D1G was shut down in 1996. They still have the ball, not much inside. I qualified at S8G as an MO, then they sent me across to MARF to be an ELT, and I’m still there.
Kindly do us all a favor, & translate your conversations out of Old Martian, hmmm? :dubious:
Khakkajjjjerrr (remember, spraaay that triple jjj sound)… oh, wait, that was sarcasm. :smack:
Seriously, we’re talking about a specific program in the Navy - the nuclear plant operator training program. MO’s are the knuckle-dragging nuclear plumbers (steam plant operators), and ELT’s are MO’s who prefer playing with chemicals and radiation to playing with steam. 
(Yes, I used to be an Easy Living Tech. 
)
The prototypes are specific mock-ups of ship board reactor and steam plants that the Navy uses for testing and to train new personnel on proper procedures. S3G, and D1G were two of the prototypes which have been since retired, MARF and S8G are the two plants left at the facilty 1010011010 is training at. I hope that helps some.
Yes.
You both get to say: “Th’ warrp drive! It cannae take it, Captain!”
All is clear. Thank you.
Things didn’t go as planned but worked out OK. We didn’t have time to go see the movie due to our work schedules. We just sat by the pool and had a nice man-to-man talk.
To make a long story short, after relating to him all of the positive things that happened to me during my tenure in the air cavalry and mechanized infantry, and how grown up I thought he is being by considering his future, I gave him a primer on the way things are in our world today and how my experiences could differ from his. I told him that his chances of going into a combat theater are almost certain and how a contract isn’t worth the paper its printed on in times of war.
We talked about a career in law enforcement being his ultimate goal. I pushed hard the idea of being in the Coast Guard. I told him the CG is law enforcement. We compared CG duties, i. e. search and rescue, catching smugglers, maritime law enforcement, etc., to MP duties i. e. base patrol, prison duty and war zone patrols.
He was very receptive to the idea of seeing a CG recruiter. I told him it is very important to really hit the books in his senior year and to get the ASVAB(sp?) study guide.
I didn’t offer to sit through the Army recruiter’s pitch with him and his mom last night but made him promise not to commit to anything until he looked into other college and branch of service options. I came away with the satisfaction that I was a positive influence.
E72521, sorry things couldn’t go as you’d have preferred, but it sounds like you did a good job. Thanks for the update!
E72521, that was a good deed you did. Both in the doing, and in the preparing and thinking about it before-hand. I hope you feel good about it. Our society needs more men like you.
I salute you, Sir.
Several posts have mentioned that the military is “a great way to save money.” Why do I keep hearing that most enlisted men qualify for food stamps? Is this kid officer material?
Point out to the kid that, regardless of what anyone promises him, he can get jerked out of retirement at any point in the next 30 years next time the Army is “overextended” due to some poorly-considered foreign war.
Actually, it is families of low rank/time enlisted men who qualify for food stamps.
<hijack>
Honestly, I have to say that I’ve always had a certain grudging approval for the Marine Corps policy (Heard through rumor, actually.) to discourage marriage for anyone under the rank of E-4. Not saying it’s quite proper, but when I saw what the divorce rate was for married kids assigned to my ship… it made sense.
</hijack>
I think it was the Stoic philosophers who drew the distinction between trying to exert control over a situation and extending influence into it. It sounds like you have chosen the latter, wiser course.
The only thing more difficult than trying to talk a 17 year-old out of enlisting is trying to talk a 22 year-old into re-enlisting.
I appreciate his mother’s concern. Mine was glad I came home alive, although she sure had no idea what they’d done to her boy (Hemmingway’s story Soldier’s Home pretty much captures it: I lost my entire capacity to give one fleck of shit about anyone or anything, for a long, long time). But ultimately, once you’ve given him all the information he’s entilted to, you’ve got to respect the kid’s right to make the same damnfool choice that we ourselves made.
My brother’s enlisted Air Force, and while the pay is crappy, if you’re single it’s really not bad what with the benefits. It helps that he doesn’t have a car, but even if he did, he doesn’t have to worry about rent or anything.
I was once friends with a couple where the husband was enlisted Army. Money was incredibly tight – when she got pregnant, she had to take some sort of “being pregnant and having a baby in the Army” sort of class and one topic covered was about how to apply for WIC. Egad.
I would highly, highly, highly recommend he check out more than just the Army, but that may be my family prejudice (several AF people, my granddad was in the Navy during WWII). But don’t let him talk to the Marines unless he’s serious about it; my brother is awfully polite and when he got a call from this guy after he’d graduated, he didn’t hang up fast enough or something. The recruiter bugged us off and on for the next year, even after being told he was away at school. I think the only reason he quit was because he got transferred away.
Granted I’m not rolling in nice crisp hundred dollar bills, but I think it also has to do with only Base Pay being factored into whether or not you can qualify for the programs. Housing and food allowances can contribute quite a bit to a budget (not to mention the saving in health/dental/life/car/etc. insurance available to military members), but applications for food stamps, WIC, etc. don’t take these into account.
I got the “Don’t have more dependents than you have chevrons” speech in bootcamp.