#define PAGENUMBER (replies) { ceil (replies + 1) / 50) }

return PAGENUMBER(1000);

9/19/2009 7:54:11 PM

I'm putting in for STA21 in March. If I get accepted i'll find out in October and i'll start school the following January. I have up to 3 years to finish my degree, which would put me graduating in 2014. I'll probably put in for nuke officer so I'll then go to OCS, then back to officer nuclear power school, then prototype, then SOBC. If all that works out i'll be O1-E with 6 years service by the time I actually hit the boat.

Plus as long as i'm not on grad hold too long (I hear Ballston Spa is backed up right now) I could finish Prototype before I go off to college which means i'd get my full enlistment bonus

9/19/2009 8:24:03 PM

Good luck!

Make sure you're submitting a quality package. The staff and CCC may not really be as helpful as they seem--it's really up to you to drive the package.

9/19/2009 9:04:39 PM

^^lol. half the OC's at NCSU's Navy ROTC are submariners who've never been on a boat either.

9/20/2009 9:00:08 AM

How bad is OCS? Is it like everything else in the navy? "Boot camp is going to be very difficult" "a-school is going to be the hardest thing you've ever done" "power school is 100 times harder than a-school".

I've heard OCS is legitimately harder but I'm at the point in my career where I don't believe a thing until I see it first hand.

9/20/2009 8:52:46 PM

It'll probably be entertaining for you. You have some clue as to how the Navy works (not that the nuclear pipeline is anything like the 'real' Navy). You'll get to spend your time laughing at the douches who can't figure out how to put their fucking uniform on.

9/20/2009 11:40:26 PM

i can't see how OCS could possibly be tough for anyone who has any experience with the military before showing up.

9/20/2009 11:44:20 PM

Great, another let down.

I wish I could have joined the old school Navy instead.

9/21/2009 3:32:03 PM

get some good old fan room counseling?

9/21/2009 8:49:51 PM

I thought OCS seemed pretty tough. I was at ODS and our program was a lot easier.

slingblade, you want to go to college now? I thought you quit to join the Navy in the first place.

9/21/2009 8:53:37 PM

How awesome is traffic in Jacksonville?

I swear there's some sort of time vortex around that city that always makes it 5PM whenever I drive through it. I could leave Raleigh at any time, even 5:05PM and somehow I will pass through Jacksonville at 5PM.

9/21/2009 8:59:21 PM

I quit college because I got to the point where I had to work way too much to be successful in school. I joined the Navy as a means to continue my education.

I'm a little disappointed I don't have you as my HTFF instructur but ENS Aluise (sp?) is pretty cool.

9/21/2009 10:24:06 PM

http://www.military.com/news/article/navy-set-to-crew-subs-with-female-sailors.html

Any thoughts?

9/26/2009 9:55:11 AM

good fucking luck

submariners are the most sexist

and boomers first? so you'll in effect lock up a few females ensigns (22-23 years old, just out of college) with 150 men for a couple months...they don't come up during a patrol. that's a sitrep waiting to happen.

9/26/2009 10:02:38 AM

^I wouldn't want to be one of those ensigns...but I also don't fit that profile.

I have to admit, having read the article and learning a bit more about life as a submariner that I am starting to wonder why women would want to do it....thanks tww for changing my opinion. Still, it will be interesting to see what will come of this.

9/26/2009 10:58:46 AM

lol 'thank you tww'

9/26/2009 11:24:55 AM

sup dude, how you been

9/26/2009 11:27:12 AM

getting ready for deployment

it sucks

otherwise, alright

9/26/2009 11:29:32 AM

that sounds like a bummer

gl and godspeed

9/26/2009 11:30:16 AM

yea

i may or may not be tired of this song by the end:

9/26/2009 11:39:51 AM

Thoughts on rail guns?

9/27/2009 11:41:47 PM

Quote :

"submariners are the most sexist and boomers first? so you'll in effect lock up a few females ensigns (22-23 years old, just out of college) with 150 men for a couple months...they don't come up during a patrol. that's a sitrep waiting to happen."

ZOMG they're going to be gang-raped every night after midrats

Submariners are no more sexist than targets.

There will be growing pains and conflicts as there are with major changes everywhere. As long as the logistics can be worked out, women can be successful on board submarines.

Quote :

"I am starting to wonder why women would want to do it"

Women want to ride boats for the same reasons men want to ride boats.

9/28/2009 12:04:25 AM

Quote :

"But perhaps the biggest challenge to integrating women into the submarine fleet is cultural. For decades a male-dominated community whose long-endurance missions and distance from logistical support make living and working on a submarine a sometimes dirty job with little privacy (attack submarine crew share bunks when not on duty), the idea of placing women in such close confines worries both veteran submariners and spouses who fear distraction from the job or infidelity."

These were the same arguments people made against putting women on ships in the first place. And I don't like the argument that wives are worried about their husband's fidelity. If you don't trust your husband you shouldn't have married him.

9/28/2009 9:10:08 PM

Quote :

"ZOMG they're going to be gang-raped every night after midrats "

more like engaged girl Ensign fucks married guy Ensign

or girl Ensign is fucking one of her guys on the regular

these are regular occurrences in the SWO community. but I forgot, nukes have higher standards

[Edited on September 28, 2009 at 9:50 PM. Reason : it goes both ways, of course]

9/28/2009 9:49:52 PM

Quote :

"it goes both ways, of course"

Yeah, that's pretty much the point. You made it sound as if there some special problem with putting men and women together on a boat as opposed to a skimmer.

The 'problem' isn't putting women on submarines. It's putting men and women together--anywhere.

Quote :

"but I forgot, nukes have higher standards"

This is true. Don't forget who your betters are.

9/29/2009 7:55:40 AM

yea, it just would be exaggerated on a submarine more so than on a frigate or destroyer

9/29/2009 6:39:13 PM

If nukes have higher standards i'm not looking forward to my stint in the fleet.

9/29/2009 11:06:56 PM

lol, hardly a stint if you don't even get underway for the next six years (according to your schedule)

finished a maintenance assessment this week - we did pretty good even to the overzealous Maintenance/Engineer XO we have. tomorrow: 'Underway, shift colors.' exercises and training out the ass. and another assessment when we get back. when I go home on the 16th, I expect to wake up the 18th.

10/1/2009 7:00:44 PM

You know, now that you mention it, I don't think i've seen my XO in about 6 or 7 months.

PS RIP service whites/blues 10.01.09

10/1/2009 10:02:17 PM

lol wut

you mean utilities, right?

10/1/2009 10:03:10 PM

Utilities won't be phased out for another year or so, officially.

Today was the official switch to NSU's.

10/1/2009 10:04:23 PM

you mean the working blues and whites

i was like, dress blues and whites?

except on my ship it's NWU's or dress whites (no winter shift until december cause we're in florida, and we'll be in Africa)

10/1/2009 10:06:53 PM

haha my bad I meant working. I was thinking navy service uniform and typed service blue/whte

Must be nice. I'd love to get stationed where they have shorts with dress whites

They won't allow us to wear NWU's to school anymore (in power school), CO thinks they aren't fit for a classroom setting. I think he's just jealous he doesn't get to wear MC Hammer pants to work every day. Now we have to wear NSU's and my pants might as well be spandes when I walk/sit. They're the right size waist but the legs are cut for toothpicks.

10/1/2009 10:11:57 PM

lol

i hate the NWU's. I rock my coveralls - I'm an Engineer

on a sadder note, the Snipe's Lament:

Now each of us from time to time has gazed upon the sea
and watched the mighty warships pulling out to keep this country free.
And most of us have read a book or heard a lusty tale,
about these men who sail these ships through lightning, wind and hail.
But there's a place within each ship that legend's fail to teach.
It's down below the water-line and it takes a living toll
- - a hot metal living hell, that sailors call the "Hole."
It houses engines run with steam that makes the shafts go round.
A place of fire, noise, and heat that beats your spirits down.
Where boilers like a hellish heart, with blood of angry steam,
are molded gods without remorse, are nightmares in a dream.

Whose threat from the fires roar, is like a living doubt,
that at any moment with such scorn, might escape and crush you out.
Where turbines scream like tortured souls, alone and lost in Hell,
are ordered from above somewhere, they answer every bell.
The men who keep the fires lit and make the engines run,
are strangers to the light and rarely see the sun.
They have no time for man or God, no tolerance for fear,
their aspect pays no living thing a tribute of a tear.
For there's not much that men can do that these men haven't done,
beneath the decks, deep in the hole, to make the engines run.
And every hour of every day they keep the watch in Hell,
for if the fires ever fail their ship's a useless shell.

When ships converge to have a war upon an angry sea,
the men below just grimly smile at what their fate will be.
They're locked below like men fore-doomed, who hear no battle cry,
it's well assumed that if they're hit men below will die.
For every day's a war down there when gauges all read red,
twelve-hundred pounds of heated steam can kill you mighty dead.

So if you ever write their songs or try to tell their tale,
the very words would make you hear a fired furnace's wail.
And people as a general rule don't hear of these men of steel,
so little heard about this place that sailors call the "Hole."
But I can sing about this place and try to make you see,
the hardened life of the men down there, 'cause one of them is me.
I've seen these sweat-soaked heroes fight in superheated air,
to keep their ship alive and right, though no one knows they're there.

And thus they'll fight for ages on till warships sail no more,
amid the boiler's mighty heat and the turbine's hellish roar.
So when you see a ship pull out to meet a war-like foe,
remember faintly if you can, "The Men Who Sail Below."

10/1/2009 10:14:51 PM

I like that a lot, except for the whole boiler part. Replace that with SG's and i'm good to go.

I prefer the NWU over my other options - NSU or dress blue. I'll wear coveralls in prototype but they aren't allowed in the classroom either. I ain't gonna lie, I love coveralls.

10/1/2009 10:19:11 PM

Quote :

"They won't allow us to wear NWU's to school anymore (in power school), CO thinks they aren't fit for a classroom setting. I think he's just jealous he doesn't get to wear MC Hammer pants to work every day. Now we have to wear NSU's and my pants might as well be spandes when I walk/sit. They're the right size waist but the legs are cut for toothpicks."

you sure? I could swear I saw students wearing NWU's today. my section wasn't but all the sections don't wear the same thing.

^ PS ... an S/G is called a boiler in most civilian plants only difference is what's making it boil! coal or reactor ... after that it's the same thing!!

[Edited on October 1, 2009 at 10:21 PM. Reason : ..]

10/1/2009 10:20:43 PM

That was my section actually. We were having a field day. We'll be NSU from here on out.

[Edited on October 1, 2009 at 10:22 PM. Reason : ^and I know, just having fun ]

10/1/2009 10:21:58 PM

^it's an old poem, alright?

yea, coveralls are the shit.

10/1/2009 10:22:29 PM

You never bit on my offer to talk about rail guns.

10/1/2009 10:25:54 PM

When is Chembob coming back?

10/11/2009 8:23:03 PM

Moored, shift colors.

10/13/2009 6:37:04 PM

Are you the best user on this site who is actively in the military?

10/13/2009 6:46:33 PM

I don't think I'm better than anyone.

10/23/2009 5:28:49 PM

You're better than most of the people here, I can tell you that much.

10/23/2009 5:33:28 PM

damn, thanks

10/24/2009 12:10:46 PM

What ribbons/medals do you have?

10/24/2009 12:15:08 PM

lol

National Defense/GWOT Service/Pistol Qual

that's it.

i'll finally get Sea Service (need 90 days consecutive away from homeport - didn't happen cause I joined mid-deployment) this deployment.

then after deployment, I should be ready for this badge:

10/26/2009 4:31:13 PM

Even though we've earned our GWOT they won't let us wear them. I'll have my volunteer medal in 2 weeks though

I'm thinking about doing the AR15 qual just so I'd be the only student with 4 ribbons haha.

10/27/2009 5:05:30 PM

heh

10/31/2009 11:48:14 AM

Is your FSG leader position an actuemployment opportunity? I heard several FRG leaders have their position as an actual job and wanted to know if the Navy did a similar thing.

10/31/2009 5:34:20 PM