Becoming a Submariner?

[Enigma]

Curious from those of you who know whats involved, and what the requirements, etc are. For both enlisted and officers. Link a website if ya know one. :up:

(one that actually tells you whats involved. So, not the US Navy site. :smug: )

[sonar732]

Curious from those of you who know whats involved, and what the requirements, etc are. For both enlisted and officers. Link a website if ya know one. :up:

(one that actually tells you whats involved. So, not the US Navy site. :smug: )

For enlisted, you go thru a psych screening during boot camp to make sure that you don't go nuts, I remember another screening during sub school; typical height and weight requirements; high ASVAB scores since it's a highly technical job; and don't forget the escape training (a few guys in my class went surface after this...I would've love to seen the washout rate with the old school escape trainer), firefighting trainer, and wet trainer.

[Kapitan]

Depends what you wish to do, USN RN or what?

[geetrue]

First you have to be a romantic person ... Someone who really loves the sea ... Loves submarines ... Can take a lot of ribbing, be the center of others good natured jokes.

Smart is more important than it use to be, but now days they have more people to chose from than when I was on the boats.

Qualified submarine personal have to be the best of their ratings, torpedoman, quatermaster, radioman, sonarman. missile tech, electronic's tech, supplyman, corpsman, cook, all of these ratings are non-nuclear trained, but you still need to be the best.

Nuclear trained personal have to be even smarter, they have to go to school for like a year and half before they even step foot on a submarine.

Officers have to be even smarter (don't ask an enlistedman this) all officer's have to be nuclear power trained, plus the four years of college, plus officer's candiate school.

Pride runs strong however in knowing only the best can make it that far ...

I sort of snuck in being on diesel boats for two years and then I goofed up and flunked sonar "B" school, but they needed sonarman so I made it to the big time. Sonar supervisor on the USS Ethan Allen SSBN 608 blue crew for three patrols.

I made it by the seat of my pants not by my smarts ... Study and dream and pray and don't trust the Navy recruiter ... They will tell you anything ... Get it in writing whatever they promise you.

Here's an example of what the Chief of the Boat might tell you when you first report aboard. It's from my book to be published as soon as some smart publisher finds out how good I really am ... lol :D


CHIEF OF THE BOAT
Blue crew listen up! All new arrivals report to me as soon as quarters have been dismissed. All crew members not actually on watch report to your assigned spaces. Liberty will be at 1600. I expect to see everyone bright eyed and bushy tailed tomorrow morning at 0800. Blue crew, dismissed!

Some of the crew groan, some laugh, some grumble, but most head for the hatches to go down below.

About half a dozen men are left milling around on the deck. They don’t really fit in yet. The Chief of the Boat, Chief Ellis, is checking his clipboard with another sailor, before he turns to greet the new crew members.

CHIEF OF THE BOAT
What have we got here? A bunch of candy asses or something? Come on, line up, over here! Barrows? Which one are you? The rest of you over here too.

CHIEF OF THE BOAT
Before you go and make your first mistake. Let explain a few of the rules. We all basically start off at this point in time. Not knowing what to do or when to do it.

The chief coughs and comes alive. He comes out of his soft mood, starts pacing up and down in front of the men.

CHIEF OF THE BOAT
I don’t care how many of those fancy schools you’ve been to or how high you finished in submarine school at New London.

The chief stops and points at his campaign ribbons, medals and the silver dolphins on his chest, along with his patrol pin with clusters.

CHIEF OF THE BOAT
Until your qualified to wear these dolphins ... You ain’t nothing ... You ain’t nobody. Your just a bunch of cry babies, button pushers, knob twisters. Your not worth much more than a whale fart. In fact your even a danger to our closed society. Each persons life depends on the next person knowing his job. For the next three months you will learn everything there is to know about this submarine. For the next three months we will sleep together, eat together, work together and if you don't know your job... We could all wind up dying together.

The chief takes a breather and slows down.

CHIEF OF THE BOAT
To get these dolphins your required to learn about every single system aboard this submarine from weapons to engineering to electronic's. There will be no movies, no popcorn, no ice cream, no skin books, nothing is allowed till you have these dolphins on your chest. Nothing what-so-ever ... Is that understood?

They all nod their heads yes.

CHIEF OF THE BOAT
You'll be tested every week on a different system. Don't cheat! Don't learn it just good enough to pass. Know it as well as you would like to know your girlfriend's body.