Would you do it again? (Nukes)
+ tough, purposeful, room to grow, etc
- no shore leave, rads, tough
etc, etc...
Knowing what I know now I would consider the Naval Nuclear power field again, but I would make sure that I had more control over the situation than I did before.
When you are joining the Navy that is the one time that you are in control. If they don't give you what you want then you don't sign. It doesn't matter what the recruiter or anyone says, if it isn't in writing it doesn't mean anything.
When I was in, there were four different areas of specialty that you could be in in the nuke field; reactor operator, electrical operator, interior communications operator, and mechanical operator. Eventually interior communications operator was merged into the electrical operator so that there were only three ratings.
I wanted to be a reactor operator or an electrical operator and did not want to be a mechanical operator. My recruiter told me that with my test scores he was sure that I would be a reactor operator. Note the lack of "in writing" qualifier here, also note that the recruiters CAN guarantee an applicant the mechanical operator rating but not any of the other ratings; there IS a pattern here.
("Warning! Warning! Danger Will Robinson!)
So anyway I sign up and off to boot camp I go.
When the time comes, all of the nuke candidates are instructed to complete a survey listing the order of desired rating, since I didn't want mechanical operator I listed ET (RO), EM (EO), IC (EO), and finally MM (MO). They told us they would match our desires with the infamous "needs of the "Navy", and come back with our assigned ratings.
A few weeks later our assignments came back and yes, I was assigned the non-negotiable mechanical operator. Now my boot camp company was one of 12 sister boot camp companies, and when all 12 companies were considered, 75% of the nuke candidates were assigned MM, while the remaining 25% were assigned EO or IC. there were NO reactor assigned in any of the 12 sister companies.
I would not allow the Navy to have that power again.
Now the training itself was really tremendous, and the people who I worked with and trained with are the best people you will ever know. I had a gr8 deal of regard and respect for them and still do.
The training was arduous and I always heard that there was roughly an 80% wash out rate from the time of enlistment until you get to your first ship, so just graduating and getting a nuclear NEC is a major accomplishment, so I am justifiably proud of getting a 2.54 on my final comp (minimum 2.50 is passing), and graduating 200 out of 204 graduates; that is still top 20%.
I got behind at the beginning and that was a mistake because you are given extra work to "help" you, while still having to keep up with the ongoing work load. I managed to survive, but at the end of the 26 weeks that entailed the first half of our training, I was putting in at least 3 all-nighters each week, where we literally did not sleep and stayed up studying. Maybe part of the qualification was seeing if we could endure the training while being stationed in Orlando, Florida; good times WERE had by all.
Anyway, I couldn't have physically handled it much longer, in fact, some people were dropped from the program because they literally could no longer stay awake.
The second part of the training involved nuclear prototype where you go and operate an actual nuclear reactor somewhere in the boonies where you won't kill anyone if you melt down. I went to Idaho Falls, Idaho for prototype, and learning from my first half, I made sure to get ahead and stay ahead and it was a much more enjoyable experience.
After graduation I went to the USS Sandlance SSN-660, a fast attack submarine out of Charleston, South Carolina. The best "ship" that I was ever on, where I lasted two years before my division chief got me removed from the nuclear program. Unfortunately, one thing that you have no control over is who you get as your leadership, and for better or worse it is just luck of the draw. My first chief was tremendous, my second....not so much
Which brings up another drawback of the nuke program. There are extremely high bonuses paid for nukes to reenlist ( I never did reenlist as a nuke). When I was a nuke it was a maximum of $20,000 per reenlistment, it was later up to $40,000 and it may even be double that now. The drawback potentially comes if you lose your nuclear qualification. Since the removal of your NEC is an administrative action, not a disciplinary action, it is something that you cannot appeal. If you lose your NEC, you no longer qualify for the bonus and you will have to pay it back, but you will still serve the years that you reenlisted for as the convention version of your nuclear rating, for example, conventional steam mechanic as opposed to nuclear mechanical operator. Both are still the MM rating.
Having worked with recent ex-nukes in the civilian world,I have heard that even with these ultra high bonuses there is still not that high a reenlistment rate since there is the risk of losing the NEC, the job is extremely arduous, and the civilian world will hire ex-nukes and pay them well.
Now life on a submarine is interesting, there were no women on subs when I was there although there are now. The maximum crew size was somewhere around 120, and there are not enough beds for everyone, so when you first get there you will "hot rack" where you will share a bed with one other person, or two beds between three people. Your watch rotation is arranged so that you always have a rack/bed available if you are otherwise lucky enough to be able to use it.
An uninterrupted nights sleep is a rare thing with the omnipresent drills and I do not remember them fondly. The subs have an closed air circuit and you can put a device, like a gas mask, on your head and you breath by plugging
the attached hose into a port in the air system. You may have to wake up for a drill and immediately don an EAB (affectionately called a "face leach") and spend some time in it. You may even have to stand your watch wearing an EAB for extended periods of time, unplugging, moving to another port, and plugging in again as you do your job. Or you may hear an alarm and someone say "Toxic Gas!", and then out of a dead sleep you need to wake up and don a gas mask in a matter of mere seconds or die. Not real fun.
It's funny but sometimes the things that would seem to be bad parts of the experience I don't remember now as negatives. For example, I remember spending Thanksgiving and Christmas under water one year when I was on deployment, but getting to visit some of the ports I did and some of the experiences that I had made up for it.
I had some gr8 times and experiences in the navy and made some gr8 friends, but now that I am out I really don't miss it at all.
Although the two weeks in the Philippines on TAD with the fleet out and only working every other day leave me a bit nostalgic.
