Wade,

If you have the counseling’s to support this OER then I would by all means say that you are duty bound to write this negative OER. When the new NCOER came out while in command I had to give a SSG a qualified NCOER. In the out brief I was honest with him and said, “you are 5 out of 6” SSGs in my company. He started to get emotional and I laid out the reasons for my evaluation. I feel like this was one of the first times an officer was actually honest with him.

I also think an important thing for you to do is ask, “How did I fail this LT?” When a subordinate fails we must look inward and conduct a self evaluation to ensure we make ourselves better in the future.  In the end nobody wins from this LT failing, and we as leaders have to do everything we can to build young LTs into capable officers. This guy could be a total dirtbag, but we still need to self-evaluate as leaders when something like this happens.

I think your write-up should honestly reflect his contributions to the unit, good or bad. He earned his OER.

Thank you for sharing, this is an important topic.

v/r

Joe