Are you smarter than a Marine?

[K Frame]

"Long and hard and full of seamen.  Every young man's dream."

And yet you wanted cox.... swain...

[Scout26]

Had a cousin that did the same thing during Vietnam.  Had a draft number of something like 12.  Went and joined the Navy as some type of radio communications geek thinking even if he gets sent to Vietnam, he'll be safety off the coast on a ship. Finishes training at Great Lakes and gets sent over to the fleet off the coast and ends up on a aircraft carrier.  Thinks to himself, "This is great, combat pay, nobody shooting at me, three hots and a cot and all I'll do is fix radios or some such."

Later that day a CPO calls all the new guys up to the hanger deck, lines them up and has them count off by eights.

My cousin being puzzled by this asks "Chief, why are we counting off by eights?"

"That's your river boat number."
 


Spent 13 months in the Brown Water Navy on the Mekong.

So much for trying to outsmart Uncle Sugar.

[Jamisjockey]

"Long and hard and full of seamen.  Every young man's dream."

And yet you wanted cox.... swain...

You know which way my coxsaswain big boy.

[Devonai]

They had a saying. "The only thing in the navy smarter than a nuke is an ex-nuke because he was smart enough to get out of the program." 

I heard that it is actually impossible to get out of the nuke program since they always add another 50% to the end of your contract.

[Tallpine]

I heard that it is actually impossible to get out of the nuke program since they always add another 50% to the end of your contract.

Ha-ha-ha 

[erictank]

I got the same song and dance about going nuke program as well. I went advanced electronics. But I don't understand your aversion to submarines.

At least on carriers and cruisers (which would still have been in service at the time), you could come out and see the sun every couple of weeks if you wanted to.

We were told in Nuclear Prototype Training that we had to volunteer for sub duty in order to be considered for it, otherwise we would automatically be surface. I did not volunteer for subs, and served on the USS Theodore Roosevelt, CVN-71.