[blanknoone]

I glanced at Kerry's records and thought the same thing. However, my experience is much more recent (90's) and in the Army as opposed to Navy. Any Vietnam era Navy vets care to shed light on evaluation inflation during the period?

[Quilla]

I work with a Navy Vietnam veteran. He's on a run to the beach and may be doing just a tad of sightseeing (Spring Break and all). I'll ask him when he returns to the office.

[ampat]

Navy officer fitness reports have always been inflated. No one likes to berate anyone. When a fitness report is written it's easy to praise the best officers, and give them top 1% marks. To rate an average or substandard officer, you must place some marks in the lower colums. Everyone in the military knows this. The real meat of the fitness report is in the substance of the narrative. It's either filled with substance (for the best officers), or just filled with filler (for the less than best officers). Then, the summary consists of rating the officer against his peers, such as 1(first) of 5, or 4 (fourth) of 6.

[JoeSixPack1]

1 missed mark on an officer's fitness report back in the early 70's, USMC, kept you in rank. After three passes at promotion because of that one missed mark on a single quarterly fitness report, you were sent packing with an honorable & a pension.

I just about fell out of my chair reading about kerry's fitness reports. Total shitbird with zero chance of promotion beyonf a field bump, or frag.

[Dr. Faust]

If I'm correct, as far back as WWII a "down" was the career "kiss of death"! Any navy vets around to verify that?