When I was in missiles, we had to take an evaluation every so often. I don't recall how often, but 'twice a year' sounds about right. Evaluations were usually tense affairs, because they cut you no slack. You had to get it exactly right, or the specific event or task being graded didn't count. Just about everyone passed evaluations, though, in SAC tradition, it was possible to pass an evaluation with a low enough score that, if you got it again, they considered you unqualified. Go figure. Most people got a Qualified rating -- oh, great, I get to be on alert some more -- and every so often, someone got a Highly Qualified rating. Sometimes, this was because the script was easy; usually, it was because the crew really knew what they were doing, and they worked well together.
After I got busted from commander back to deputy as a result of the screwup with the launch interrogations during an ORI, I had to take an evaluation. Up to then, I had four HQs. In that evaluation, I got a Highly Qualified. This made five. Wearing a five pin was a Big Deal, because not that many people got that many HQs. I went over to the evaluation offices afterward and they gave me the pin. I put it on my uniform scarf. Shortly thereafter, my squadron commander, after seeing the pin, told me that they were revoking the HQ rating because it wasn't a 'real' evaluation, it was a recertification. No easier than a 'real' one, but, they said, it didn't count. My hunch was that he just didn't like someone getting visible recognition for excellence after being busted for, you know, not. His little pound of flesh, as it were.
At that point, it was an easy decision to leave SAC at the end of my term. I kept the pin, just as a reminder of why.
4 comments:
I would've kept the pin, too.
Good story!
Funny how you think of these things literally decades later...
Yeah....there are always reasons you don't look fondly at military service. Oddly enough, its not the enemy without, it is the enemy within.
When I left the military, I was petrified to get a job in the civilian sector because I knew the chicken shit was not confined to the uniform. And that was just not acceptable to me any more.
I left because they didn't want me. I told people that I didn't want to do a job where the best part was that someday I wouldn't have to do it, and that was true, but it wasn't the reason why. I lucked into finding out about a job at the company where I worked for twenty-two years, and where I met my wife, neither of which would have happened had I not gotten out, so overall, they did me a favor.
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