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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: unclewest who wrote (63434)	8/24/2004 1:48:08 AM
From: Hoa Hao	Respond to of 793564

"Want to get it before somebody either hacks it or takes it down." My thoughts exactly. Be curious to know what you think after you read it... assuming your still capable of speech and not arrested for ax murdering every Democrat in sight. Actually, come to think of it, Kerry will probably sue to shut it down. Get it while it's hot!!

To: unclewest who wrote (63434)	8/24/2004 6:27:25 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793564

You are going to love this, Unk. Polipundit. 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. Documents concerning John Kerry were found here.http://news.findlaw.com/legalnews/lit/election2004/docs.html