re: Navy dudes: My son is considering the Navy as a “nuke.”

We had a handful of electricians that were former nukes at a previous job. Weird frickers but they were all really smart guys that were good at their jobs

No advice, but at my recent 50 year HS reunion, I talked to a guy I haven’t seen since school days and he told me he retired from the Navy after being COB of a nuclear sub.

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Can anyone tell me what exactly this entails? Is it a good program to prep for college or a job after he gets out? What’s the training like?

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I have know a few who were in the Navy Nuke program. Back in the day every person had to interview with Admiral Rickover. It takes special people to do this duty. Besides having to be smart they have to be willing to launch on order when protocols are met. I knew a Petty Officer that served on a nuke sub and what was peculiar with him is that they had to learn how to fix everything down to repairing a motherboard or disassembling a battery for repair. When you are out on patrol for a few months there is no contact with the outside world and pulling into port for parts is not likely.

There is also the nuke surface fleet so I assume service on that is different.

Most of the people went on to work in nuke power plants or the industry supporting it

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If he rocks out of nuke school, which happens fairly often, he'll find a cushy landing spot somewhere in Navy aviation.

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Not necessarily. The "needs of the Navy" come first. If the Navy is short of Sonar Techs guess what you get to become?

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When you are out on patrol for a few months there is no contact with the outside world and pulling into port for parts is not likely.

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Missile boats you tend to do circles in you designated area, fast attack will get some foreign port time.

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Missile boats you tend to do circles in you designated area, fast attack will get some foreign port time.

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Did both. As a young guy I 100% recommend going fast attack. Travel the world, awesome port visits, and its way more exciting than missile boats. You go to the SSBNs when youre older and have kids.

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I know a few that got out after the 6 years and went right to work for TVA making bank with no college degree. The curriculum is tough as hell.

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I have a cousin who served on nuclear sub in the 70’s. Did his time and got out. But it set him nice. Not exactly sure what he did but he ended up being some kind of an efficiency expert in nuclear plants. Dude did very well financially.

Didn’t Terd serve on a nuke sub? Please don’t allow your kid to be anything like Terd

The rates for nuke are ET, EM, and MM. Your son will rank the rates in his order of preference but he will find out which rate the Navy assigns him as he gets his orders out of boot camp.

Ftom boot camp he will go to yhe A school that relates to his rating. If he wants subs and is accepted, throw in sub school. Then Nuke school. The curriculum is challenging, the equivalent of 2 yrs of college crammed into six months. If he graduates nuke school he will go to a prototype nuke plant for hands on training. If he passes prototype he will get orders to his first ship. There he will be required to qualify on his ship/boat reactor/engineering systems.

At least it was like this 40 yrs ago. Good luck to him. It is a good career path, nukes aren't a dime a dozen.

My former Navy vet friend tells me it stands for Never Again Volunteer Yourself.