Awards, Evaluations, and Promotions

"Results are not for us to consider, and orders are received to be obeyed." - Nathaniel Banks
There comes a point in every deployment when individual accomplishments have to be analyzed, scrutinized and recognized. We do this in two ways - awards and evaluations. Awards are much more visible to the observer. These are the medals a Soldier wears proudly with accompanying certificates that hang on the wall for all to see. Meanwhile, performance evaluations go into a Soldier's file and are extremely critical for promotion and retention. As a deployment moves into the final stages, a considerable amount of midnight oil has to be burned on the part of the Command Team and Staff to ensure the awards and evaluations are completed - accurately, fairly, and on time. We owe this to our Soldiers. It is a "crunch time" that can create a hellacious few days of late nights. However, in pays off in the end because it ensures we properly recognize our Soldiers for their efforts and sacrifices throughout our continual pursuit of mission success. At the same time, we set the Soldiers up for success in the future - both for promotion and assignments. My Battalion has just completed this process. I am extremely proud of my Staff and Company Command Teams for facing down this grueling endeavor with pride, esprit, and professionalism. Within the span of two weeks we processed almost 600 awards of varying degree and met every suspense. All of our deserving Soldiers will get well-earned recognition prior to us leaving Iraq.

With regards to awards, there are many factors that must be considered. Soldiers could receive anywhere from an Army Achievement Medal to a Bronze Star Medal for their service to the Battalion during the deployment. The majority of them will recieve an Army Commendation Medal, which is a significant award for service. Several members of the unit will earn a Meritorious Service Medal, while a select few will receive its wartime equivalent - the Bronze Star Medal. To a casual observer who looks at only statistics it may appear that the awards are biased based upon rank. That is flawed logic because statistics don't bear out what a Soldier's assigned responsibilities or contributions may have entailed. Generally speaking, the more responsibility a person had, the more personnel they were responsible for, the higher the dollar value of equipment under their charge, or the amount of time spent on missions are all weighted factors when considering which award is appropriate. That being said, a Platoon Leader who led 50 Soldiers and commanded 100 combat logistics patrols is probably going to receive a higher award than a Specialist in his platoon who drove a truck on the same number of missions. I use that as just an example. There are always people who believe they are being slighted on awards or who are chasing a particular award. My Battalion is no different in that regard. However, I assured my subordinates that I would not quibble the awards they recommended to me so long as proper and quantifiable justification was provided for each. At the same time, the submitted award had to be completely accurate on administrative data with well-written narratives and citations. There were a couple of people who came to me to complain about their recommended award. My only response to them was to take up their grievance with the recommender of their award. That normally stopped complaints in their tracks. I am proud to say that through the course of reviewing and signing almost 600 awards I did not recommend a downgrade on a single one. Every Soldier in my Battalion will receive the award their respective units believe they earned.

Then come evaluations, which require a lot of patience and meticulous care. For me, this process is mainly writing Officer Evaluation Reports (OER) for either people that I directly rate (Company Commanders, Battalion Executive Officer, etc) or people that I Senior Rate (Platoon Leaders, Company Executive Officers, Battalion Staff). Everyone gets an evaluation for the deployment. Not everyone's performance is equal though. This fact makes how an evaluation is written critical to singling out the top performers from the middle of the pack. Little things such as physical fitness and height/weight standards can have a significant impact on an overall assessment. Regardless, the evaluation has to be based strictly on performance - never on personality. Playing favorites will get you nowhere in the military. The evaluations I write read relatively the same regardless of the Officer or NonCommissioned Officer. However, there will be subtle differences that makes the cream rise to the top. It is a delicate process that we all take very seriously. The evaluations must be written fairly, with great accuracy, without bias, and submitted on time. They will remain on a Soldier's record forever and will be viewed by many in consideration of future advancement and assignments. And, I am proud to say, we are staying the course in this mighty endeavor as well. My Battalion has never had a single OER or NCOER returned to us due to mistakes, inaccuracies, or for any other reason. We are a first-time go every time we rate one of our hard working leaders.

Getting all of the awards and the majority of the evaluations prepared made for an exhausting, sometimes frustrating, two weeks for all of us. But we got them done right and on time. As if to highlight the importance of all of this, the day after our awards were due to Brigade we held a promotion ceremony. Awards and promotions are the only two times we really get to recognize Soldiers. And both the awards and evaluations play a vital role in a Soldier's promotion. It all came together for everyone as we welcomed two Soldiers to the ranks of the NCO Corps. In a ceremony held at the Battalion HQ, two of our up and coming Specialists were promoted to Sergeant. It was a proud moment and a fitting end to "awards week". Job well done!