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Old 03-04-21, 03:02 PM   #14
3catcircus
Grey Wolf
 
Join Date: Sep 2011
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ET2SN View Post
Noooo. The last thing they wanted me to do was re-up.

The boat and Squadron were really cool about it and it meant a lot that they were trying, but talking with my detailer painted a different picture. They had guys still in the training pipeline with no where to go.

By '92 the diesel boats were long gone, the 594s were history, and the 637s were all on the way to decom. The cold war was over (mostly) the same as Desert Storm. Attack boats don't do well when peace breaks out.

Its like hanging around a party late at night when the keg starts to pump foam. Sometimes its just better to split and hear about all of the horror shows that went down, later.

After I got out, I heard from some of the guys who had re-enlisted early and things went down about the way I imagined. How you did your job was no where near as important as how good you looked while you did it. A guy in his 30's could get rung up based on body fat % and kicked out. If they had re-enlisted with a bonus ($$$) and got the heave ho, the Navy wanted that bonus money back- RIGHT NOW.

I'm pretty sure some of the guys in the training pipeline were offered an early out after they finished A school, but don't quote me on that.

There was no where to go and nothing to do- besides getting written up over petty BS, and it stayed that way until 9/11.

Almost missed it, I did all of my sea time in "7". I was homeported in Sasebo, Japan and Pearl.
As a nuke, they kept trying to throw money at me to stay but wouldn't give me what I wanted - shore duty in Australia or some type of staff position supporting people doing design/development work on new equipment. It was either teach in the pipeline, ride another boat, or a tour on a tender.

My first duty station was San Diego until we PCSed to Pearl to decomm. Then it was over to a 688 boat in 7 until we PCSed to Portsmouth Naval Shipyard to decomm. Did a bunch of local ops and one full Westpac. I got the augment good deal during an Eastpac and spent the entire time in schools, so it could have been worse.
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