Maj. Hasan Related Reviews Trickle In
Hereis a link to the WaPo piece on the first review of the incidents at Ft. Hood. Nothing concrete as it appears there is no report yet. One interesting (disturbing(?)) tidbit that won’t surprise most judge advocates that have ever been involved in officer cases,
Several sources said military personnel records provided to FBI investigators contained no relevant “derogatory information” about Hasan. Instead, performance evaluations endorsed him as patriotic, leading to his elevation to major in May.
I’ll link to the investigation when we get it.
If there is to be anything positive to come out of this horrible shooting, maybe the investigation will result in OERs containing truthful and complete information to assist a promotion board in their considerations.
While senior leaders do not necessarily have to harm the progression of a mediocre officer for mediocre performance — would it be too much to ask that an officer trying to convert others to their religion or openly expressing sympathies to terrorists get a ding on their record before giving them “increased trust and responsibility” ??
Anon until wave of political correctness ceases.
Not sure OER bullets are about PC but about the fact that anything other than a glowing review can result in torpedoing a career. There is little room for messing up in the officer corps. One GOMOR or one non-stellar OER and you can be looking at not making the next rank.
Right or wrong, fair or not, I think that’s more what it’s about than PC, which gets blamed for every ill in society except for Cancer and Earthquakes.
Anon and anon – agreed. I can’t think of the last OER I’ve reviewed that did not describe the officer as “outstanding”… or better.
Military leadership should present OER ratings as an issue of moral courage. There’s no incentive now not to pad. Perhaps we feel we owe it to everyone serving in GWOT to get a great OER, but that kills the whole purose of an evaluation system. With no senior rater blocking for below 04, it is incredibly difficult to parse out who the best people are.
I find myself missing the days when a bad OER meant you “had a lot of other guys in formation with you” (meaning sr raters had a human pyramid on the back – your very best person was at the top of the pyramid with noone to his/her left or right).
Reserving final judgment on what appear to be a series of lapses in leadership/inter-agency communication, I wouldn’t view “patriotic” as a glowing endorsement for a captain. If you need to use a term like that in a performance report, that should send a message that this guy hasn’t done much and doesn’t have a lot to offer.