A new officer often encounters situations for which his previous experiences did nothing to prepare him. I had one of those cases when I tried t get men from my division ready for the examinations for advancement in rank. The navy at that time had a system for trying to promote the best men in the service. It was based primarily on a service wide exam. The grade on the exam was the biggest part of a total score that was used to select who would be advanced, and when. In every profession the exams were aimed to ensure that anyone passing them would have t least the basic level of knowledge that was expected for a petty officer in that profession. Additional points were added to the basic score from several other factors. Everyone taking the exam had to have served a minimum time in his present rank. additional time in grade resulted in a few more points being added. Personal awards like medals for bravery or good conduct awards also earned extra points. Performance evaluations also upped the total. Finally, and most important, the man had to have a recommendation to sit for the exam. That recommendation also had some requirements. Minimum time in grade has already been mentioned. In most professions the man also had to have completed a correspondence course that was the basis for most of the exam questions.
Correspondence courses for enlisted personnel were sent by mail to the officer in charge. The original envelope included a sheet of answers for the set of questions at the end of each chapter. The idea was that the man would then get the course book, read the chapter, fill in the multiple choice answer sheet and give it to the officer to receive a grade. The officer needed to ensure that at least a minimal passing grade was achieved on each answer sheet. In addition, receiving the answer sheets meant the officer would know when a man had completed the course. As noted, course completion was a requirement for recommendations to take the navy wide promotion exam.
I had established a morning class for all my technicians. I also pressured the to do the correspondence courses and turn i the chapter answer sheets so they could be recommended for promotion. I had a group of about 4 technicians that were already third class petty officers and had enough time in grade to qualify for recommendation for advancement to petty officer second class. All of them had receive the correspondence course, and none of them had turned in even a single chapter answer sheet. I kept reminding them, and they kept telling me they were doing the work and would hand in the answer sheets together. As promised, shortly before I had to turn in recommendations for them to sit for the big exam each of the four gave me a complete set on chapter answer sheets. Then the fun began.
I checked each sheet against the answer sheet I had remove from the course book before giving it to the man involved. Every individual got a passing grade on every chapter. But there was a problem. I could see that some of the sheets originally had all the correct answers marked, and then some had been erased and an incorrect answer marked instead. I was fairly certain that this was a sign that my technicians were cheating. They had acquired the correct answers from somewhere, and had not really done the course. I confronted each of them separately about my suspicions. Naturally everyone claimed they really had done the work and had simply saved all the answer sheets to turn in at one go. I gave each man, separately, a chance to prove that was true. The next time I was part of the duty section remaining aboard ship I would give them a chance to redo one of the chapters that they had supposedly already done. I would select which chapter. If they really had done the work answering the questions again should be easy. They would each redo the sheet in a separate room. I actually selected the second chapter of the course. for each of them. The first chapter was too easy (I did the course myself, so I knew how difficult each chapter could be. Later chapters usually were built on previous material.)
I was not surprised when none of the four men achieved even a passing grade on material they had ostensibly already learned. I didn’t even have to compare their new sheets with the ones they had previously submitted. None of them got recommendation for advancement. Each man was told to redo the correspondence course and submit the answer sheets again before the next navy wide exams, one chapter at a time, and to be prepared for a repeat of my test before the next navy wide exam that was due in about six months. My four technicians were probably unhappy about not being recommended for advancement. But I’m sure they realized that although they had been in the navy for a lot more time than I had been, they were not smarter than their junior ensign division officer.
Wetherhorn 