Years ago I was the enlisted promotion manager for my state (yup, dirty Nasty Girl here) and we boarded every eligible enlisted Soldier in the state once a year for that year's promotion lists. We all know and love the foibles of the Army's current NCOER, and even the previous model had its issues. Babysitting the E5 to E6 board one year (before we switched to the new NCOER), one of our raters starts laughing and calls everyone else over to look at this NCOER bullet - during an IED attack on convoy in Afghanistan, performed Buddy Aid on fellow Soldier, stabilizing them so they could be handed off to the Combat Support Hospital. Was that good enough for an "Exceeds Standards" rating? Nope - "Meets Standards".

I think the consensus in the room was we should check the Rater's and Senior Rater's own NCOERs and see how well they performed against a buck Sergeant they gave a Meets Standards to for giving medical aid (note that said E5 was not a combat medic) to a buddy and kept them alive to hand off at the CSH. I can't remember if we got their NCOERs and what they said, but I still remember the poor E5 who had the perfect Exceeds Standards bullet comment on their NCOER and still only got a Meets Standards rating. And yes, there were no other disparaging bullets in that area, or anywhere else on his NCOER.