calm down there BA, first you need to take the ASVAB test your recruiter will set you up for that. It is used to see what best suits you i.e. electrical, mechanical, food service, combat arms and so on and so forth. you can look this test up and see if there is a study guide for it because you need to score pretty good on it to go into Submarines. And no matter what branch of the military you go to do NOT let them push you into anything that you don't want, or in my case in the Navy taking the "Seamen Subfarers Program" which back in it's day was a straight route to Deck Div and no "A" or "C" School which hurt me when I left the Navy because while I was a Submarine qualified TM3 I had no formal schooling which means I didn't get paid as much as other veterans whom had gone to their service schools.
Once you pass your ASVAB the recruiter should start showing you jobs that you can do in the Navy, please ask to see each and everyone because you may never know what you will catch your interest other then submarines
IF you are a math wizard nuke power school from what I understand takes your brain out tosses it into a blender and then pours the remains back into your skull... Basically they teach you math backwards and in different ways.. or so I have been told.
When you finally set down and sign the paperwork to enlist in the Navy you will go to Great Lakes, Ill for boot (outside of Chicago) sadly GLakes is the ONLY open boot camp for the Navy now, when I went through there San Diego and Orlando were open and both of those were considered the club med by all. After GLakes then you can take leave before going to New London, Ct (if you choose submarines) where you will go through BESS (Basic Enlisted Submarine School) and while you are there you will receive orders to your first boat and where that boat is stationed is?
Could be Pearl Harbor, San Diego, Groton, Kings Bay, Ga or GUAM.
Personally I enjoyed Pearl but due to having family in the Groton area I was not happy when I didn't get orders keeping me in Groton, in hind site I wouldn't have done it any other way.
Of my 20 years of service in 2 branches of the military not counting the reserves I had by far the best time in the submarine service and at times they were also the most boring of anything that I have ever done.. Being a TM was truly fun however setting at a launch console for 6 hours at a time was boring especially when there were crewmembers sleeping in the TR cause the lights were off except for the one over the console, that and being on a 6 on 12 off made it tough at the 00-06 watch.
Now Qualifying I am sure has changed over the years as to how hard the crew rides you, my crew was tough on Non-Qual's. What that means is you do your 6 hours on watch and then continue for 6 more doing ships quals and if your equipment is broke you get to help fix that also and do quals after the equipment is fixed. One time that truly sticks out in my head was right after I qualified and we were preparing for a TRE (Tactical Readiness Exercise) and my LPO (Leading Petty Officer) had me scheduled for the 00-06 and at 0700 we started tearing out all of the hydraulic valves in the room one at a time and rebuilding them so they worked flawlessly and didn't leak.. almost 12 hours later we were done and it was time for me to go back on watch.. Sadly we hydro locked the torpedo room hydraulics and had to "mechanically agitate" all of the valves to get them all to function again at the cost of a LOT of noise and then some leaking valves. We passed our TRE with flying colors but we were darn tired at the end of that one.
One more thing to remember about submarines, their crews are the best fed and best paid in the military short of the special forces and they don't have as good food as submariners have.. at one time I was collecting Base Pay, Sea Pay, Sub Pay, Career Sea Pay and Career Sub Pay and Basic Allowance for Housing. Now I only collect Base Pay.
Tom Clancy wrote a non fiction book almost 20 years ago titled if I remember correctly "SUBMARINES" it read to me at the time like a Technical Manual, granted the book is now outdated but it gives you a good in site into the first flight 688's
Good luck to you in your choice in selecting what branch of the military and what job you will be doing. My recommendation is Submarine ET or Submarine MM, both have had multiple jobs integrated into them.. ET has the RM and QM rolled in and the MM has TM rolled into it. So you are really getting the best of those worlds.
Darrin
