Nope…not a nuke. An ET-COM. Basic in San Diego…then “A” school in Great Mistakes, then Sub School (BESS) in New London, CN. Then patrols on the USS Dallas and the* USS Florida.*
As prior Navy, you should know that the ‘jobs’ are called ratings, not rates. Your Navy rate is your rank. Thus, your title as an enlisted man is shown as rating/rate, as in BU2, MM3, etc.
Meh…six or one-half dozen, amigo…
You are right, of course. The Army was notorious for this. Which is why ya gotta be sure to get your proffered school or MOS–or NEC or “rate” or what have you–in writing with the recruiter before you sign on the dotted and raise that right hand! LOL
Indeed it is heating up. Far more than one would think from a thread on Seabees.
Which reminds me…forgive me for saying but…it sure seems like there is an inordinate amount of angry people here on SDF. Why? I have been attacked and verbally insulted a few times in the past couple days simply for stating past experiences or opinions. One guy calling my “stupid” and an “ass” for merely waging mt opinion on gun control. One would think that a forum that calls itself “Straight Dope” would be a bit more objective and…well, not so damn whiny and angry.
So…what’s the deal? Holiday season? Or perhaps the “angry old man” dynamic at work? Or perhaps our gentle readers here have a tendency to imbibe a bit while posting? Just curious.
Y’all have a great weekend.
Not at all, “amigo”. Your cite supports my comment, not yours. In this forum, the aim is for accuracy.
Lickety_Split, we moderators do try to maintain a civil atmosphere here, but we can’t be everywhere at once. If you see someone insulting you (or, for that matter, anyone else on the board), press the “Report Post” button (that’s the one with a black exclamation point in a red triangle) to the upper-right of the problem post to let us know, and we’ll take care of it.
Except, that is, in the BBQ Pit forum, where insults are permitted and expected. But if you don’t want that sort of thing, then just stay out of that one forum.
Will do, thanks for the heads-up, Mod. I was unaware of the “anything goes” rules in the Pit. Now it all makes sense why those BB brains over there were so vulgar and juvenile. I don’t plan to mosey on over there in the future. What’s the point in dealing with Keyboard Warriors and those little guys with Internet Muscles? LOL I’ve been out of the country for five years, so in a way I am new here. I am thinking of doing a thread on some proven examples of Psychic Abilities in another less-hostile forum. Maybe in Great Debates or something. Makes sense that guys like czarism would hang out in the Pit, though. Thanks again!
Exactly…that’s why I provided the link, Chef. Technically you are correct with the whole “rate” thing. But I confess I am often guilty of saying “rank” and not “rate” when I speak of, say, and E-3, E-4…et al. Thing is though, I reckon I am not alone, since everytime I have ever asked a former Navy guy like me what his rate was, they always answered with their MOS, such as ET or HM or whatever. I never had a dude answer “petty officer second-class.” FWIW.
As are most of us guilty of the same. Even active duty guys used to confuse or conflate the two words and were seldom corrected on it. When it comes up in a thread like this, however, I like to have the correct terms used, especially if someone is looking for accurate information about the service. It’s a nitpick, but I think valid in this instance.
You make a valid point, sir. When a couple of vets are shooting the shit it’s OK to get a bit lax with exact terminology, since we all know what we mean in most cases. But when newb is asking for info, I agree it is more crucial to be as accurate and explicit as possible. Thanks for the heads-up.
In the Army I don’t think it’s been possible for at least since before the 80s to ship out to Basic without having your MOS in a contract. I had my MOS guaranteed and I had a choice of Airborne school or going to Germany as my first assignment. I like beer so you can guess my choice.
What did happen was early in Basic they pulled a few of us out and asked if we wanted to take tests to see if we qualified for a different assignment. Yes they really asked we weren’t ordered. It was all based on ASVAB scores, we had all scored very high. I was given the language battery and a test which consisted of Morse code. I did just ok on the DLAB but apparently scored through the roof on the other test. I was offered a chance to change my MOS to be a signal interceptor with a significant bonus. I turned them down. I wanted to be in helicopters. I was never pressured and I never heard about it again. I wonder how different my life would have been if I accepted it. Maybe I would be working for the NSA right now.
And maybe you are working for the NSA right now. But of course that’s what you would tell us.
Ditto on the first part. Boot camp had been reduced from 11 weeks to 9 just as I got in and live fire training was one of the things squeezed out; still had fire-fighting school, though. I have handled GI firearms as I was on the pistol team which used accurized .45s. I don’t really count that.
Closer to for reals was when I was in Iceland and one Sunday day watch about 2pm we got a call from the base (we were about five miles outside the main gate) saying that an attack was immanent and that we were to go to plan umpty-ump. Now, the news hadn’t been particularly tense lately and there had been an IG team* prowling around the base for about a week so we figured it was a drill, but they hadn’t said it was a drill. We decided to go by the book, literally. The CTR1 in charge got out the contingency file and we POs pored over it together. The two senior-most guys strapped on .45s and I, as the duty CTM, was issued a pump shotgun and five shells (with brass casings!) to guard the emergency generator outside.
We had two pet Marines, one in the guard shack at the door and one in the guard shack at the fence. The one at the door commenced to walking around the building with his piece slung on his shoulder; I don’t know what the guard shack one was doing, looking fierce I suppose. I had the shells in my jacket pocket, considered loading them into the shotgun, and rejected that as dumb. After about twenty minutes a Navy pickup stopped at the gate and was let in; it was my shop chief, who’d had the quarterdeck watch at the barracks.
“What are you doing?”
“Guarding the generator, chief.”
He went inside and about five minutes, came back out. “Come on in,” and that, so far as we were concerned, was the end of our adventure.
*Yes, the Navy has Inspector Generals. Go figure.
Yes. But that decodes as “general purpose inspectors”, not as “inspectors of flag rank”.
“Inspector, general” is like “Shirt, large”. 
Thanks for all the information. I will let my son know about options in the air force and army.
Its just from what I have read it sounded like their were more seabees and hence, a better chance of getting in and getting training and experience that will pay off more in the long run.
Side note. Frankly, and I’m getting off track here, I cannot understand why each force has to have their own troops engaged in the exact same jobs. Too much of the “well we are better than you” crap. Why not just have say one set of say engineering corps, say run by the army, and they work for whatever department that needs them. After all many times all branches use the same bases.
Sadly when one force has to rely on a different force they don’t always get the priority. The Marines do pretty well with the Navy but that is a weird relationship between these 2 forces. Navy provides transport, support and medical to the Marines. I know the Army has had many problems relying on the Air Force in the past. Seabees will do what the Navy needs done at a priority. They don’t want to rely on the Army to get around to it.
Also for the Corps, especially in a war zone.
As I recall the Marines were always disparaging of the Navy but also protective of us if it was up against the army. But they were not disparaging of the Seabees.
So would it be easier to get into the Seebees than say an construction unit in the army or air force?