It’s a great career choice. There are several headhunting groups that specialize in only AF and Navy tech rates. I had a job before my end of service was up. Didn’t have to do shit but send my resume into the head hunter. My first job, half my department was ex military. It’s just more useful than a degree for most jobs. You can start ready to fix it shit, while the college guys have a woeful lack of real world experience.

I was a sonar tech. And he’s right. There is no one to call. You just have to fix it or the mission is compromised. Although I will say I was lucky. Lockheed Martin owns our most advanced gear. When we would do post deployment, contractors would come in from LM and do the most complex work. That’s unusual. Most divisions are just fucked and own everything.

I’m glad I did my time, it set me up for life. Also glad I got out. It’s dangerous. I had several fires and casualties in my time and it was starting to give me sleep problems and nightmares.

Nothing more terrifying than being woken up by silence or an unplanned general alarm on a submarine. They’re always fans and ventilation and background noise, always. Even in port. Sudden total silence is horrifying. It means something is bad enough we just lost electrical, or they killed electrical on purpose. Either scenario could be a death sentence. Fire is the same. Waking up to an alarm and announcement of fire somewhere sucks. You got minutes to figure it out before that bitch fills with smoke and that’s not a place I want to be.

Hard on sleep patterns and general mental health. You don’t feel totally safe closing your eyes to sleep and after months of that in a row your brain starts to hurt.