical report at the time.

The typical officer was rated at the very top of every single category. It was an obviously screwed up system, and has since been changed. I was in the Air Force, not the Navy, but I can guarantee this was a problem in the Air Force.

[lepton]

Right on the nose.

[TexKat]

Hmmm. Let's see who runs with this......

Hannity for sure, will use this info up until November. Hannity will shout it from the mountain tops.

[Helms]

"The remaining marks for “Judgment” was one step down and 9 of the 16"

56.25%...Liberals Lack Judgement

[Gamecock]

Hmmm, sounds like the Army Officer Evaluation Report System today...

[MindBender26]

>I read the comment section on the fitrep and it seems positive to me. What am I missing?

You're not missing it. The comment section is.

It's basically boilerplate. A reviewer would never write anything he could be criticized for. Your not missing anything. A good OER would cite many instances illustrating superior performance in the rated areas, be at least one attached page if not more, talk about his future, the need to promote him ASAP, give him a command at sea, get him admitted to the "good" schools, get him some Pentagon-level staff time, sone Joint Assignments, etc.

This is like the retirement speech for Strom Thurmund. Vanilla, meaningless.

Look at the comparative categorical ratings for the reality. Any good officer got "Straight A's"

[Night Hides Not]

I was in from 76-84, and went through a few OER's under both systems. The Army's "improved" system was better than they had during the post-Vietnam period, but there was still a great deal of inflation.

Of course, ring-knockers and Regular Army types were given preference at the trough.

As for my branch, Air Defense Artillery, the unofficial motto was: We Eat Our Young.

Judging by what I've read from the accounts of Kerry's OERs, his OERs were even worse than a couple of mine! And I worked my ass off for those reports (let's just say my rating officer and I had strong differences of opinion regarding each other's style of leadership)!

In my case, my education at a Jesuit university did not lend itself to a prolonged career in the army!

[Not A Snowbird]

Wow. That is not a good evaluation. I don't know how things were back in Vietnam, but during my 21 years marks began as outstanding and were lowered for each category that wasn't up to scratch. Any mark in the excellent category was noticeable, and an "above average" was the kiss of death.

[BunnySlippers]

The text you quoted is not from the link you posted. Where is the text from?