The lies of kerry, his treason and dishonesty is exposed. how he was trashed in the official Fitness Reports is public knowledge and exposed.
And the analysis is so honest and compelling liarboy kerry has removed his Fitness reports from his cyber lie space.
The case is convincingly made that Kerry’s FITREPS don’t measure up to those of a great, or even good, leader. In fact, there are some marks which really question his leadership ability. That is further documented with a statement of another swift commander who had been Kerry’s OIC on a few occassions .
One has to wonder what the missing FITREPs reveal, but regardless, its my opinion that those he has released don’t measure up to his claims of good leadership ability. They show an officer who was rated poorly in judgment, personal behavior, command, seamanship and ship handling and leadership traits.
July 30, 2004
Kerry's Record - Navy
Posted by McQ
John Kerry has made much of his Vietnam service, even to the point that it has become a bit of a joke. But its clear he has decided to make it a centerpiece of his qualification claim to be Commander-in-chief. He has asked us to judge him on his record. He feels his Navy record as found in his FITREPs prove his leadership ability and his fitness for command.
Well, after reading them I'd have to disagree.
I’ve received and written a multitude of OER and EERs in my 28 years service (Officer Efficiency Reports and Enlisted Efficiency Reports). That’s what we called them in the Army. The Navy does the same thing but calls the reports FITREPs or Fitness Reports.
Since John Kerry has asked us to judge him on his record I took him up on it today looked up his FITREPs.
Now, as I’ve mentioned, I’ve written and received these for 28 years. I’ve served on promotion boards where they’re reviewed in detail I know what a good one looks like, I know what an average one looks like and I know what a bad one looks like.
So after reading his FITREPS (and by the way he has not released all of them) I’d have to say, in light of the Kerry camp's claims, they were a bit of a surprise. In my estimation they were at best average, and in a few, he had a some ratings which could be considered adverse.
After reading them, I wondered how to approach this subject, how to convey the way reports like this really were read and interpreted by the military in an understandable way without seeming to be slanting my explanation to the negative in order to discredit Kerry. In other words, how to fairly explain what were these reports really saying knowing the explanation wouldn't be well received by Kerry fans.
As an example, if you read the narrative in Kerry’s reports, they seem pretty good at first glance. But there are some points you have to consider when reading a narrative: Narratives aren’t that important in relation to the rest of the report and, in Kerry’s case, there is as much negative in those narratives as positive. How does one relate that without seeming to be biased against Kerry?
Again, I was at a stand still as to how to convey those points in an understandable and unbiased way. Its not something which is easily explained to those not familiar with the inner workings of military rating systems.
Additionally, it was a Navy Fitness report, so I wasn’t as familiar with the way some of the rankings worked as I would have been with an Army report. Same with some of the Navy specific terminology. But I am familiar enough with efficiency reports in general to understand these FITREPs weren’t at all as good as the Kerry people would like you to believe.
In an effort to put this explanation together, I began a little Googling around the net today looking for FITREP explanations. It was during that exercise that I ran across “The Swift Boat Veterans For Truth” website. Its an interesting and compelling site.
Before you go off the deep-end with “its an anti-Kerry site”, I’d make the point that while they certainly don’t feel Kerry is qualified to be commander-in-chief, they’re not wild-eyed tin-foil hatted righties who’s grist and ballast is conspiracy theories and unsubstantiated claims.
Their’s is a very well presented argument (made by former US Naval officers) against Kerry’s claims about and his version of his Vietnam and Navy record. As they say:
We regret the need to do this. Most Swift boat veterans would like nothing better than to support one of our own for America's highest office, regardless of whether he was running as a Democrat or a Republican. However, Kerry's phony war crimes charges, his exaggerated claims about his own service in Vietnam, and his deliberate misrepresentation of the nature and effectiveness of Swift boat operations compels us to step forward.
As to the subject of Kerry’s FITREPs, one of the most useful pages on their site is an explanation of how FITREPs are graded and read in the Navy. I read it very closely and found it to be an excellent capsule of how the system works. Other than terminology which pertains to the Navy, the system is almost identical to that of the Army. They provide an excellent context and explanation by which to better understand the reports that have been released by Kerry.
John Kerry's campaign representatives quote a few words from one of his best Navy fitness reports to support their misleading claim that Kerry's military evaluations were those of a top-flight officer. They carefully ignore the existence of several other reports that range from mediocre to substandard, thereby presenting an inaccurate picture of Kerry's service record.
There are also gaps in the documentation made public to date by the Kerry campaign, where no fitness reports are provided at all. Here we present an analysis of the available record.
This is an important point. There are no gaps in an officer’s record. His or her time is completely accounted for at all times and, as is apparent in Kerry’s record, even when they haven’t been in a command long enough to receive a full rating, their days are accounted for with a “not observed” FITREP. There will always be a FITREP to cover their service.
Moving on down the page you'll find a discussion of Kerry’s FITREPS. Before that, however, the Swift Boat Vets give you an excellent introduction to Navy FITREPs, how they’re written and read, and what they mean. This section is critical to understanding why Kerry’s FITREPs aren’t what he and his staff crack them up to be. For instance:
Second, what matters most are marks or grades above and especially below the norm. Marks below the norm may fall under a very positive word (e.g., “excellent”) and appear positive to the casual reader, but no matter: any mark to the right of the norm is a strong, clear sign to both promotion boards and assignment officers (e.g., “detailers”) that there is a performance shortfall. A mark to the right is a “ding.” You don’t want a ding in your FITREP.
The last section then applies those things crucial to understanding FITREPs to Kerry’s released FITREPs.
In his FITREP for his combat tour as Officer in Charge of a SWIFT Boat -– arguably the most important FITREP among those released by the Kerry campaign –- Kerry is not dinged but slammed in command, seamanship and ship handling and in all major leadership traits (28 JAN 69 ELLIOTT). To Kerry and perhaps to other junior officers, it is an okay FITREP. To detailers and selection boards, it is a negative fitness report that borders on the adverse. LCDR Elliott ranks him well below the norm in traits essential for command: force, industry, analytical ability, judgment and more.
The case is convincingly made that Kerry’s FITREPS don’t measure up to those of a great, or even good, leader. In fact, there are some marks which really question his leadership ability. That is further documented with a statement of another swift commander who had been Kerry’s OIC on a few occassions .
One has to wonder what the missing FITREPs reveal, but regardless, its my opinion that those he has released don’t measure up to his claims of good leadership ability. They show an officer who was rated poorly in judgment, personal behavior, command, seamanship and ship handling and leadership traits.
Interestingly, as pointed out on the site, other commanders don’t see the FITREPs previous commanders have written. However the “dings” noted show up consistently from command to command. Its not a particularly flattering or ringing endorsement of Kerry’s leadership ability. In fact his FITREPs don’t endorse his leadership ability at all.
It would be interesting to see the rest of his FITREPS. I believe, as the Swift Boat Vets do, that the next time Kerry et. al. scream for the release of all of Bush’s records, the same request should be made of Kerry.
After all, we’ve been asked to judge him on his record and it would be nice to have his entire record by which to do that.
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