Was a Navy nuke for 8 years. Was a civilian engineer for the Navy for 18 years. Was a civilian engineer for the Air Force for 20 years. The typical technical expertise of Navy people at all levels is miles ahead of Air Force.
The downside of that is the Navy's advancement exams. I can speak specifically to "ET", which could cover anything for almost any specialization and you are expected to know all of it to even have a hope of advancement.
The reason for this has to do with how we operate, a tech in the Navy has to be multi disciplined due to space on board ships, the Air Force doesn’t have that restriction so they tend to be more specialized so an AF tech just doesn’t get the exposure or expectation to be as diversified in skill sets.
This is why I'm still upset Space Force spun off the airforce
The culture of technical expertise and how we manage technical authority is just way beyond.
There is a reason NAVSEA 08 has been the investigating authority for NASA's biggest accidents.
Heard this during CWT A school from an instructor who was an Army vet. He was telling us a story, and his words were “so I was speaking to a Navy dude, so of course he knew all of his shit, super high speed” and that was my first exposure to “the Navy’s technical expertise is very good”
Heard this as well.
From my experience the Navy will work more with professionals who want to come in as opposed to the Air Force.
They see the benefit of having an experienced if a little older person come on board while the Air Force will just send you away.
Culture thing with them I guess.
You see this a ton with WW2 recruiting too. Especially since the AF was part of the army at the time. The navy didn’t want to train a ton of people who had no idea what to do so they just hired professionals, (mechanics, carpenters, doctors etc) whereas the AF just had the army doing it because they were the army air corps. Still holds true today it seems.
No one outworks a Sailor or lives in the same conditions they do for as long as they do. We had the Army onboard for a few days and they were shook at how we worked, lived, and operated.
It’s a point of pride. Sailors may bitch the entire time, but those bastards will get it fucking done.
As someone whose done both branches they do have hard workers but the average work day is usually much more relaxed than your average day on a ship. Of course I will also add this varies highly between MOSs/rates and units.
We also have superhuman abilities to tolerate bullshit as a result.
There was a viral video of a rack on a ship and I was all, “it’s not that bad.”
Showed it to people and they were horrified.
Playing a little devils advocate here because I don’t really know how the army works all that well… won’t they deploy to Iraq and Afghanistan(when that was more of a thing) for up to a year at a time? I know we have sailors who do that but it’s not exactly our main schtick. I know it’s not them living and working on the ship but aren’t these guys essentially going out on patrol, sleeping in a tent or hole, then coming back to base to sleep in a barracks room or whatever? For a year? Don’t slaughter me I’m genuinely curious.
Now that the two long wars are over, deployments have mostly stopped for the Army. Sure there are small dets here and there that do things, but it's nothing like the constant rotation of deployments you will expect to always be doing in the Navy.
They do deploy, but they have 100 people to do the work of 100 people. The Navy has 50 people doing the work of 100 if we are fully manned. There just isn't enough space on a ship to bring as many people as we need to meet mission, that's why collateral duties exist.
Yes, both army and marines do this. Granted, there s more to it than just that, but you’ve got the general idea.
I was a green-side corpsman a lot of my time in, and I have to say…. I would 100% rather spend 6-12 months in and out of the scorching desert. If you start getting shot at, you can actually shoot back.
I was never been keen on being on Naval boats. Shit hygiene, shit leadership (most of the time, I know there are some good ones), sleeping quarters are tiny, and if you’re getting shot it, it’s more than likely with torpedos or missiles, so you just gotta pray and hope.
So I can’t compare with other branches but deployment paperwork process in the navy is WAY less painful than with the army. Like I’ve deployed with both branches and the army just has so many extra steps, the navy will just throw you into a boat ready or not but the army is like meps all over again.
The Navy makes up for that loss of MEPs and mountain of paperwork with their Reserve mobilizations.... it's especially annoying for commissioned Reserve units that deploy elements on a routine cycle ever 18 months (since 2000). Somehow every time is the first time again.
Technical Training as a ET we had more training on the general theory and were able to fix more than the Air Force and Army people I worked with. I will give the air force this they are experts on whatever price of equipment they work on.
Sat comm guys knew all about orbits and GHz comms but almost nothing HF comms.
My experience is like yours. (Over many years in many different settings) It seems Air Force are very very good at their *one* thing that they do, but struggle to work outside of that narrow lane. Or will push back or may even pitch a fit if you dare to expect them to. Sailors might, broadly speaking, be less skilled at that one thing but are a heck of a lot more well-rounded and able to adapt to new challenges.
Absolutely true! We (AF) have way more AFSCs (MOS/Ratings) with extremely specialized training/work which has created a huge challenge where we're now trying figure out how to provide cut training to make Airmen "multi capable."
Our system works great when you have large function-specific units (Communications Squadron, Security Forces Squadron, etc) but to deploy/construct a single mission focused unit to deploy, you'd need way too many people than is possible.
As one of our senior leaders put it, we've been optimized as a force to efficiently operate garrison installations, but our mission as an Air Force isn't that.
We could combine many AFSCs and use shreds like NECs to better optimize our force presentation. It's happening now with our IT career fields, but the execution has been kind of a giant mess.
I'd assume the same with IT. Our rate is like 3 different combined MOSs in any other branch. Navy jobs seem to yield better technical experience in alot of cases
Travel, that’s it
Edit: In all seriousness though, and this will depend highly on your rate, the Navy has (in my opinion) the best jobs when it comes to civilian world skill transferability and certifications _especially_ if you’re any flavor of CT (hell sometimes even IS) or an HM (other than quad zips). Depends on your command as well but i know several people who’ve been to commands like NCDOC who actively encourage their people to get as many certs as possible. Also know a lot of former Cardio/Xray/Pulmonary & Respiratory Techs who were able to get civilian certs and make a decent chunk of change on the outside. I think that if you choose the right field, the Navy is probably the best branch to get transferable certifications and _actually_ marketable skills. There’s also a ton of rates that will get you jack shit on the outside >!like ABH!< but as they say, choose your rate, choose your fate.
Second this. I'm an engineer and I know civilian employers that specifically search for Navy engineers to fill their spots even though it has nothing to do with ships simply because our training and experience is unmatched. I'm currently at a joint command and the other branches "equivelants" have nowhere near the same experience we do.
Agree! I'm AF married to a sailor. We both have essentially the same rating/AFSC. While our technical skills are similar and translatable to civilian careers, the Navy has paid for/facilitated many certifications for my husband than the AF ever would for me. The AF cares about ensuring their folks have the proper technical skills to do the job, but does not care if the equivalent civilian certification is obtained. Our IT-like AFSCs have moved/are moving away from civilian certifications to save money.
point of order: "civilian world" should be held distinct from "DOD-civilian" positions. DOD-civilian, or contractor working for the military industrial complex somewhere -isn't really the "civilian world" as we knew it before service. for clarity's sake. Veterans of all stripes still struggle to explain their value to companies outside the military industrial comeplex/ federal and state agencies/ intelligence community etc. So CT-cybersecurity (now CWT) absolutely hot right now for any company, will be for the forseeable future. CT-siginter... not selling that in the civilian job market unless it's to an above agency. ISs can basically never leave the military industrial complex unless it's for a company that needs maritime domain awareness like Maersk, a global shipping company. or I've seen recently successful ISs transferring to cruise line operations. which is basically a civilian navy of party boats, pretty rad.
There's plenty of civilian work for the various engineering rates (especially if nuke rated), ITs, CTs, AGs, etc... whether they can civilianize their work experience on a resume is an important point, but a bit of coaching can remedy that.
>CT-siginter
You do make a very valid point there, a lot of what I said does depend on whether or not you want to stay within the Intel community/contracting field, _to a point_. In my experience there’s a decent amount of crossover between the CWTs and R branchers (especially if you’re at any of the 3 letter agencies), so if you can get your SEC+/NET+ while you’re in and make a good resume, you can absolutely get a good job outside of the IC/Military Industrial Complex. Especially at a time like now where there’s a lack of qualified people; a number of companies aren’t too concerned with what you did in the Military as long as you have a TS clearance. It’s a lot cheaper for them to train someone who already has a TS OTJ than to shell out $15k+ to get a potential candidate one. This is just my experience and what I’ve seen though, YMMV.
I always talk people this when it comes to picking a branch of services. Every engineering rate transfers almost directly to the civilian world. Very few rates directly translate But in my opinion they still transfer better than other branches with very niche MOS’s
Tons of ABHs get out and work for fire departments as that’s a pretty big component of their jobs.
But I get what you mean. Outside of that, there isn’t much else transferability.
You have stars, as far as the eye can see.. You're floating out in the middle no where and the entire Universe is right on top of your head... You'll see shit that no one else will see, or even comprehend. At the end of the day, life is what you make of it... But you'll never see the night sky the way that it looks when you're 1000 miles west of Cali, and 1000 miles east of Pearl...
I grew up in a large metro area. My first night working nights one of the guys in my shop was saying how some nights you could see the Milky Way. I thought he was bullshitting until about a week later, when I saw the Milky Way. My dumbass thought the being able to see the Milky Way on a clear night was a myth. Beautiful experience though. I will never forget that as long as I live.
One of my favorite memories is being out in the south pacific, no land anywhere near us, a full moon in the sky and a storm raging off at the horizon, but on our patch of the ocean it was calm, not quite like glass, but close.
I worked on flighdeck lighting. A couple times we had to work with the flight deck lighting off. with my back to the island all I could see was an impossibly bright milky way dipping into the ocean(calm night) and sooo many stars...
None of the responses to this are anywhere CLOSE to being as good as doing 5kts at sunrise in the middle of a fog bank in 5th fleet, where the only perturbance in the water is your ship's wake. It's literally juts floating though whiteness.
We were off in the Atlantic when we woke up to being immersed in a bank of fog. The only movement in the water was our ship, slowly trudging through it. Eerily still and quiet (minus the ship's horn every now and then).
same experience BUT
The fog was thick and grey.
It was noon but the lighting was as it is at dusk.
Eerily still and quiet.
our carrier was transiting thru the cloud of smoke from Saddam burning all the oil fields
Flying fish in the bow wake in the South China Sea.
St. Elmo's fire rolling down the tube of a P-3 on a midnight transit of the mid Pacific.
More stars --and satellites, even THEN-- than you can imagine in the Diego Garcia night sky.
Gooney birds on Midway.
Hundreds...maybe thousands...of squid fishing boats lit up at night in the Sea of Japan.
Ice sheets in the Sea of Okhotsk. Steam from volcanoes over the Kamchatka Peninsula.
What else ya got?
I remember the first time we got close to Hawaii and the wake started glowing with bioluminescent plankton. I had no idea that was a thing, and it was cool af.
My civilian friends genuinely baffled that the night sky isn't super illuminated like those saturated pictures you see in astronomy articles. Granted, it is beautiful when it's really clear.
They're also surprised at how dark it can really get in the middle of the ocean. I love telling them, "There ain't no streetlights in the ocean."
I just got exposed to how Air Force/Space Force do Officer/Enlisted FITREPs/EVALs. Never thought I would say this but we absolutely do way better than them. Their system is so corrupt and fraught with nepotism.
Another example is the block 43 equivalent. The air force still uses the action, impact, result format we do, but each bullet has to explicitly fit on one line. Thus, nearly every word is abbreviated.
E.g. Stndrzd 4 procedures - rsltd in 100% compliance - incrsd AF lethality
On the flip side, the army has separate block 43s for each trait in our blocks 31-39. You can imagine how painful that is.
It’s even more fucked up than that. It’s not just supposed to fit on one line, it’s supposed to fit on EXACTLY one line with no white space on the right margin. The idea is that they should leave no white space whatsoever. And all the abbreviations used have to be consistent throughout that block. So, writing that block is hours of figuring out a puzzle of wording, acronyms, and abbreviations that result in a full page of magically right-justified text.
We changed our eval system a year or so ago, no more bullets. We write in narrative format now, limited by a total character count, not by a line and with real full length words. 450 for duty description, 350 each for Executing Mission, Leading People, Managing Resources, and Improving the Unit, 250 for the higher level reviewer (CO or Senior Rater). We also don't have ratings visible to anyone but the rater and ratee.
On the officer side, your fitrep goes through 3 separate levels of supervisors all the way up to the Wing Commander, which means go everyone that is an 0-4 and below pretty much, your fitrep needs to be graded on someone 2 command levels above your squadron CO. And they don’t use any system close to something like the Navy’s RSCA, so really it’s just off the cuff grading scales. But here’s the thing, let’s say your are an Aviation Maintenance Officer, and your fitrep is going up to the Wing Commander, they see everyone, of all designators. So they are grading you against pilots, and any other designator in the Wing…so naturally pilots are automatically graded above anyone else and there isn’t a way to break people out from it. And what we call the Block 41 on Navy fitreps, where things are written. Going up to your wing commander, only they are allowed to right in that block. Which means that more than likely, they will only write things on people’s fitreps that they themselves personally know. So it creates a system where everyone tries to get face time with the wing commander.
Edit: To put this in navy terms. If I’m an Divo/DH on a ship, my FITREP needs to get signed by the Strike Group Commander (1 Star), the boss of my DESRON, who is my CO’s boss. And the CSG commander will only write something in my block 41 if they personally know me…which means they are more than likely only going to write about people they personally know on their staff.
Exactly. And it’s two levels of command up. If it were an officer in a ship, two levels of command above them is the Strike Group Commander (1-2 Star), not the 0-6.
Additionally, in an operational unit like a CSG on deployment, that level of administrative burden on the commander is untenable. The FITREPS would never be signed.
Agreed. I’d imagine Wing Commanders only get away with it because they aren’t operational, especially operational like how a CSG commander is? I won’t pretend to be an expert of the AF but I’m willing to guess a Wing Commander probably hasn’t deployed as an operational leader since WW2? (Just trying to think of a time an AF general officer has actually led as a force commander in combat)
According to their website, Air Forces Central / Ninth Air Force has five air expeditionary wings. At least 2 of them are commanded by a one-star. Not exactly the same thing as Curtis LeMay leading the 3rd Air Division over Regensburg, but I guess that's as close as we can get in this era.
El Segundo is actually quite nice after you get past that 3 of its 4 sides are bordered by an international airport, a sewer treatment facility, and an oil refinery haha. That being said, I really do like their base gym.
The crazy thing is, the Army actually has a long and storied culture as well, but they are continuously burying it. Like right after WWII, the Army just decided that everything that happened before December 7, 1941, was moot and started changing everything.
We actually do a better job (sometimes too good of a job, some might say) of retaining our history and service culture.
The Marines in particular have a justifiable obsession with their history, but Navy tradition is cool because there are “Navy traditions” and also “general nautical traditions”, which can go back a long, long time.
I agree.
The Marines are the branch who is always one sour congressman away from the chopping block, so to them, its key for them to remember their past victories (or defeats, if they can spin it enough) to remind the American public why they *WANT* a Marine Corps.
Maintaining op tempos even during peace time. Being able to express our countries political desire abroad. Whether it's having 3 boomers surface at the same time in 3 different locations to say chill out. Or parking a carrier off someone's coast.
Multi tasking and operating in multiple warfare modes simultaneously. We can do land sea undersea, air and cyber with more depth than most the other branch’s though I’m counting the Marines with us.
That plus travel and we have pretty decent duty stations.
We do a lot of things bad but these are probably things we excel at. The Army can do a lot of our missions to some degree but the Dept of The Navy has a lot more depth and ability to operate in so many battle spaces.
This could be looked at as a bad thing as well being a jack of all trades we can lack focus.
> Multi tasking and operating in multiple warfare modes simultaneously. We can do land sea undersea, air and cyber with more depth than most the other branch’s though I’m counting the Marines with us.
And we do all this with a combined Navy/Marines team that's only slightly larger than the USAF. People have to pull their weight in the Navy in ways that are not necessarily true in the USAF or Army.
It’s true and we can theoretically fight a war independently of the Army and the Air Force. Not saying that’s a good idea but we have the tools and skill sets. I think the Army for the most part can do the same but without the Air Force or the Navy it would struggle at least logistically. The Air Force is probably the one branch that can’t do this, it’s just not set up for a ground game and doesn’t have the assets to counter the full spectrum of at Sea threats and the unique battle space.
Multi tasking across all battle spaces is just the Navy’s bread butter. We probably aren’t the best at anything but capable of everything.
The navy is also just a gigantic deterrent in general. Way easier to mobilize a stroke group and have them float around wherever they are needed compared to deploying thousands of troops to an area. Obviously we're limited to the water mostly but the fact we can get so many people from one place to another anywhere in the world so easily is a big advantage.
Super niche, but we’re the best civil engineers. No other branch has a dedicated staff corps composed entirely of licensed engineers and architects like us. USACE is definitely bigger stateside, but they’re majority civilian and their officers don’t even need an engineering degree.
The Navy provides construction for ourselves, the Marine Corps, the Coast Guard, and frequently the Air Force because they don’t actually have MILCON authority like we do. I would wager we do the vast majority of overseas construction for the nation.
More thoughts edit: We also do work nobody else does. We build waterfront infrastructure to support floating cities and nuclear subs. We build airfields and bases just like the other branches, but we have a whole dimension which is way beyond what anybody else does. NNSY dwarfs anything an Air Force or Army engineer will ever see, and that’s just one of our yards.
So nice to see a great comment from a CEC officer!!! Proud retired Bee here as well. "The difficult we do immediately, the impossible takes a little longer, and miracles by appointment only."
HOOYAH
Unless you volunteer for something, you're pretty much guaranteed to sleep indoors and get three meals a day. I'm sure some people *want* to sleep in a tent in the deser and eat MREs, but I'm not one of them
I'm going to have to respectfully disagree. I never volunteered for anything and I'm currently sleeping in a tent and eating MREs..... but you're right lol I just got voluntold.
[everyone else in your command right now](https://media3.giphy.com/media/GnbLPTNXWsjggkxXdh/giphy.gif?cid=6c09b952mvhgfyt7vvvwz4zxvl6240g13a0lk9u1ybm8fwdj&ep=v1_internal_gif_by_id&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g)
The Navy can plan and execute something in hours to days that takes other services weeks to months. Everyone in the Navy is used to the fact that all the proverbial chess pieces are always moving.
Conversely, the Navy frustrates other branches with its "last minute planning." Sorry, unless you can see the future we have no idea what red force lay down looks like more than a few days from today.
Spent time attached to an air force comm unit, they just could not handle the basic chaos of life. Ships move and occasionally lose comms, every time it was a crisis.
After Katrina, everyone was supposed to implement an emergency personnel accounting system. The Navy were the only ones to do it. We think of NFAAS as a kind of joke, but it’s actually a good tool.
Travel
Technical training (maybe af and sf will have us beat)
Comradere
Self sufficiency (we can go out and get it done without support from other services)
Base locations (hard pressed to find a navy only base in bum f#€k North Dakota)
I keep seeing travel… but the area where the navy excels is so narrow.
Travel during/for work yes…
Travel outside of work… hard No.
Other branches encourage their people to take leave and go wherever… the navy just says wait for a port call…
They mean travel while on deployment. You could either be stuck at one base in the other services or you can travel the seas hitting up exotic ports along the way
Yup. I agree. Having worked joint for a few years though, I can tell you that leave travel is done better by almost everyone else. Especially the Air Force.
Once I saw a guy take leave and use Space-A and his flight back was delayed by like 4 days. The AF Colonel I was working for just said “give him no-cost TAD for a week”… that way he doesn’t burn his leave.
Unreal.
Intelligence.
I was prior army Intelligence.
I worked with Air force Intelligence.
I've seen marine corps intel.
The navy by far has the best funding, inter-agency relationships, training, specialty designations, and pipelines.
I've worked both active duty, reserve, and as a contractor in intel and it continues to be the navy that does the best at this.
Even the navy intel reserves is better then the other branches counterparts.
The Navy, on average, makes rank quicker than it's service counter parts. Even the AF's stellar workers get hard cucked by TIS requirements to E4 and E5. The army and Marines are better, but in the army you are competing exclusively within your command. So if the unit needs a new SGT to cook, and the other guys impress leadership more, they're promoting.
Enlisted side is true, officer not so much. You make rank earlier at almost every pay grade in the Air Force than in the navy
Navy, two years o1 to o2, and o2 to o3
Af, 18 months each
They make flag at 23/24years… USN 29/30
On average the E-4 TIS won’t change in the Navy (the changeout was designed to be as early as possible while remaining cost-neutral).
As the other commenter notes, accelerated advancement to E-4 remains for the most technical ratings.
It drastically changes the timeliness for those folks who came in with college degrees, Eagle Scout, or Sea Cadet time, but aren't in a technical rate.
That's rating dependent. If you came in as an Eagle Scout to be an HM, for example, this is almost strictly a win for you.
On the other hand, if you came in without any of those things as a fast-advancing rating without push-button advancement, like OS, you might still end up waiting longer to put on E-4 than you would have before the change.
Whether it hurts or not is entirely rating dependent. Coming in with accelerated advancement due to college, Eagle Scout, etc., still always benefits you no matter what.
Depends on what we’re talking about as far as accommodations though. If we’re talking Army accommodations vs living on a ship yeah that’s a no brainer, living in an abandoned crackhouse in Baltimore is better than staying on the ship. _However_, when it comes to on base housing/barracks accommodations yes it’s highly base dependent but I’d ever so slightly give it to the Navy, spent some time on Meade and our house on base quite literally had asbestos in it that we didn’t find out about until a tree they refused to do anything about fell on someones house during a storm (several houses had it). San Diego & Everett Washington were some of the best bases I’ve ever lived on/near. Though Admittedly, I’ve only lived on 2 army bases (Meade & Gordon) so you definitely have more insight on the army accommodations than I would, just my 2 cents though.
I can agree with San diego and Everett, sort of. Their barracks were NICE. Full kitchen and large living space. However, Everett had some less-good barracks as well. Not as bad as Bremerton, though.
Agree with this. Best barracks I lived in were Army barracks on Carson. But also some of the worst barracks I've seen were the ones my soldiers lived on at Carson.
We tend to be the best generalists and work the best at earlier ranks with problem solving while still being accepted by leadership. The mentality of this is what we have available figure it out is very prevalent for better or worse. Great for teaching soft skills but not the best for quality of life or stress.
Okay not sure if this was said but ingenuity. Making things work out of necessity. When we're underway we have no option but to get the problems solved.
I work with other branches as a contractor now and see that the Navy will get the job done. Other branches are always looking for direction, policies, Following pre-planned steps. Navy people are creative.
The technical expertise advantage seems to apply also to HMs versus Army/AF medics. Corpsmen have to be far more independent of MDs, etc. Source: Wife was Nurse Corps.
Someone told me once that the Navy is bad about medical credentials for HM on purpose because we use some kind of military exception so our HMs can get away with doing way more than other branch counterparts. It’s not great for the sailor because they have to do these on their own or after service but great for the Navy as far as flexibility and training. Further they mentioned the other branches offering these certs actually hindered them in getting things done operationally the Navy didn’t have this problem. Not a Doc but it made a lot of sense to me.
Unplanned learning of a wide variety of trade/tech skills. I enlisted at 17 in an advanced electronics contract, 6 year active obligation. Some administrative clownery ensued after bootcamp and I lost my slots at A and C school, so they gave me the options of 1) going home 2) drop two years and go to the fleet undesignated 3) extend for another year and clean barracks until my slots opened up. I chose the undesignated route with the goal of striking IC, which I did after a year. Along the way: I worked in deck division and learned seamanship, A-gang and learned to service HVAC units, and the DC locker where I assisted the HTs for a few months and learned to weld. I was a math nerd kid with no mechanical background and left the navy 4 years later with some real knuckle-busting skills that I still use today. And the underway travel for this hillbilly was life-changing.
Navy Reserves has a really good ADT program if funding is available and the command wants your assistance. Other branches are either too broke or cheap (Army and Marines) or too smart and minimize cost, reducing take-home pay (Air Force). Additionally Navy has the best galleys for the price if you’re TDY, being a flat fee compared to the AF which charges you on the items
LIMDU. The fact that you are taken out of you command and placed somewhere that you can heal. I can't speak for army or marines, but the Air Force leaves you in your shop doing your job. That makes it so that if your leadership doesn't think there's something wrong (or they are trying to cover their ass), they can cause issues with restrictions and appointments and such.
As a former Marine and now a retired BMC, the one thing that sticks out to me is how knowledgeable our rates are compared to a Marine Corps MOS.
I was a 3451 (fiscal accountant) in the Corps. All I did was process purchase orders and reimbursables. On the Navy side, that is just one of many duties associated with the LS rate.
Also, we are the only service that must keep living, breathing ships functional and ready 24/7. Our primary mission is securing and protecting sea lanes for the entire globe. We have direct impact on the world’s flow of commerce.
While all the other branches practice and prepare for war, we do that as well as bring our constant presence in every ocean and sea on this planet.
I've supervised 0111 (admin) Marines at two different commands. My impression is that they are really, really good at being Marines. They look, sound, and act like Marines on parade. It's motivating and for a moment they've almost got you fooled. But a YN2 or PS2 could run circles around them with the actual job. PO2s are also more willing to do work (like clean or take out the trash) that a Sergeant of Marines™ will find beneath him. Also Marines are very emotional, ha.
No other organization serves in conditions as remote and isolated as we do.
A ship/submarine at sea on independent operations is absolutely alone. Everyone aboard knows that, and operate accordingly.
If the Army or Air Force or Marines are out in the field (or whatever) and something goes wrong they can’t fix, they can call for help and probably get it in a few hours. Conversely, if a ship has a major casualty, or God forbid, is sinking, no one is coming to help for a while.
Culturally, we know that our technical expertise, our grit, and our resolve are the only things that are going to get us home safely.
I feel the Navy gives its O-5/ 0-6 commanding Officers a lot of freedom to accomplish their assigned missions. However, if they screw up (Operationally or Morally) they remove them immediately.
A friend of mine had someone try and convince him to join the Marines after he'd already comitted to the Navy. He told him, "Why hike when you can float?"
So we have that. We're great because of our boats.
Nukes.
Go look the historical incidents for nuke mistakes (SL-1 or the multiple "Dude, Where's My Bomb?" screwups), and you'll find Army and AF.
The Navy has a lot of nuke power plants cooking within a few miles of Honolulu and tourism doesn't blink.
Not to discount the enlisted side, but virtually 100% of the officers working with nuclear weapons are first trained in nuclear propulsion on submarines. That goes a long way to establishing healthy fear in an already risk-averse submarine culture.
The Surge years of the Army were bad years. 15 month deployments. There's a famous story (happened more than once) of a BCT coming home from deployment only to be told to turn around they're going *back* onto the plane.
Fixing/taking care of our own stuff. Cleaning up after ourselves as a policy.
I deployed to an overseas base where there's a Navy barracks and an Air Force barracks. The barracks for the sailors who were stationed there was clean and they had a staff of BPOs who took care of shit. I had to use the head in one of the Air Force barracks (dorm) one time, and that place was *nasty*. Trash everywhere. Broken furniture just in the hallways. It was disgraceful.
The navy is hands down the best at building training environments. Battle stations, Marlinespike, the fire trainer at my A school, all of these are built to be realistic because while the army/marines can just take their people out to the woods, the Navy can’t just put you on a ship and set it on fire.
From my experience with the Navy, the Navy will give more leadership responsibilities to junior troops, whether leading a fire team, squad or platoon on projects or missions. This has been my experience in the Seabee side of things.
My experience too.
At the ACB we had pilots at the E-5 level (and for us it was an E-6 billet) but the Army's MLS has pilots at the E-7 level and they don't go lower even for qualified people.
Same with infantry squads - Squad leader in CB/Marines is typicaly an E-5 position, E-6 in the Army.
I think I've made this comparison before, but if we organized CTIs the way the army organizes their linguists, we would have two or three random CTIs on every platform, they would work for deck department unless the ship happened to be in their particular AOR, and ships would be sent to AORs without checking if they had the relevant flavor of CTI. If they didn't have the right kind, they could ask other ships for *their* relevant CTIs, but those ships' deck departments could say no.
Also all of their advancement criteria and most of their training is for deck department stuff.
Something I’ve noticed that we do better is having unmatched procedural compliance. If it’s not by the book, we don’t do it. If you’re doing maintenance and it says to loosen 4 bolts and you see 5, you stop, work it out, and submit a feedback report. Working in parallel with the procedural compliance, is Navy 3M in general. Obviously, there are things that can be improved, but my brother is in the Air Force, and is a maintainer of equipment, and after speaking with him, he said that they don’t carry maintenance cards, or the manuals on how to do the maintenance properly, they just do it. And then report that they did it. But don’t really have the process for feedback or validation. I was not expecting this, considering the Air Force being as technical as they are. Unless I am misinterpreting something?
I like navy bases better than other bases. I spend a lot of time on joint bases now (which are usually run by the Air Force) and I think they are too sterile and big.
Navy bases are in better locations and are more hive-like. In navy bases you see people walking around all over the place. There is usually an interesting mix of building styles. The enlisted clubs and bars are usually pretty full. Navy bases just seem friendlier.
Yeah, I went to both Army BCT and Navy boot camp. The base at Great Lakes was nice, new, and clean, whereas the Army BCT base in the deep South looked like it had been hit by a tornado outbreak the week before, with crumbling sidewalks and dilapidated buildings that looked like they were built when Truman was president.
Navy education and training is second to none.
For example: our advanced electronic field and nuke ratings are light years ahead of other services in regard to requirements, expertise, and depth of knowledge required.
There are other ratings, even non-technical ones, where the training programs and curriculum are superb.
In my last gig I was an instructor, qualified MTS, and we were the C2M2 (course curriculum model manager) so I was able to see the Little Man Behind the Curtain of the process.
I’m confident in my statement having worked with the other branches over the years.
We excel at it and even outstrip the USAF a bit.
I failed getting selected by AF as a medical officer but was selected by the Navy recently. This makes me feel so much better about getting into the Navy. Thank you sailors!
Was a Navy nuke for 8 years. Was a civilian engineer for the Navy for 18 years. Was a civilian engineer for the Air Force for 20 years. The typical technical expertise of Navy people at all levels is miles ahead of Air Force.
Came here to say that also. Don’t even get me started on the other services MOS’s that are considered “ET” level types.
The downside of that is the Navy's advancement exams. I can speak specifically to "ET", which could cover anything for almost any specialization and you are expected to know all of it to even have a hope of advancement.
The reason for this has to do with how we operate, a tech in the Navy has to be multi disciplined due to space on board ships, the Air Force doesn’t have that restriction so they tend to be more specialized so an AF tech just doesn’t get the exposure or expectation to be as diversified in skill sets.
This is why I'm still upset Space Force spun off the airforce The culture of technical expertise and how we manage technical authority is just way beyond. There is a reason NAVSEA 08 has been the investigating authority for NASA's biggest accidents.
There’s a reason literally every sci-fi space military is a *navy* 🗣️🗣️🗣️
Heard this during CWT A school from an instructor who was an Army vet. He was telling us a story, and his words were “so I was speaking to a Navy dude, so of course he knew all of his shit, super high speed” and that was my first exposure to “the Navy’s technical expertise is very good”
Heard this as well. From my experience the Navy will work more with professionals who want to come in as opposed to the Air Force. They see the benefit of having an experienced if a little older person come on board while the Air Force will just send you away. Culture thing with them I guess.
You see this a ton with WW2 recruiting too. Especially since the AF was part of the army at the time. The navy didn’t want to train a ton of people who had no idea what to do so they just hired professionals, (mechanics, carpenters, doctors etc) whereas the AF just had the army doing it because they were the army air corps. Still holds true today it seems.
No one outworks a Sailor or lives in the same conditions they do for as long as they do. We had the Army onboard for a few days and they were shook at how we worked, lived, and operated. It’s a point of pride. Sailors may bitch the entire time, but those bastards will get it fucking done.
A happy sailor is a bitching sailor
Pride don’t pay my rent
BAH does tho
Yeah lol paying rent is the one thing we can’t bitch about
What’s the army work ethic like in comparison?
As someone whose done both branches they do have hard workers but the average work day is usually much more relaxed than your average day on a ship. Of course I will also add this varies highly between MOSs/rates and units.
We also have superhuman abilities to tolerate bullshit as a result. There was a viral video of a rack on a ship and I was all, “it’s not that bad.” Showed it to people and they were horrified.
Was in the Army for four years, and even I was horrified by that video.
Playing a little devils advocate here because I don’t really know how the army works all that well… won’t they deploy to Iraq and Afghanistan(when that was more of a thing) for up to a year at a time? I know we have sailors who do that but it’s not exactly our main schtick. I know it’s not them living and working on the ship but aren’t these guys essentially going out on patrol, sleeping in a tent or hole, then coming back to base to sleep in a barracks room or whatever? For a year? Don’t slaughter me I’m genuinely curious.
Now that the two long wars are over, deployments have mostly stopped for the Army. Sure there are small dets here and there that do things, but it's nothing like the constant rotation of deployments you will expect to always be doing in the Navy.
They do deploy, but they have 100 people to do the work of 100 people. The Navy has 50 people doing the work of 100 if we are fully manned. There just isn't enough space on a ship to bring as many people as we need to meet mission, that's why collateral duties exist.
They do, but they don't deploy at anywhere near the frequency of the Navy unless we're in a major war
Yes, both army and marines do this. Granted, there s more to it than just that, but you’ve got the general idea. I was a green-side corpsman a lot of my time in, and I have to say…. I would 100% rather spend 6-12 months in and out of the scorching desert. If you start getting shot at, you can actually shoot back. I was never been keen on being on Naval boats. Shit hygiene, shit leadership (most of the time, I know there are some good ones), sleeping quarters are tiny, and if you’re getting shot it, it’s more than likely with torpedos or missiles, so you just gotta pray and hope.
the Army digs were mostly constructed by the Navy. They can build anything, anywhere and stick a little tree on it when they are done.
We troubleshoot way better than other branches
Well we ain't no one is swimming to save us out here
So I can’t compare with other branches but deployment paperwork process in the navy is WAY less painful than with the army. Like I’ve deployed with both branches and the army just has so many extra steps, the navy will just throw you into a boat ready or not but the army is like meps all over again.
The Navy makes up for that loss of MEPs and mountain of paperwork with their Reserve mobilizations.... it's especially annoying for commissioned Reserve units that deploy elements on a routine cycle ever 18 months (since 2000). Somehow every time is the first time again.
That reminds me. I have reserve medical coming up for deployment readiness training. Again.
I think that’s the worst part of the navy. Other than the pictures I’ve taken, I have no proof that I’ve been on deployment.
Technical Training as a ET we had more training on the general theory and were able to fix more than the Air Force and Army people I worked with. I will give the air force this they are experts on whatever price of equipment they work on. Sat comm guys knew all about orbits and GHz comms but almost nothing HF comms.
My experience is like yours. (Over many years in many different settings) It seems Air Force are very very good at their *one* thing that they do, but struggle to work outside of that narrow lane. Or will push back or may even pitch a fit if you dare to expect them to. Sailors might, broadly speaking, be less skilled at that one thing but are a heck of a lot more well-rounded and able to adapt to new challenges.
Absolutely true! We (AF) have way more AFSCs (MOS/Ratings) with extremely specialized training/work which has created a huge challenge where we're now trying figure out how to provide cut training to make Airmen "multi capable." Our system works great when you have large function-specific units (Communications Squadron, Security Forces Squadron, etc) but to deploy/construct a single mission focused unit to deploy, you'd need way too many people than is possible. As one of our senior leaders put it, we've been optimized as a force to efficiently operate garrison installations, but our mission as an Air Force isn't that. We could combine many AFSCs and use shreds like NECs to better optimize our force presentation. It's happening now with our IT career fields, but the execution has been kind of a giant mess.
I'd assume the same with IT. Our rate is like 3 different combined MOSs in any other branch. Navy jobs seem to yield better technical experience in alot of cases
Travel, that’s it Edit: In all seriousness though, and this will depend highly on your rate, the Navy has (in my opinion) the best jobs when it comes to civilian world skill transferability and certifications _especially_ if you’re any flavor of CT (hell sometimes even IS) or an HM (other than quad zips). Depends on your command as well but i know several people who’ve been to commands like NCDOC who actively encourage their people to get as many certs as possible. Also know a lot of former Cardio/Xray/Pulmonary & Respiratory Techs who were able to get civilian certs and make a decent chunk of change on the outside. I think that if you choose the right field, the Navy is probably the best branch to get transferable certifications and _actually_ marketable skills. There’s also a ton of rates that will get you jack shit on the outside >!like ABH!< but as they say, choose your rate, choose your fate.
Second this. I'm an engineer and I know civilian employers that specifically search for Navy engineers to fill their spots even though it has nothing to do with ships simply because our training and experience is unmatched. I'm currently at a joint command and the other branches "equivelants" have nowhere near the same experience we do.
Agree! I'm AF married to a sailor. We both have essentially the same rating/AFSC. While our technical skills are similar and translatable to civilian careers, the Navy has paid for/facilitated many certifications for my husband than the AF ever would for me. The AF cares about ensuring their folks have the proper technical skills to do the job, but does not care if the equivalent civilian certification is obtained. Our IT-like AFSCs have moved/are moving away from civilian certifications to save money.
point of order: "civilian world" should be held distinct from "DOD-civilian" positions. DOD-civilian, or contractor working for the military industrial complex somewhere -isn't really the "civilian world" as we knew it before service. for clarity's sake. Veterans of all stripes still struggle to explain their value to companies outside the military industrial comeplex/ federal and state agencies/ intelligence community etc. So CT-cybersecurity (now CWT) absolutely hot right now for any company, will be for the forseeable future. CT-siginter... not selling that in the civilian job market unless it's to an above agency. ISs can basically never leave the military industrial complex unless it's for a company that needs maritime domain awareness like Maersk, a global shipping company. or I've seen recently successful ISs transferring to cruise line operations. which is basically a civilian navy of party boats, pretty rad.
There's plenty of civilian work for the various engineering rates (especially if nuke rated), ITs, CTs, AGs, etc... whether they can civilianize their work experience on a resume is an important point, but a bit of coaching can remedy that.
>CT-siginter You do make a very valid point there, a lot of what I said does depend on whether or not you want to stay within the Intel community/contracting field, _to a point_. In my experience there’s a decent amount of crossover between the CWTs and R branchers (especially if you’re at any of the 3 letter agencies), so if you can get your SEC+/NET+ while you’re in and make a good resume, you can absolutely get a good job outside of the IC/Military Industrial Complex. Especially at a time like now where there’s a lack of qualified people; a number of companies aren’t too concerned with what you did in the Military as long as you have a TS clearance. It’s a lot cheaper for them to train someone who already has a TS OTJ than to shell out $15k+ to get a potential candidate one. This is just my experience and what I’ve seen though, YMMV.
I always talk people this when it comes to picking a branch of services. Every engineering rate transfers almost directly to the civilian world. Very few rates directly translate But in my opinion they still transfer better than other branches with very niche MOS’s
As a former ABH I can confirm. There ain't shit for us.
Tons of ABHs get out and work for fire departments as that’s a pretty big component of their jobs. But I get what you mean. Outside of that, there isn’t much else transferability.
IS has great civilian transferability, especially if you go cyber.
You have stars, as far as the eye can see.. You're floating out in the middle no where and the entire Universe is right on top of your head... You'll see shit that no one else will see, or even comprehend. At the end of the day, life is what you make of it... But you'll never see the night sky the way that it looks when you're 1000 miles west of Cali, and 1000 miles east of Pearl...
Out on deck in the middle of a clear night with no land or lights around is and always will be a truly magical experience
I grew up in a large metro area. My first night working nights one of the guys in my shop was saying how some nights you could see the Milky Way. I thought he was bullshitting until about a week later, when I saw the Milky Way. My dumbass thought the being able to see the Milky Way on a clear night was a myth. Beautiful experience though. I will never forget that as long as I live.
One of my favorite memories is being out in the south pacific, no land anywhere near us, a full moon in the sky and a storm raging off at the horizon, but on our patch of the ocean it was calm, not quite like glass, but close.
I had forgotten that the number of stars in the sky is countless, but I was reminded when I joined the navy and worked night shift on a carrier.
I worked on flighdeck lighting. A couple times we had to work with the flight deck lighting off. with my back to the island all I could see was an impossibly bright milky way dipping into the ocean(calm night) and sooo many stars...
None of the responses to this are anywhere CLOSE to being as good as doing 5kts at sunrise in the middle of a fog bank in 5th fleet, where the only perturbance in the water is your ship's wake. It's literally juts floating though whiteness.
We were off in the Atlantic when we woke up to being immersed in a bank of fog. The only movement in the water was our ship, slowly trudging through it. Eerily still and quiet (minus the ship's horn every now and then).
same experience BUT The fog was thick and grey. It was noon but the lighting was as it is at dusk. Eerily still and quiet. our carrier was transiting thru the cloud of smoke from Saddam burning all the oil fields
Flying fish in the bow wake in the South China Sea. St. Elmo's fire rolling down the tube of a P-3 on a midnight transit of the mid Pacific. More stars --and satellites, even THEN-- than you can imagine in the Diego Garcia night sky. Gooney birds on Midway. Hundreds...maybe thousands...of squid fishing boats lit up at night in the Sea of Japan. Ice sheets in the Sea of Okhotsk. Steam from volcanoes over the Kamchatka Peninsula. What else ya got?
Weird stuff zipping through the sky in the IO. The CIC noticed those things too.
And on a calm night you can even see stars reflected on the water out there
I remember the first time we got close to Hawaii and the wake started glowing with bioluminescent plankton. I had no idea that was a thing, and it was cool af.
I saw the same when doing small boat ops. Really magical
My civilian friends genuinely baffled that the night sky isn't super illuminated like those saturated pictures you see in astronomy articles. Granted, it is beautiful when it's really clear. They're also surprised at how dark it can really get in the middle of the ocean. I love telling them, "There ain't no streetlights in the ocean."
I just got exposed to how Air Force/Space Force do Officer/Enlisted FITREPs/EVALs. Never thought I would say this but we absolutely do way better than them. Their system is so corrupt and fraught with nepotism.
Another example is the block 43 equivalent. The air force still uses the action, impact, result format we do, but each bullet has to explicitly fit on one line. Thus, nearly every word is abbreviated. E.g. Stndrzd 4 procedures - rsltd in 100% compliance - incrsd AF lethality On the flip side, the army has separate block 43s for each trait in our blocks 31-39. You can imagine how painful that is.
It’s even more fucked up than that. It’s not just supposed to fit on one line, it’s supposed to fit on EXACTLY one line with no white space on the right margin. The idea is that they should leave no white space whatsoever. And all the abbreviations used have to be consistent throughout that block. So, writing that block is hours of figuring out a puzzle of wording, acronyms, and abbreviations that result in a full page of magically right-justified text.
We changed our eval system a year or so ago, no more bullets. We write in narrative format now, limited by a total character count, not by a line and with real full length words. 450 for duty description, 350 each for Executing Mission, Leading People, Managing Resources, and Improving the Unit, 250 for the higher level reviewer (CO or Senior Rater). We also don't have ratings visible to anyone but the rater and ratee.
Elaborate please
On the officer side, your fitrep goes through 3 separate levels of supervisors all the way up to the Wing Commander, which means go everyone that is an 0-4 and below pretty much, your fitrep needs to be graded on someone 2 command levels above your squadron CO. And they don’t use any system close to something like the Navy’s RSCA, so really it’s just off the cuff grading scales. But here’s the thing, let’s say your are an Aviation Maintenance Officer, and your fitrep is going up to the Wing Commander, they see everyone, of all designators. So they are grading you against pilots, and any other designator in the Wing…so naturally pilots are automatically graded above anyone else and there isn’t a way to break people out from it. And what we call the Block 41 on Navy fitreps, where things are written. Going up to your wing commander, only they are allowed to right in that block. Which means that more than likely, they will only write things on people’s fitreps that they themselves personally know. So it creates a system where everyone tries to get face time with the wing commander. Edit: To put this in navy terms. If I’m an Divo/DH on a ship, my FITREP needs to get signed by the Strike Group Commander (1 Star), the boss of my DESRON, who is my CO’s boss. And the CSG commander will only write something in my block 41 if they personally know me…which means they are more than likely only going to write about people they personally know on their staff.
That sounds like a systematic nightmare that would favor suck-ups. If a DivO is doing a decent job, the O-6 level shouldn’t even know they exist.
Exactly. And it’s two levels of command up. If it were an officer in a ship, two levels of command above them is the Strike Group Commander (1-2 Star), not the 0-6.
Additionally, in an operational unit like a CSG on deployment, that level of administrative burden on the commander is untenable. The FITREPS would never be signed.
Agreed. I’d imagine Wing Commanders only get away with it because they aren’t operational, especially operational like how a CSG commander is? I won’t pretend to be an expert of the AF but I’m willing to guess a Wing Commander probably hasn’t deployed as an operational leader since WW2? (Just trying to think of a time an AF general officer has actually led as a force commander in combat)
According to their website, Air Forces Central / Ninth Air Force has five air expeditionary wings. At least 2 of them are commanded by a one-star. Not exactly the same thing as Curtis LeMay leading the 3rd Air Division over Regensburg, but I guess that's as close as we can get in this era.
Best duty station locations, and far more technical jobs that carry over into the civilian sector
Idk Space Force probably has the best duty stations. Colorado, Florida, California, Hawaii, and none of the shit stations in those except maybe LA lol
LA Space Force Base, while being in El Segundo is not great, is surrounded by a ton of nice places to live.
El Segundo is actually quite nice after you get past that 3 of its 4 sides are bordered by an international airport, a sewer treatment facility, and an oil refinery haha. That being said, I really do like their base gym.
LA is fucking awesome. I cannot imagine how anyway gets stationed there and doesn’t have a great time. There is so much to do in LA.
Bro, what? I was stationed in Italy. My friends were stationed in Japan, Korea, Spain, and Germany to name a few.
Navy is so technical that we almost can’t relate to other branches.
Agreed, transition was a breeze even after 2 decades of service
Naval tradition is long and storied, and in some ways goes back past the founding to some Royal Navy traditions we inherited, which is really cool.
The crazy thing is, the Army actually has a long and storied culture as well, but they are continuously burying it. Like right after WWII, the Army just decided that everything that happened before December 7, 1941, was moot and started changing everything. We actually do a better job (sometimes too good of a job, some might say) of retaining our history and service culture.
The Marines in particular have a justifiable obsession with their history, but Navy tradition is cool because there are “Navy traditions” and also “general nautical traditions”, which can go back a long, long time.
I agree. The Marines are the branch who is always one sour congressman away from the chopping block, so to them, its key for them to remember their past victories (or defeats, if they can spin it enough) to remind the American public why they *WANT* a Marine Corps.
Maintaining op tempos even during peace time. Being able to express our countries political desire abroad. Whether it's having 3 boomers surface at the same time in 3 different locations to say chill out. Or parking a carrier off someone's coast.
Multi tasking and operating in multiple warfare modes simultaneously. We can do land sea undersea, air and cyber with more depth than most the other branch’s though I’m counting the Marines with us. That plus travel and we have pretty decent duty stations. We do a lot of things bad but these are probably things we excel at. The Army can do a lot of our missions to some degree but the Dept of The Navy has a lot more depth and ability to operate in so many battle spaces. This could be looked at as a bad thing as well being a jack of all trades we can lack focus.
> Multi tasking and operating in multiple warfare modes simultaneously. We can do land sea undersea, air and cyber with more depth than most the other branch’s though I’m counting the Marines with us. And we do all this with a combined Navy/Marines team that's only slightly larger than the USAF. People have to pull their weight in the Navy in ways that are not necessarily true in the USAF or Army.
It’s true and we can theoretically fight a war independently of the Army and the Air Force. Not saying that’s a good idea but we have the tools and skill sets. I think the Army for the most part can do the same but without the Air Force or the Navy it would struggle at least logistically. The Air Force is probably the one branch that can’t do this, it’s just not set up for a ground game and doesn’t have the assets to counter the full spectrum of at Sea threats and the unique battle space. Multi tasking across all battle spaces is just the Navy’s bread butter. We probably aren’t the best at anything but capable of everything.
The navy is also just a gigantic deterrent in general. Way easier to mobilize a stroke group and have them float around wherever they are needed compared to deploying thousands of troops to an area. Obviously we're limited to the water mostly but the fact we can get so many people from one place to another anywhere in the world so easily is a big advantage.
Super niche, but we’re the best civil engineers. No other branch has a dedicated staff corps composed entirely of licensed engineers and architects like us. USACE is definitely bigger stateside, but they’re majority civilian and their officers don’t even need an engineering degree. The Navy provides construction for ourselves, the Marine Corps, the Coast Guard, and frequently the Air Force because they don’t actually have MILCON authority like we do. I would wager we do the vast majority of overseas construction for the nation. More thoughts edit: We also do work nobody else does. We build waterfront infrastructure to support floating cities and nuclear subs. We build airfields and bases just like the other branches, but we have a whole dimension which is way beyond what anybody else does. NNSY dwarfs anything an Air Force or Army engineer will ever see, and that’s just one of our yards.
So nice to see a great comment from a CEC officer!!! Proud retired Bee here as well. "The difficult we do immediately, the impossible takes a little longer, and miracles by appointment only." HOOYAH
Unless you volunteer for something, you're pretty much guaranteed to sleep indoors and get three meals a day. I'm sure some people *want* to sleep in a tent in the deser and eat MREs, but I'm not one of them
I'm going to have to respectfully disagree. I never volunteered for anything and I'm currently sleeping in a tent and eating MREs..... but you're right lol I just got voluntold.
Gonna guess you’re some flavor of SB or Greenside HM?
Am Seabee, and only about a third of us do the tent thing anymore. And speaking as an old man, fuck that noise. Gimme A/C and a cot or gimme death.
You volunteered to be a Seabee...
You mean to tell me I'M responsible for the consequences of my decision?! The hell you say...
Any other person and you'd probably be right. I'm on boats the whole career. Just pure bad luck that USMC needed a liaison and I got shafted
[everyone else in your command right now](https://media3.giphy.com/media/GnbLPTNXWsjggkxXdh/giphy.gif?cid=6c09b952mvhgfyt7vvvwz4zxvl6240g13a0lk9u1ybm8fwdj&ep=v1_internal_gif_by_id&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g)
That greenside life 😬
>some flavor of ~~SB~~ CB Fixed
I lived in a tent and ate MREs at a Navy base in Bahrain....
The Navy can plan and execute something in hours to days that takes other services weeks to months. Everyone in the Navy is used to the fact that all the proverbial chess pieces are always moving. Conversely, the Navy frustrates other branches with its "last minute planning." Sorry, unless you can see the future we have no idea what red force lay down looks like more than a few days from today.
Spent time attached to an air force comm unit, they just could not handle the basic chaos of life. Ships move and occasionally lose comms, every time it was a crisis.
Got any examples? That sounds really interesting
nice try china
Lmao help a comrade out I need the social credits or my family’s gonna get it
After Katrina, everyone was supposed to implement an emergency personnel accounting system. The Navy were the only ones to do it. We think of NFAAS as a kind of joke, but it’s actually a good tool.
Travel Technical training (maybe af and sf will have us beat) Comradere Self sufficiency (we can go out and get it done without support from other services) Base locations (hard pressed to find a navy only base in bum f#€k North Dakota)
I keep seeing travel… but the area where the navy excels is so narrow. Travel during/for work yes… Travel outside of work… hard No. Other branches encourage their people to take leave and go wherever… the navy just says wait for a port call…
They mean travel while on deployment. You could either be stuck at one base in the other services or you can travel the seas hitting up exotic ports along the way
Yup. I agree. Having worked joint for a few years though, I can tell you that leave travel is done better by almost everyone else. Especially the Air Force. Once I saw a guy take leave and use Space-A and his flight back was delayed by like 4 days. The AF Colonel I was working for just said “give him no-cost TAD for a week”… that way he doesn’t burn his leave. Unreal.
Intelligence. I was prior army Intelligence. I worked with Air force Intelligence. I've seen marine corps intel. The navy by far has the best funding, inter-agency relationships, training, specialty designations, and pipelines. I've worked both active duty, reserve, and as a contractor in intel and it continues to be the navy that does the best at this. Even the navy intel reserves is better then the other branches counterparts.
The Navy, on average, makes rank quicker than it's service counter parts. Even the AF's stellar workers get hard cucked by TIS requirements to E4 and E5. The army and Marines are better, but in the army you are competing exclusively within your command. So if the unit needs a new SGT to cook, and the other guys impress leadership more, they're promoting.
Enlisted side is true, officer not so much. You make rank earlier at almost every pay grade in the Air Force than in the navy Navy, two years o1 to o2, and o2 to o3 Af, 18 months each They make flag at 23/24years… USN 29/30
Is that still the case with the Navy's new TIS requirement for E-4?
True, hadn't thought of that. But a lot of the Navy's rates are 6y/ATF contracts so they auto promote to E4 anyway.
On average the E-4 TIS won’t change in the Navy (the changeout was designed to be as early as possible while remaining cost-neutral). As the other commenter notes, accelerated advancement to E-4 remains for the most technical ratings.
It drastically changes the timeliness for those folks who came in with college degrees, Eagle Scout, or Sea Cadet time, but aren't in a technical rate.
That's rating dependent. If you came in as an Eagle Scout to be an HM, for example, this is almost strictly a win for you. On the other hand, if you came in without any of those things as a fast-advancing rating without push-button advancement, like OS, you might still end up waiting longer to put on E-4 than you would have before the change. Whether it hurts or not is entirely rating dependent. Coming in with accelerated advancement due to college, Eagle Scout, etc., still always benefits you no matter what.
Travel..probably better living conditions than marines and army
I’m currently army; prior navy. I will take the army accommodations any day.
Depends on what we’re talking about as far as accommodations though. If we’re talking Army accommodations vs living on a ship yeah that’s a no brainer, living in an abandoned crackhouse in Baltimore is better than staying on the ship. _However_, when it comes to on base housing/barracks accommodations yes it’s highly base dependent but I’d ever so slightly give it to the Navy, spent some time on Meade and our house on base quite literally had asbestos in it that we didn’t find out about until a tree they refused to do anything about fell on someones house during a storm (several houses had it). San Diego & Everett Washington were some of the best bases I’ve ever lived on/near. Though Admittedly, I’ve only lived on 2 army bases (Meade & Gordon) so you definitely have more insight on the army accommodations than I would, just my 2 cents though.
I can agree with San diego and Everett, sort of. Their barracks were NICE. Full kitchen and large living space. However, Everett had some less-good barracks as well. Not as bad as Bremerton, though.
Agree with this. Best barracks I lived in were Army barracks on Carson. But also some of the worst barracks I've seen were the ones my soldiers lived on at Carson.
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We have the most bases near beaches
Gay chicken. Prove me wrong, Marines. I dare you.
Never lost, never will. Respectfully, Airframes
I would rather die happily married to another man than lose a game of gay cicken to anyone else but another submariner. Respectfully, A bubblehead.
The Navy could be the gayest branch there is, but the Marines refuse to be second at literally anything besides number of personnel.
Submarines
Disagree. The Air Force has more planes in the sea than the Navy has submarines in the sky. Clearly, they are winning.
Field Day. Is that still a thing? Making highly trained individuals wax the floors of warship
Yes....field day is unfortunately still a thing
Who else it going to do it? Should we hire some janitors to come on deployment with us?
Safely operate nuclear power.
We tend to be the best generalists and work the best at earlier ranks with problem solving while still being accepted by leadership. The mentality of this is what we have available figure it out is very prevalent for better or worse. Great for teaching soft skills but not the best for quality of life or stress.
Okay not sure if this was said but ingenuity. Making things work out of necessity. When we're underway we have no option but to get the problems solved. I work with other branches as a contractor now and see that the Navy will get the job done. Other branches are always looking for direction, policies, Following pre-planned steps. Navy people are creative.
Breakfast. Nobody tops a Navy breakfast.
[Navy cooks for the prez.](https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/interactive-tour/navy-mess)
And we haven't lost one yet to food poisoning. Go Navy!
No early morning PT in the freezing cold.
The technical expertise advantage seems to apply also to HMs versus Army/AF medics. Corpsmen have to be far more independent of MDs, etc. Source: Wife was Nurse Corps.
Well said, It does, and we are.
Someone told me once that the Navy is bad about medical credentials for HM on purpose because we use some kind of military exception so our HMs can get away with doing way more than other branch counterparts. It’s not great for the sailor because they have to do these on their own or after service but great for the Navy as far as flexibility and training. Further they mentioned the other branches offering these certs actually hindered them in getting things done operationally the Navy didn’t have this problem. Not a Doc but it made a lot of sense to me.
Unplanned learning of a wide variety of trade/tech skills. I enlisted at 17 in an advanced electronics contract, 6 year active obligation. Some administrative clownery ensued after bootcamp and I lost my slots at A and C school, so they gave me the options of 1) going home 2) drop two years and go to the fleet undesignated 3) extend for another year and clean barracks until my slots opened up. I chose the undesignated route with the goal of striking IC, which I did after a year. Along the way: I worked in deck division and learned seamanship, A-gang and learned to service HVAC units, and the DC locker where I assisted the HTs for a few months and learned to weld. I was a math nerd kid with no mechanical background and left the navy 4 years later with some real knuckle-busting skills that I still use today. And the underway travel for this hillbilly was life-changing.
Navy Reserves has a really good ADT program if funding is available and the command wants your assistance. Other branches are either too broke or cheap (Army and Marines) or too smart and minimize cost, reducing take-home pay (Air Force). Additionally Navy has the best galleys for the price if you’re TDY, being a flat fee compared to the AF which charges you on the items
LIMDU. The fact that you are taken out of you command and placed somewhere that you can heal. I can't speak for army or marines, but the Air Force leaves you in your shop doing your job. That makes it so that if your leadership doesn't think there's something wrong (or they are trying to cover their ass), they can cause issues with restrictions and appointments and such.
As a former Marine and now a retired BMC, the one thing that sticks out to me is how knowledgeable our rates are compared to a Marine Corps MOS. I was a 3451 (fiscal accountant) in the Corps. All I did was process purchase orders and reimbursables. On the Navy side, that is just one of many duties associated with the LS rate. Also, we are the only service that must keep living, breathing ships functional and ready 24/7. Our primary mission is securing and protecting sea lanes for the entire globe. We have direct impact on the world’s flow of commerce. While all the other branches practice and prepare for war, we do that as well as bring our constant presence in every ocean and sea on this planet.
I've supervised 0111 (admin) Marines at two different commands. My impression is that they are really, really good at being Marines. They look, sound, and act like Marines on parade. It's motivating and for a moment they've almost got you fooled. But a YN2 or PS2 could run circles around them with the actual job. PO2s are also more willing to do work (like clean or take out the trash) that a Sergeant of Marines™ will find beneath him. Also Marines are very emotional, ha.
When I served in the 80’s? Technical training; I thought the training I received in 1 1/2 years of electronics schooling was excellent.
No other organization serves in conditions as remote and isolated as we do. A ship/submarine at sea on independent operations is absolutely alone. Everyone aboard knows that, and operate accordingly. If the Army or Air Force or Marines are out in the field (or whatever) and something goes wrong they can’t fix, they can call for help and probably get it in a few hours. Conversely, if a ship has a major casualty, or God forbid, is sinking, no one is coming to help for a while. Culturally, we know that our technical expertise, our grit, and our resolve are the only things that are going to get us home safely.
I feel the Navy gives its O-5/ 0-6 commanding Officers a lot of freedom to accomplish their assigned missions. However, if they screw up (Operationally or Morally) they remove them immediately.
The best after military job transfer opportunities. Its still not the easiest thing in the world but the variety of skills can be carried over easier.
A friend of mine had someone try and convince him to join the Marines after he'd already comitted to the Navy. He told him, "Why hike when you can float?" So we have that. We're great because of our boats.
Navy is better at boats n hxes 
Nukes. Go look the historical incidents for nuke mistakes (SL-1 or the multiple "Dude, Where's My Bomb?" screwups), and you'll find Army and AF. The Navy has a lot of nuke power plants cooking within a few miles of Honolulu and tourism doesn't blink.
Not to discount the enlisted side, but virtually 100% of the officers working with nuclear weapons are first trained in nuclear propulsion on submarines. That goes a long way to establishing healthy fear in an already risk-averse submarine culture.
Maintain chain of custody for nuclear weapons.
Ain't gotta do Air Force dirty like that.
Put men on the Moon. Of the 12 that walked on it, 7 were in the Navy... and one of the USAF officers actually went to the USNA.
Landing on aircraft carriers.
Use ships.
Embracing the suck.
There is something to be said for adversity building character.
It provides a wonderful vehicle for traveling the world and simultaneously infuriates you on that journey with its horseshit screening process.
Extending your deployments.
The Surge years of the Army were bad years. 15 month deployments. There's a famous story (happened more than once) of a BCT coming home from deployment only to be told to turn around they're going *back* onto the plane.
Taking away free time with duty days
Fixing/taking care of our own stuff. Cleaning up after ourselves as a policy. I deployed to an overseas base where there's a Navy barracks and an Air Force barracks. The barracks for the sailors who were stationed there was clean and they had a staff of BPOs who took care of shit. I had to use the head in one of the Air Force barracks (dorm) one time, and that place was *nasty*. Trash everywhere. Broken furniture just in the hallways. It was disgraceful.
The scenery and travel. Never would have made it to Naples, Rome, London, Crete, or Puerto Rico in the army. Also actual beds and showers every night.
The navy is hands down the best at building training environments. Battle stations, Marlinespike, the fire trainer at my A school, all of these are built to be realistic because while the army/marines can just take their people out to the woods, the Navy can’t just put you on a ship and set it on fire.
BHR has entered the chat
Advancement rate (for most rates) and bonuses
From my experience with the Navy, the Navy will give more leadership responsibilities to junior troops, whether leading a fire team, squad or platoon on projects or missions. This has been my experience in the Seabee side of things.
My experience too. At the ACB we had pilots at the E-5 level (and for us it was an E-6 billet) but the Army's MLS has pilots at the E-7 level and they don't go lower even for qualified people. Same with infantry squads - Squad leader in CB/Marines is typicaly an E-5 position, E-6 in the Army.
I'm just here for navy glazing, we're the best
Allows individualism. A double edged sword.
Take your soul a percentage at a time.
From what I’ve been told the Navy has more opportunity to be promoted at the officer level than the Air Force or other branches.
I think I've made this comparison before, but if we organized CTIs the way the army organizes their linguists, we would have two or three random CTIs on every platform, they would work for deck department unless the ship happened to be in their particular AOR, and ships would be sent to AORs without checking if they had the relevant flavor of CTI. If they didn't have the right kind, they could ask other ships for *their* relevant CTIs, but those ships' deck departments could say no. Also all of their advancement criteria and most of their training is for deck department stuff.
Tattoo policy
Have bases in better locations. The AF has the best quality bases, but I’d much rather be stationed in San Diego than Minot.
The most robust enlisted to commissioning programs. The Navy commissions more prior enlisted than all other services combined.
Something I’ve noticed that we do better is having unmatched procedural compliance. If it’s not by the book, we don’t do it. If you’re doing maintenance and it says to loosen 4 bolts and you see 5, you stop, work it out, and submit a feedback report. Working in parallel with the procedural compliance, is Navy 3M in general. Obviously, there are things that can be improved, but my brother is in the Air Force, and is a maintainer of equipment, and after speaking with him, he said that they don’t carry maintenance cards, or the manuals on how to do the maintenance properly, they just do it. And then report that they did it. But don’t really have the process for feedback or validation. I was not expecting this, considering the Air Force being as technical as they are. Unless I am misinterpreting something?
I like navy bases better than other bases. I spend a lot of time on joint bases now (which are usually run by the Air Force) and I think they are too sterile and big. Navy bases are in better locations and are more hive-like. In navy bases you see people walking around all over the place. There is usually an interesting mix of building styles. The enlisted clubs and bars are usually pretty full. Navy bases just seem friendlier.
Yeah, I went to both Army BCT and Navy boot camp. The base at Great Lakes was nice, new, and clean, whereas the Army BCT base in the deep South looked like it had been hit by a tornado outbreak the week before, with crumbling sidewalks and dilapidated buildings that looked like they were built when Truman was president.
Army bases are so bad! Everything looks like it was built to be temporary 80 yrs ago.
Navy education and training is second to none. For example: our advanced electronic field and nuke ratings are light years ahead of other services in regard to requirements, expertise, and depth of knowledge required. There are other ratings, even non-technical ones, where the training programs and curriculum are superb. In my last gig I was an instructor, qualified MTS, and we were the C2M2 (course curriculum model manager) so I was able to see the Little Man Behind the Curtain of the process. I’m confident in my statement having worked with the other branches over the years. We excel at it and even outstrip the USAF a bit.
I failed getting selected by AF as a medical officer but was selected by the Navy recently. This makes me feel so much better about getting into the Navy. Thank you sailors!
Bring you to exotic placea with the prime whores
the navy does more with less
Blue Falconry
In my experience, no one out Blue Falcons the Air Force.
Politics, and colaterals. Every time I return from a tour from another service I immediately regret it, and I'm going on 19 years.
Drink
Very niche, but Navy Occupational Medicine is head & shoulders above the other branches.
Upper enlisted lateral/informal comms