Our Association is a not-for-profit fraternal organization. It's purpose is a) to foster camaraderie among the graduates of Signal Corps Officer Candidate School classes of the World War II, Korean War, and Vietnam War eras, b) to organize and offer scholarships and other assistance for the families of Officer and Enlisted OCS cadre who are in need, and c) to archive for posterity the stories and history of all of the Signal Corps OCS Officers who served this great country. We are open to ALL former Army Signal Corps OCS graduates, their families and friends, as well as other officers, enlisted men, those interested in military history, and the general public. Please, come join us. For more information about our Association, to see a list of our Officers and Directors, or for contact details, click on the OCS Association link at left.

Please note: The views and opinions expressed on this website are offered in order to stimulate interest in those who visit it. They are solely the views and expressions of the authors and/or contributors to this website and do not necessarily represent the views of the Army Signal Corps Officer Candidate School Association, its Officers, Directors, members, volunteers, staff, or any other party associated with the Association. If you have any suggestions for improvements to this site, please send them to WebMaster@ArmySignalOCS.com. We are here to serve you.

The OER Report, An Officer's Best Friend

Don’t necessarily avoid sharp edges. Occasionally they are necessary to leadership.

Donald Rumsfeld

You may have seen the quotes below before, they are certainly not original with us. Even so, we thought that with the President going all wobbly on Syria; Israel still fuming about the U.S. not doing anything about Iran… and worrying that if they go it alone the only thing they can count on from the U.S. will be a little low level drone intelligence; the little fat kid with the funny haircut in North Korea thumbing his nose at us; China tweaking Japan’s nose by sending armed ships into the Senkaku’s and threatening to land troops on the islands... and Japan saying that if they do they will respond militarily; Pakistan in a state of internal meltdown; the Islamic terrorists seemingly having found their way back into America with nary a frown coming from our vaulted Department of Homeland Security; and everyone including your neighbor trying to take your guns away from you… well… we thought that with all of these sad things going on you might be in need of a little laugher to lighten your day.

You all remember OERs (Army Officer Evaluation Report, DA Form 67-9), don’t you? That thing you worried yourself sick would be negative when it came out, and ruin your military career, or at least embarrass the hell out of you and confirm your absolute conviction that Major So-And-So didn’t like you? Well listed below are a few quotes from actual OERS. You think your OERs were bad, you should be glad you weren't one of these shavetails.

Oh, and by the way, if you see a comment below that you are sure you read in one of your own OERs, don’t feel bad. We saw at least three that we swear came from one of our OERs back during our Vietnam days.

Actual Quotes From Officer Evaluation Reports:

4"Since my last report, this Officer has reached rock bottom and has started to dig."

4"His men would follow him anywhere, but only out of morbid curiosity."

4"I would not allow this Officer to breed."

4"Works well when under constant supervision and cornered like a rat in a trap."

4"When she opens her mouth, it seems that it is only to change feet."

4"He would be out of his depth in a parking lot puddle."

4"This young lady has delusions of adequacy."

4"He sets low personal standards and then consistently fails to achieve them."

4"This Officer is depriving a village somewhere of an idiot."

4"This Officer should go far, and soon, I hope."

4"He certainly takes a long time to make himself pointless."

4"He doesn't have ulcers, but he's a carrier."

4"I would like to go hunting with him sometime."

4"He's been working with glue too much."

4"He would argue with a signpost."

4"He has a knack of making strangers immediately."

4"He brings a lot of joy whenever he leaves the room."

4"He and the Jeep have something in common. They've both gone as far as they can in this man’s Army."

4"If you see two people talking and one looks bored, he's the other one."

4"When his I.Q. reaches 50, he will have improved."

Is The Real Cause Of War Secretaries Of State That Fail?

The comments, opinions and views expressed in the article below are those of its author and not the Army Signal Corps OCS Association, its Officers or Directors. A comment section has been provided at the end of this article for you to present your own views, if you wish.

Hillary Clinton, Secretary Of State – A Post Mortem 

“To work with all our heart and all of our might to make sure that America is secure, that our interests are promoted and our values are respected.”

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

- - - 

Nice words, too bad they didn’t turn out to reflect what actually happened.

First, you’re probably asking why a quasi-military website like this would care enough about the State Department to offer comments on its former Secretary of State’s time in office. The answer to that is easy: usually it’s when a Secretary of State fails in their job that the U.S. Army goes to war.

Think of Henry Kissinger’s bungling of his negotiations with North Vietnam, where the combination of his duplicitous efforts to keep the South (and often the U.S. military) in the dark as to both his intentions and the state of the discussions with the North, and his total failure to fathom the ideological determination that lay behind the North’s own deceitful public statements, led to America abandoning 18 years of fighting (1957 – 1975) for an amorphous “withdrawal with honor.” Tell that to the 58,209 American servicemen who gave their lives… tell them that what they thought was a determined American effort to fight and win that war turned out to be just another government exercise abandoned by a Secretary of State for political expedience in order to get a President elected… and see what they think of the idea of giving their life for an honorable withdrawal.[1]

Or if you will, recall how former Secretary of State Powell’s half hearted effort to get Saddam Hussein to verify that he had no weapons of mass destruction… or for that matter to prove that there were weapons of mass destruction before endorsing the war…. or for that matter his weak kneed effort to stand up to the President and Vice President and declare the whole thing the fraud that it was, led to the 2003 – 2012 Iraq War. The Iraq war… another 4,486 American military deaths chiseled on a granite wall, for what purpose? For a cause the country is only too ready to forget today.

Do you see what we are trying to point out? Whenever one of our Secretaries of State fails to do their job, whether because they are inept or for some other reason, soldiers die. It’s because of this that we should care about who holds that office. It’s because of this that a retrospective look at Mrs. Clinton’s time in office is needed. And it’s because of this that you will find an appraisal of her efforts on this military website.

As for Mrs. Clinton, in the early days of her State Department work this author thought she hit the ground running and was making good progress. She seemed to have a complete grasp on what needed to be done, where, and how. She even had a few quick wins she could tuck under her belt… like her success in bringing Myanmar out of the dark and back into the real world. Now though, looking back at what she accomplished, there seems to be little good for all of the travelling she did. Worse, the problems she made absolutely no progress on cast an even greater pall over the world today than they did when she took office.

As our quote at the top of this article shows, when Secretary of State Clinton first took office she proudly told the world that her goals were to make America secure, advance our interests and sponsor our values. On the surface they seemed like laudable goals. But if one looks at them more closely they seem now to be just so much window dressing, for while it was nice that back then she was able to craft such a mellifluous, concise mission statement of the kind corporations are want to throw around while they are busy polluting the environment, what was needed from her was a set of precise, unambiguous objectives related to each of the ills the U.S. was facing—the ills she was supposed to tackle and resolve. Instead we got a feel good “aren’t you glad I’m here…” type of P.R. statement.

Wouldn’t it have been nice if when she came into office she started out by speaking with more specificity about the ills the U.S. was facing—the ills she was supposed to tackle and resolve? Wouldn't it have been nice if she began by saying something along the lines of “Come hell or high water, I’m going to find a way to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons or die trying. Granted, it may take me more than 4 years to do it… and if so you may find yourself having to reelect my President so that I can spend another 4 years working to get it done … but believe me, this is one cause that is going to get my full attention, and I’m determined to succeed at it, even if I have to put my career in politics in jeopardy in order to win this cause.”

If she had, surely some quick witted liberal reporter would have asked why such determination on her part? And she might have responded “because if I fail then by the time I leave office the only option left will be military… and that means American servicemen and women will have to die because I failed to do my job.”

Sigh…. where is Patton when you need him? Where are the clear thinking, tell it like it is leaders we used to have… like Teddy Roosevelt, Andrew "Old Hickory" Jackson, John Quincy Adams, and of course George Washington. Or how about some of the more effective yet quiet and erudite Secretaries of State that we used to find leading our foreign policy efforts; people who got the job done—like Jim Baker, Thomas Jefferson, William H. Seward, George C. Marshall, and Daniel Webster, all of whom averted war and thus saved American lives by doing through diplomacy what the U.S. Army would have been called on to do through combat if they had failed?[2]   

Continued at top of page, column at right

This page last updated 12 May 2013. New content is constantly being added. Please check back frequently.

Continued from left column... 

Today our country seems to be full of just so many politicians who live for the sake of politics… as opposed to serving America’s interests as they would have us believe. Sad to say, but looking back now in retrospect at her time in office, that may be the case with Mrs. Clinton. Hillary Clinton, a woman more than capable of doing wondrous things while she was Secretary of State, more so than most any modern day person… but who left her legacy unfulfilled, and in the process left America in greater danger when she exited than she found when she entered office. Why?

Let us look at and analyze the results of her four short years:

First, why only four years, when there were eight years for the offering? Without doubt, the things she was working on would have benefitted from a continuing steady hand and dedication to the cause… something she could only do if she stayed in office.

Why then did she leave? Is it because she needs the time from now until 2016 to plan and scheme for a higher office? Did she not realize that the kind of global problems the Secretary of State works on usually take more than 4 years to resolve? Did she not know this before she accepted the position? What then should we make of the character of a person who knows a) by virtue of their taking office the country depends on them to work “the problem” until it is resolved, or Americans will die, b) was given 8 years of time to work the problem, but chose on her own to quit after only 4, even though by that time the problems she was working on were in worse condition than when she took office?[3]

While we can’t say for sure that Mrs. Clinton left office so that she could plan for a run at the Presidency, if that turns out to be the case, it would be a travesty and reason alone to not elect her. America does not need any person in Federal office that will walk away from their job when it is half done. In fact, surely a person who puts their political future ahead of the country’s should not be in office to begin with. Yes, we know that the real world is full of such hucksters, but that doesn’t make it the right thing to do. If the reason she left after only four years is because she wants to disassociate herself from the Obama administration in preparation for her own run for the Presidency, then shame on her.

As to the idea that four years is enough, the answer to that is that if every U.S. Army soldier thought that way we would have a woefully inadequate fighting force… one full of trainees. One without skilled, experienced leaders or fighters. The same is true in government. When someone takes a position such as that of Secretary of State they should be well aware that many of the problems they will face cannot be fixed in 4 years, that 8 years and often even more are needed to move the problem towards a conclusion acceptable to America. If they are not prepared to stay for 8 years if the option presents itself, then they should not take the job in the first place.

Why is it so that so much time is needed to resolve international problems? Because many of the people and countries that are problematic for the U.S. know well and good that if they just wait 4 years there will be a change in our government, and the difficult, stubborn people they may be dealing with will be gone.

Iran knows this. North Korea knows this. China knows this. Russia knows this. Venezuela knows this. The world knows this. If they just wait, then they can be assured of one thing: any new administration that comes into office will take 18 months to get up to speed, at which time if they too prove to be difficult to deal with the problem country need just sit back and stall a while longer until "lame duckism" sets in, and the U.S. administration that entered office with so much promise is unable to do anything of consequence until after the next election.

Doubt this? Compare if you will Putin's 13 years in power to Obama's 5 so far... or Mrs. Clinton's 4. Does anyone really think Putin cares what these people say or do about geopolitical matters? From his perspective, he'll just wait them out and do what he wants in the mean time.  

From this perspective at least, in analyzing Ms. Clinton’s efforts as Secretary of State, she begins with a failing grade for having left office after only 4 years when she had the ability to stay the course for 8 years and perhaps resolve one or two of the problems our country faces. Short of personal illness… which we most certainly pray is not the cause of her leaving office… there is no excuse for a person like her taking such a high office knowing that she would abandon it before the job was done or the time expired to do it.

Still, buy now you are probably asking "Never mind when or why she left office, did she do the job she was supposed to do?"