I'm not surprised. I was an enlisted nuke for 6 years out of high school, it was absolutely terrible duty. For all the big talk, it's a total bottom-of-the-barrel job series. On the Facebook group of my old shippies, we had a survey. 80% of us were 6 and out. Another 16% re-enlisted STAR and got out after 8 years. That means damn few act…
I'm not surprised. I was an enlisted nuke for 6 years out of high school, it was absolutely terrible duty. For all the big talk, it's a total bottom-of-the-barrel job series. On the Facebook group of my old shippies, we had a survey. 80% of us were 6 and out. Another 16% re-enlisted STAR and got out after 8 years. That means damn few actually made it a career. At sea, I made $1.83/hour (in 1995 dollars). With that pay and being treated like total garbage (constantly being sold-out by your own chiefs' mess), you're not going to retain anybody that way. For a bunch of guys that are supposedly hard to recruit and valuable to retain, the Navy sure treated us like a bunch of dime-a-dozen guys. That's why nearly all of us moved on to become civilian engineers. My old carrier has become the death-ship. There was a lot of talk for a couple of months but it has returned to status-quo now. 10 suicides a year really doesn't bother the higher-ups, I guess. The only reason anything pinged the Pentagon was that we had 3 in the same week in mid-2022. Do people really think that incoming recruits, especially officer candidates, don't see this?
I'm not surprised. I was an enlisted nuke for 6 years out of high school, it was absolutely terrible duty. For all the big talk, it's a total bottom-of-the-barrel job series. On the Facebook group of my old shippies, we had a survey. 80% of us were 6 and out. Another 16% re-enlisted STAR and got out after 8 years. That means damn few actually made it a career. At sea, I made $1.83/hour (in 1995 dollars). With that pay and being treated like total garbage (constantly being sold-out by your own chiefs' mess), you're not going to retain anybody that way. For a bunch of guys that are supposedly hard to recruit and valuable to retain, the Navy sure treated us like a bunch of dime-a-dozen guys. That's why nearly all of us moved on to become civilian engineers. My old carrier has become the death-ship. There was a lot of talk for a couple of months but it has returned to status-quo now. 10 suicides a year really doesn't bother the higher-ups, I guess. The only reason anything pinged the Pentagon was that we had 3 in the same week in mid-2022. Do people really think that incoming recruits, especially officer candidates, don't see this?