Rebuttals to Negative Performance Evaluations

The performance evaluation captures everything you have accomplished during the rating period, and it helps future promotion boards decide whether you should be selected for promotion. The performance evaluation is perhaps the most critical document in your career.

You have the right to rebut and appeal comments in your performance report if the information is false, substantially misleading, or unjustly included. No service member is entitled to a glowing performance evaluation. This means the basis of your response cannot be you were wronged because you should have been ranked higher. The command has no obligation or burden to show why you received an adverse comment in your performance evaluation. Rather, you have the burden of proving to the command that the evaluation was incorrect, misleading, or unjust.