Post
by Kionon » Sun Aug 29, 2010 3:15 am
You couldn't pay me to be a Nuke. Literally. I mean, there are the Nuke bonuses, and no thank you. Be an enlisted nuke if you want to do your four years, get out, and get a job at a nuclear facility somewhere. DON'T go nuke if you intend to make the Navy a career. I have never met an enlisted nuke who ever said they wanted to do the job for twenty years. As an officer, likewise, I have never heard a Surface Nuke officer (submariners are a whole 'nother ball game, and I am not even remotely qualified to talk about it) ever say they liked the job. They did it purely for the money, and if they do stay in twenty years, it's because you can really, really bank as a nuke officer. You'll also work your arse off, and traditional surface benchmarks (DIVO, DH, XO/CO Fleet Up [command]) occur much later. Not that surface nukes can't do traditional surface officer stuff, but it's harder to fit it in.
SQ is an AN, so if you want a real enlisted perspective, you might want to talk to her. I don't know really much about the specifics of the e-side besides the power point presentations that include information officers have to pass down to their sailors. My experience, little as it is, is entirely on the O-side. Remember, officers are generalists, and they'll never know as much about your rate as you do (unless they're prior enlisted, from that rate, or were chiefs that ended up as limited duty officers). If I was your DIVO on a surface ship, I might be in charge of your division, but I may not really have any idea what you do, at least not at first.
How old are you, how much work do you have to do in order to get a BA? If you're young enough and within two years of your BA/BS, I really recommend applying to the BDCP program and skipping enlistment entirely. You'll get a scholarship and a guaranteed slot at OCS. And you'll be paid the same as an E-5 monthly while you are in school. If you are young enough and have more than two years, you should do what I initially did, find an NROTC unit you can join. You'd be surprised how many NROTC units serve more than one university (like Rice's, which serves a number of colleges in the Houston area, known as the "Houston Consortium") it's very common for an NROTC unit to serve at least two universities. If you can't get a scholarship off the bat, and this economy means it is harder, you can apply each semester in case one of the current scholarship holders drops on request or loses their scholarship either because of failure to maintain grades or failure to keep out of trouble. It happens more than you would think.
If you're seriously interested in pursuing either NROTC or BDCP, let me know, and I will hook you up with an officer recruiter to discuss your options. Oh, and PM me. We've messed up waffle's thread enough.
