Thanks for the great information.
He wants to eventually become a carpenter and for that he would go into the BU or builders ranking.
Now I have a couple more questions:
How many times did you have to actually fight?
How long must a person stay in before they can get full veterans benefits like being able to use VA hospitals or buy stuff from the PX?
The Seebees aren’t the only option. MOS 12W is a carpentry and masonry specialist in the Army. The Army guarantees your MOS before you sign your contract. If that’s what he wants to do he should know he has other options.
The USAF also has the equivalent of Seabees.
The non-expeditionary folks who maintain existing facilities are called generally called “civil engineering”. All the typical trades are represented.
There’s also the expeditionary folks who fly in and build facilities from scratch or perform emergency repairs. See Prime Base Engineer Emergency Force - Wikipedia and Rapid Engineer Deployable Heavy Operational Repair Squadron Engineers - Wikipedia for more about that stuff.
See here for the recruiter info on all these kinds of jobs: Career Finder - U.S. Air Force
Late add. See also http://www.afcec.af.mil/ for the non-recruiter version.
Also, I contend that the Air Force version is superior by virtue of the silliest initialism: “Prime BEEF”.
Also, Air Force RED HORSE squadrons, which are probably the closest current Air Force analogue to a Seabee battalion
My father was a Seabee in the Vietnam War. There was never a time when he was exchanging fire with an enemy. But his base did a few times come under mortar fire, to which his unit’s response was to run for the bunkers. And one of his occasional duties was to launch grenades at clods of turf floating down the river, because while those were usually just clods of turf, sometimes they concealed sappers trying to attack the bridge.
I never had to use my weapon against another person. When I was in Vietnam, I was posted to a public works detachment on a Marine Corps base. The Marines took care of perimeter defense, so we didn’t have to. The base was the supply depot for the I Corps Marines, so technically it was a rear echelon base. My experience was eerily like Chronos’ father’s, enough so that I almost wonder if we were in the same place. On the other hand, right across the road from us was a Seabee battalion encampment, who would have had to defend themselves if there had been a ground assault. Like his dad, we came under rocket and mortar fire, and we had a number of guys medevacked with shrapnel injuries.
That said, there were plenty of 'Bees who had to defend what they built. Marvin Shields even received the MOH for heroism in Vietnam.
Benefits vary, and I would suggest searching online for most answers. PX privileges are pretty much restricted to active duty, retired, and civil service.
As for other services and their construction folks: my experience with them was less than favorable. We had a joint effort in RVN to built 15 seahuts at one of the bases. They needed them quickly, and we sent a team of five Seabees, while Red Horse (air force) send a team of ten. Our team erected eleven huts in the time it took Red Horse to put up four. That’s not to say they haven’t gotten better, but from what I saw in subsequent years, it looked fairly lame. Another consideration is that promotion in the AF is painfully slow. On the plus side, they’re less likely to be in the serious shit in a combat area. Can’t speak to the Army combat engineers, as I never saw them in action.
Yup.
If you like Prime BEEF you’ll really like Prime RIBS. There’s no good article on them I could find, but here’s a link to their logo that tells you all you really need to know: http://www.af.mil/News/Art.aspx?igphoto=2000790640.
Have chow; will travel. 
Mostly Da Nang, I think.
Yup. I was at FLC Red Beach, just north of Da Nang.
An aphorism, attributed to a moderately successful commander: “An Army, like a serpent, goes upon its belly.”
That’s why I always respected the Services folks. (Other than the idea of what they could do to your chow if you didn’t. :eek:)
Oh yeah. Never play a practical joke on the people who feed you. I just like the creative acronym.
One nice thing about being a 'Bee on a Marine base was that we always had head of the line privileges in the galley. It’s a tradition with the Corps going back to WWII, as the Seabees were building all those amenities like toilets and showers and airfields and needed to eat and get back to work. We went in early for lunch one day and there was a boot private at the chow line. We started helping ourselves and he stopped us. The Gunny walked out just as the guy was telling us to get away from the food and leave the area. It was a nice ass-reaming, other than for the private, probably an 8/10, but then it was a Gunny and not a Sergeant Major.
That was what the Boatswains were for. They were great to play jokes on and on a Carrier couldn’t be less important.
Paging Tripler.
Uh-oh, now I’m in trouble. . .
I’m guessing you’ve never been on a bridge and seen the rating of personnel manning the helm and lee helm and various lookout stations. Or ever seen who’s manning the underway replenishment stations bringing aboard food, fuel and supplies. Or dropping the anchor, handling the boats when anchored out and securing the ship when tying up to the pier.
But Boatswain’s mates on a Carrier couldn’t be less important 
dba Fred, 1st then 2nd Division Officer, Deck Department, USS Enterprise (CVN-65) many years ago
Nahhhh, it’s all good. I was with the 819 RED HORSE before I went EOD, then on my last deployment to Afghanistan (in an EOD capability), had NMCB support to our EOD Battalion.
What do you want to know about RED HORSE?
Tripler
“Lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way!”
Yeah. Debate the strategic and operational effectiveness of the difference services all you want, but anyone probably has to acknowledge that the Air Force has the best “marketing”.
And to bring the Air Force discussion back on-point, here’s a web page with a list of US Air Force enlisted Civil Engineering specialties (AFSCs, Air Force Specialty Codes – the Air Force’s equivalent of a Navy rating or an Army MOS).
Well, the context is enlisting in Civil Engineering military career fields as training for post-separation career in construction trades. OP was originally about Seabees, and I wanted to make sure the Air Force put in a good appearance. Which apparently is you.