Navy Nukes

Comment

Comment by William in Nashua on December 14, 2011 at 3:39pm

Re: Christmas leave.

My son is in Power School now and he is coming home for leave between Dec. 21 and Jan 2.  He has to be back on the 3rd.  So, they do get Christmas leave from nuclear power school at least.

He was on T-track for 9 weeks.

Comment by Debra on December 13, 2011 at 1:43am

My son graduates from basic this week and will be heading off to nuke shcool on Saturday, December 17.  I live in Japan and will not be able to attend, but I am still a doting mom and I want to send him a Christmas gift.  Since he isn't actually there yet (GC), he hasn't set up his own mailing address.  Any ideas about how I send a package?  Is there some sort of general delivery address?  Will the school hold it even though it will arrive without his own PO box number on it?  It would take a week, even sent express mail and If I wait any longer to send it, he won't have any gifts on Christmas day.  This will be the first Christmas of my life without a kid at home  :(  or any other family, so this means alot to me.  Thanks for your advice!

Comment by KS Dad on December 10, 2011 at 7:37am

In regards the downtime between schools; some of my son's downtime was spent running a power washer with a painting crew that painted houses for elderly and poor residents of Charleston, SC. My son complained about this but it kept them out of trouble and kept them humble. Thank you to the Chiefs that organized this work detail.

He also spent a few days as the driver for a Master Chief that was doing some type of inspections.

Most of his buddies took a basic college history or English class during their T Track wait. In the end my son thought the power washer and chauffeuring jobs were preferable.

Photo of one of my son's friends doing volunteer work.

Comment by Ric Pallson on December 10, 2011 at 12:43am

It's been 3 years since my daughter graduated power school, but it seems the random delays, the needs of the NAVY, the prototype reactors being out of service for a while, the  test scores -- whatever -- most SRs only get  couple minutes at BC to decide their career -- sometimes  a day or two -- .

Sounds real familiar .

Actually all a recruit has to do is work real hard thru BC, A-school, Power School, proto  --

AND then -- when they are assigned to the fleet,  they not only have to learn how to make a  REAL ship work, and "qualify this that the other" --

Then the CO calls a few O1 to 04 and the O6 and 2 chiefs and a few leads and some unlucky POs on the carpet all at once and requests

"Make it better"

That's where it hits the fan.

That's what your recruit will have to do.

It doesn't get easier after school -- oh no.

--------

And welcome to CVN 72 -- where my MMN2 is on her second deployment and -- as far as I can tell -- REALLY RESPECTS her CO, XO, and most of the senior NCO's.

She seems to think they have a damn fine crew -- I expect she's right.

Abe is a good ship and welcome aboard.

P

Like Ben Gunn said in "Treasure Island"  where's the cheese?

Comment by proud dad Nuke sailor on December 9, 2011 at 11:34pm

I have been watching the schools, I have seen were they delay certain schools depending on the reactors having the classes filled. My son checked in at Goose creek and for the first six weeks did noting, he just had to check in every day. The bottom line is the needs of the navy, My experience as training officer for my unit the Navy will have so many billets become available and look for ways to fill them. The more diverse your learning style the faster you will advance.

Comment by Douglas H on December 9, 2011 at 6:19pm

Bill, the wait isn't out of the ordinary now.  Mine finished A school mid Sept and just started power school yesterday!  The weird thing is he get Xmas leave from the 20th - 2nd. 

I do appreciate Old Lt and your advise about putting in for chits.  You seldom get what you don't ask for.

Comment by Mike K on December 9, 2011 at 5:26pm

Archie, all 3 schools for ETs and EMs are 24 weeks each.  A School for MMs is shorter by about 6 weeks as I understand it with Power and Prototype being the same.  I should say that Prototype is kind of fluid as there is no formal end per say with the end depending upon how fast they get all their checkoffs completed and take the boards.  Some get done sooner, others take longer.  Also in Prototype, if their are training reactor problems, that lengthens the schooling.

Comment by Mike K on December 9, 2011 at 5:16pm

Yeah, I don't understand the leave bit as far as Christmas/New Years is concerned.  When my sailor was there he had just started Power School after Thanksgiving.  He said they shut the school down for two weeks and actually encouraged everyone to take a couple weeks off and get out of there and unwind.  With the holidays on the weekend this year though, that all may be different.

Comment by Bill on December 9, 2011 at 4:06pm

Old Lt 

Thanks, sounds like when I was in.  I told my son it sounded odd, and petty (typical Navy BS iirc) to make them stay over Christmas when they graduated this week and will be milling about smartly for 2 months.  As I used to say to my guys, run the damn chit;  I'll send it up and you might just get a yes. Especially if its a power playing senior chief enjoying Rickover style head games setting the "policy".

Comment by William in Nashua on December 9, 2011 at 12:15pm

proud dad my son scored 99th percentile on the AFQT too but they also have the line scores that are not part of the AFQT, including electronics knowledge (EI) and another is general science (GS) and another is mechanical comprehension (MC), but those scores determine whether or not a person qualifies for nuclear field or not, and I also believe determines which rating you qualify for.  This is how some people can score a 99 but still not make nuke at all.  It is also possible to qualify as nuke for a mechanical rating but not an electronic/electrian rating, and vice-versa.

The formula for AFQT score (which your scored 99th percentile  in ) is 

AR + MK + (2 x VE) where VE = PC + WK.

[VE is called the "verbal" score for short.  The other abbreviations are:

• Word Knowledge (WK)
• Arithmetic Reasoning (AR)
• Mathematics Knowledge (MK)
• Paragraph Comprehension (PC)

]

However to auto qualify for nuclear field you have to satisfy at least one of these formulas:

VE+AR+MK+MC = 252

AR+MK+EI+GS = 252 

One way to get into the nuclear field is to have a high AFQT score plus  good mechanical comprehension score (MC) which is the first formula, but that first formula does not look at electronics or science aptitude at all.  I think people who enter nuclear field by that route along would be destined to become MM's.

The  second formula to qualify requires high electronics information (EI) and general science (GS) scores.  Notice that the second formula does not even consider a person's verbal score, even though to pass  AFQT in the 99th percentile you would  need a very high VE score anyway.  The second formula does not care if you are mechanically inclined either.  I think people who qualify nuke under the second formula and score very high on EI and GS are going to get ET if they want it or else EM.    Notice if a person gets offered ET or EM but not MM, and lets them decide, it would seem they must have passed formula #2.

Why else would they have a second formula that looks at science and electronics knowledge, but disregards mechanical knowledge?  With maybe the ones who score highest in electronics information getting the nod for ET if they want it or as a tie breaker between the ET and EM ratings.  The only time it is really a crap shoot is when a person qualifies for nuke using BOTH formula #1 and #2.

So yes it is the needs of the Navy but I am convinced that to fulfill the needs of the Navy,  NR are looking at your test scores as well as your preference, otherwise it would be silly for the Navy to have one qualifying formula for nuke that biases towards mechanical and a different formula that looks at electronics.

My son had auto qualified under both formulas which MEPS found interesting and he said he would be fine with whatever rating they selected him for but his preference was ET because he had built electronics projects before and like soldering little component onto circuit boards LOL. It was a kind of interesting side note because a week later after he had already qualified they called his recruiter and brought him back to MEPS to take the NAPT exam as part of a "control group" (his original scores did not require the NAPT).

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• …
• 120
• 121
• 122
• 123
• 124
• …
• 229
• Next ›
• Page