You Can Always Learn Something From Your Leaders

I passed my APFT retest today. The run was easy. Apparantly, running twice a week and going for a multi-mile ruck march can get you into shape.
It wasn't all good though. Unfortunately, one of the more senior Navy types really didn't want to do the APFT again. He puts way to much stock into doing well in this course. I'm not saying that you shouldn't always try to do well, but this one was willing to screw his shipmates to avoid anything appearing to be adverse.
To start with, no one in the Navy is ever going to see the course OER (Army Officer Efficiency Report) or, if they did, care one whit about it. We are going to Iraq, and even failing this course wont change that. So passing or failing the APFT means NOTHING to us. It does matter to the Army types, though. The Army will see and care about their OERs. Anyway, this Navy type new he wasn't going to pass the APFT, and he didn't want that negative statement on his MEANINGLESS course OER. So he went snivelling to the cadre, and essentially refused to take the APFT again, using the excuse that he had a temporary profile (medical restriction on physical activity). The profile would let him run. It was the sit-ups he couldn't complete, but the profile didn't say that he couldn't do sit-ups. The cadre couldn't just let him go. They had to be consistant across the board, so everyone with a profile was excused. That meant that several Army types would get an adverse statement on their course OER for not being able to complete a course requirement. This mattered to them.
Sometimes, your leaders are examples of what not to be. Dont screw your juniors, especially over something that means NOTHING.