It begins with the end...

I stood there outside MSG Finley’s office, staring at the blank piece of paper in front of me. I had less than a week left of this shit…being in the military. I should have been upset at the paper in front of me, in fact I was upset, but the smarter part of me said let it go. I only had a few days left, and having taken on these immoral, unethical bastards before, I knew that this was a lengthy fight that was just not worth it.

The paper I held in my hands was an NCOER, or Non-Commissioned Officer Evaluation Report. It’s basically an over inflated piece of dribble the Army uses to claim it’s keeping their leaders in check.

Really it’s just a political tool to separate the good ole boys from the dissenting majority, or at Menwith Hill, to separate the alcoholic racist elite from the suicidal whistleblowers.

The way the NCOER process is supposed to work, is that you are given a supervisor, who serves as your “Rater” and evaluates you on leadership, physical fitness, training, and so forth. Then a “Senior Rater” evaluates your performance and potential.

The problem is that everyone receives the same rating.

It is almost guaranteed in the Army that each leader will receive at least two excellences, successful in everything else, recommended as “Among the Best” for promotion, and given a rating of “1/1” for performance/potential. Receiving a “Needs Improvement” in any section of the NCOER, or anything below a 2/2 in performance/potential is effectively the death of your career.

Like I said…over inflated.

Which is why I was really pissed off when that fucker MSG Finley gave me a 3/2, and “Needs Improvement” for promotion. Not that I hadn’t already ruined my career by previously filing a series of IG complaints against this command and received similarly negative evaluations in return. I was just hoping for something different, I suppose, in my final days at Menwith Hill. I guess I shouldn’t have been so shocked.

I was in line for a good evaluation. I had trained on a completely new position in addition to my army title. I had organized a community morale and welfare event with over 60 volunteers and eight hundred people in attendance. I had created training software, websites, mentored junior soldiers, in addition to serving as interim shift sergeant to sixteen professionals. I had a good PT score. I had a 4.0 college GPA, and finished my associate’s degree.

All of this was reflected in my Squad Leader’s evaluation of my performance, which was stellar. My Senior Rater, MSG Wiggins, also assured me my performance had been exemplary and that he intended to make sure my NCOER reflected that.

So maybe I should have been shocked when MSG Finley handed me the paper with HIS name as my senior rater, and a 3/2 evaluation.

MSG Wiggins, my real senior rater, had fallen out of favor with the boys club a month earlier. While serving as 1SG, MSG Wiggins and his Commander, CPT Jezercak, found the same racist allegations that I did, upon assuming command and conducting their initial “command climate” survey. This led to further investigations and frustrations as they were unable to get to the bottom of the situation.

CPT Jezercak was selected for promotion to Major, but she instead opted out of the military lifestyle for a civilian contracting job. Smart woman.

Unfortunately, this left MSG Wiggins without an ally. When the command changed a couple months before I got out, MSG Wiggins faded into the background, and 1SG Finley took over. CPT Bullard took over as his new commander, which posed a real problem for me and the other junior leaders who had been at Menwith Hill a while.

We all knew that Dwight Bullard was a racist, spineless bastard.

Years earlier, I trusted CPT Bullard, who was then a lieutenant. He was a mentor of sorts. As I was filing my IG complaints, he started out supporting my position and backing me up as I went against the command.

But when the pressure started, when shit really hit the fan, he caved like a prissy little bitch, and in fact, when the stress was piled on the worst, it was good ole Dwight Bullard himself who recommended to the command that my rank to be taken away. I was lucky in that the whistleblower act protected me from his course of action.

But the IG did not protect me from the political document known as a negative NCOER report. There is no real system in place to appeal an NCOER to any legal Army authority, something I discovered over and over again during the course of my IG complaints. IG refused to hear anything pertaining to this document.

To make matters worst, not only was this worthless piece of trash named CPT Bullard in charge of a troubled company full of soldiers, but he was teamed with MSG Finley as his First Sergeant. The two had a prior relationship going back several years, which is why I assume MSG Finley had no problem breaking ethical and legal guidelines to alter my rating scheme, inserting himself into MSG Wiggins previous position.

So, I received my final evaluation from a man who had known me all of a month, spoken to me less than ten seconds within that month, and was best friends with the commander I had filed IG complaints against a year ago.

I REALLY shouldn’t have been shocked.

Unfortunately, at this point in my life, I didn’t have time to fight this battle. I was less than a week from being unemployed, with a pregnant wife and no place to live.

And thanks to the Army, my Security Clearance paperwork had just been misfiled.

So, I showed the 1SG the regulations explaining why he was wrong. I gave him the legal documentation, like the rating scheme, which hadn’t been updated in months.

And his response was “SSG, you can challenge it if you want.”

He knew I had already been down that road before.

So my response was “1SG, I’m signing this paper, not because I agree with it, but because I really don’t give a fuck anymore.”

And then I left the office.