Well, I joined the Navy!

One of our engineers in the US was navy and keeps getting offered larger and larger re-enlistment bonuses.
And as he said, Al Queda don't have submarines and you are pretty safe from road side bombs at sea!

 

Hooray!

Every one in a while I consider joining the air force. Three of my friends in grad school are off to be fighter pilots once they graduate, all in the Navy.

 

The Navy was some of my best and worst times.

I think you'll have fun.

 

Very cool! Keep us posted on how everything goes.

 

Please don't kill anyone. Take the slaughter out of the armed forces and it would be great.

 

Are we all done with stupid comments about the military everyone? Yes? ........

 

Unless your on the USS Cole...

 

That's not dumb at all. Having to kill a person in any setting is not something I would want anyone to go through, and that is always a possibility when you sign up for service. Since he is going into the navy it probably wont be likely, but that doesn't make my comment dumb.

 

Your use of the word 'slaughter' was a poor choice...

 

Ok ill give you that

 

During the six years I was in the Navy, no one, to my knowledge, was slaughtered.

But those were the peaceful Carter and Reagan years.

But then again, I was very young, and was busy scrubbing bilges for a living. God only knows what was going on in the real world.

Were any of you paying attention to the planet between 1977 and 1983? I was much too busy.

 

This kind of thing was going on when Om was in the navy.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=sqPn-kuGOjQ

 

The Navy's great except for the having to spend a lot of time on a boat (just me, I don't think I could spend that much time at sea, especially a submarine). I went for the Air Force. In a lot of ways, it's not quite as good as the Navy, but it fit my lifestyle a lot better.

Free medical and dental are pretty good benefits nowadays. In fact, it was a pretty good benefit even when I joined. I went in as a satellite systems operator (satellite control, space surveillance, etc), so the travel part didn't pan out most of the time. The two houses I lived in the longest both occurred when I was in the Air Force and both were in Omaha, NE (now that's weather that builds character). I did spend a year in Alaska and at least had some nice trips - Italy a couple times, the Pensacola area for a few weeks (with a hotel right on the beach), trips to the DC/Baltimore area ..... oh, and plus the trips to gorgeous Bozier City (next to Shreveport) :yuck:

The pay and benefits are always less than what you could get in the civilian world, even with reenlistment bonuses and so on. At best, the bonuses close the gap enough that you don't feel like a complete fool for staying in. You get a good career field, though, and the jobs can be too much fun to leave.

As for robertm's concerns, my job was kind of like BASF (if you've ever seen that commercial). I never slaughtered anyone. I just made it so others could slaughter even better.

 

Good for you.

My brother was in the Navy during the Viet-Nam war. At 5'6", he couldn't meet the height requirement for the Coast Guard. He plays clarinet, so during basic, while everyone else was marching, marching, marching, he was playing the clarinet and marching, marching, marching. And washing his t-shirts. He was a radar operator so when the captain wanted to issue an order, first he would ask my brother which order to issue. His ship was a troop carrier. These are fairly safe to be on when you are carrying troops to battle as you get lots of battleship and air cover. However, once the payload is delivered, all that protection stays with the troops as you try to get out. All during the war he practiced invading beaches throughout the Caribbean and the Mediteranean, but never in Viet-Nam. His intention upon enlisting was to be a lifer, but after 4 years, he had a bellyfull of it and refused to re-up.

 

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

I think the world was laughing so hard about that video that no one could pick up their guns.
It was a very good time.