why navy

[Jaims]

To start I was raised in a military family, my family has been in the military since the civil war. (both sides) .My wifes family has not been in at all. I would like to join the Navy.

 

Rightly so my wife is worried. She works in the medical field and is thinking about enlisting as a corpse men,

 

my question is. Are any of you full active military and your spouse is not.

how does this work?

 

What do I need to look out for as far as time away.

 

any help or advice would be great.

 

thanks you

[MikeRL411]

To start I was raised in a military family, my family has been in the military since the civil war. (both sides) .My wifes family has not been in at all. I would like to join the Navy.

 

Rightly so my wife is worried. She works in the medical field and is thinking about enlisting as a corpse men,

 

my question is. Are any of you full active military and your spouse is not.

how does this work?

 

What do I need to look out for as far as time away.

 

any help or advice would be great.

 

thanks you

 

Contact the Enlisted Spouse's Club at Hill Air Force Base. [it used to be the Wive's Club until Uncle Sam realized that Female Military also had non-military spouses.]  There is a world of real life plusses and minuses of the situation you are talking about that they would be glad to share with you.  The Army has or had similar at the Dougway Prooving Grounds but the population at Hill AFB should be a lot closer to you.  For what it's worth the Air Force and I believe the Navy has a project that seeks to have married members stationed at the same home base.  If your wife enlisted as a Corpsman, she could share home base and get government quarters while you were at sea.  Who knows, maybe your wife could enlist, go the Armed Forces Medical School and come out a Navy LTJG with 4 years enlisted service [sure helps with the pay!].  Yes! the US Armed Forces will pay you to go to medical school and then commission you into the appropriate service Medical Corp.

 

First talk to the Spouse's club, then maybe talk to a recruiter about both your and your wife's chances especially as regards the Medical School option!

[Jaims]

wow thank you so much for the reply. it is something we both want to do. hill is close by so that would work great.

[Tristin]

I've been Navy for almost 10 years... I'm running errands, but can reply later.

[datsunaholic]

Being married in the military takes commitmement on both sides.  I was in the Navy, but never married so I can't give first-hand experience, but I can say that marriage doesn't change the likelyhood of deploying. 

 

Time away:  It starts with boot camp.  2+ months with no contact other than letters and the occasional phone call.   No email, no cell phones.

 

If you manage to be qualified to get a guaranteed A-school, and I HIGHLY RECCOMEND THIS, depending on length of the school they may or may not allow you to have your spouse along.  Normally, though, you'll just end up in standard Navy housing unaccompanied since the time isn't very long for some A-schools.   Most A-schools are 2 to 4 months long, and some are then followed on by a C-school (which requires extended enlistments) also 2-4 months long.  Yes, there are training paths that could see you bounce from school to school for almost 2 YEARS before reaching a ship.  They are rare though- most folks are sweeping decks and cleaning heads within 6 months.

 

If you simply go into the "apprenticeship" programs, you do a short Apprenticeship school immediately after boot camp, then straight to a ship.  Most Navy recruits go to a ship after initial training unless you go into the Construction (SeaBees) or Aviation programs.  

 

Shipboard deployments used to be a standard 6-months, but most last 9+ nowadays due to the small fleet size and as a cost-cutting move.  On deployment you'll generally have email and occasional voice calls.  But ships do a LOT more underway time than just deployments.  When I was in, my ship generally spent 15-20 days a month on average away from home port when we weren't in the yards for extended (3+ month) upgrades/heavy maintenance.  A lot of that was training and drills.  The Navy no longer operates the kind of ship I was on as a commissioned unit, but since we usually operated with the battle group I suspect most other ships have similar sea time. 

 

You also have to take into account that even when the ship IS home, in Port, you won't be coming home every night.  The Navy has the concept of duty days, where you are on duty for 24 full hours (this is in addition to normal workweek).  How often depends on number of duty sections- when I was in, 4 was normal, but 3 and 5 were also common.  Engineering could sometimes end up in 2 section duty, which really sucked because you never got a full day off even on weekends.   Shore stations also will have the same all-night duty on occasion.

 

If you are BOTH in the service, the Navy will TRY (it's not guaranteed) to have you geographically co-located for your Permanent Duty Station.  They will not, however, station you on the same ship, nor in the same chain of command for shore duty.  Easier to do if you're in wholly different ratings.

 

Joining the military takes commitment.  It takes dedication to succeed.  Doing that when married is an even bigger challenge, but I've seen it done successfully.  I have, however, seen the reverse.  Divorce rates in the military are VERY high, as some folks simply cannot handle the separation.

[smoke]

Time away is going to really depend on what path you choose (or are given) once inside. The longest I was away in 20 year was nearly 2.5 years (yes really), but keep in mind, that's not the norm. Besides, if you two are really solid, a LITTLE time away is a good thing.

[banzai510(hainz)]

How old are you guys.????????

YOu in the service also ???????

To start I was raised in a military family, my family has been in the military since the civil war. (both sides) .My wifes family has not been in at all. I would like to join the Navy.

 

This dont really mean much for your circumstance!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

 

Youll get divorced. To many chance of distractions.

 

I heard when the C130 took the troops to deploy(I Airforce) out the NCO club was full of wives and the young airmen were in there preying on them or trying to.

 

 

what is is to gain to become a Corpesman(most go to Marine Units) that you cant learn as a EMT at the Fire Station closer to home?

 

 

Dont get me wrong Im all for the service and encourage it. Mostly if your young and single and wanting to travel worry free(but do it single at first at least for awhile) If your over 30 I say Forget it. unless its a Guard unit.

[KlassicMotion]

I'm an Army "Wife".  My wife joined when she was 25 (30 now).  Solely based on what was already said here, I wouldn't think the Navy would be as conducive for the relationship as the other branches would be.  Everything is going to hinge upon your's and your spouse's maturity level.  From what I've experienced, both spouses in the Military can work, but it's more difficult, especially when kids come into the mix.  There is no guarantee in any branch that you will get stationed together, and usually you will get deployed on opposite rotations. So you see even less of each other.  Benefit wise; You don't gain much by having both spouses serving.  In fact, your wife would probably make more money with similar benefits by staying a civilian spouse and working on post.  Again it's no guarantee, but from what I've seen, it's more likely your wife would be able to transfer from one Military hospital to another with you, when you make the PCS moves, by staying a spouse and not enlisting.  My wife is in the medical-ish field (social worker) and she is always talking about how the civilians doing similar jobs as she, make more money with similar benefits.  I suppose retirement and the GI bill are two big benefits that civilian workers don't get, but don't expect either of those to still be around in 20 years.  Retirement is getting big cuts now, and so far there are no provisions to grandfather anyone in that has already served.... Except retires on disability, maybe.  The GI bill took a little cut recently, but I suspect it will undergo bigger cuts in the near future.

 

I guess it also matters what schooling you and your wife have.  Being 28 like your profile says, your starting out pretty late to go in enlisted.  You won't be making much money, starting out enlisted, but if either of you can go in as an officer, then that changes some things. 

 

Are you looking at going in enlisted or as an officer?

 

For what it's worth, I don't know if the same holds true for the Navy, but for the Army, my wife already had her Master's degree when she signed up.  She wanted to sign-up for a specific position with a specific job .  Going the route of an Officer, they wouldn't make any guarantees of what she would be doing.   So, she went enlisted, did 1.5 years, got her certificate of Licensed Clinical Social Worker, and got her direct commission doing what she wanted to do in the Army.  Basically she went in the through the back door to get what she wanted....  As a Captain, her pay alone, is pretty good to support the 3 of us. 

[Danfinny]

14 years and counting active duty Navy here, its hard work, ive been married 12yrs and they have not always been the best but we've managed to stay married and in love with each other, I also have 5 kids and you can no shit count deployments in between them, its not an easy decision, i did it because i didnt want to work in a textile mill or mcdonalds all my life. So the question is why do you want to join? you have to ask yourself that. if your both planning on joining good luck, you will not be stationed together for at least the first 2 years, and when you do finally get to the same place one will be on sea duty and one on shore and thats only if you have kids. Going to sea is awsome and sucks all at the same time, hard to explain because i enjoy it and hate it. send me a PM with specific questions you want to know and ill do the best i can to answer them.

[flatcat19]

This is why Navy...

 

[Jaims]

I am 28 and my wife is 24. I'm open minded when it comes to a job in the navy. honestly I want to serve my country, I feel I neef this in order to be a citizen. we also have one daughter who is under a year old.

[flatcat19]

My brother has been Navy since leaving high school. 

He will retire at 45. Well paid, in fact. 

[Guest Rick-rat]

It would be pretty tough with a child under 1 for a while. Good luck on whatever you choose

[MikeRL411]

Actually another good alternative for your wife to consider would be to join up with the Veterans Administration!  They are advertising heavily for Nurse and Physician recruits.  Again, this would work best if the VA had medical facilities near most Navy Home Ports, of that I have absolutely no idea!

 

I am a 31 year retired USAF LtCol and my wife had the good training from her Japanese mother to be my strong right arm in raising our 3 children!  We had the good fortune not to be assigned to non-accompanied tours, but being involved in Minuteman site activation, Army ABM site testing and US Navy ComSat design development build and launching assignments I was away from home much of the time.  Yes, I spent more time on TriService assignments that "pure" USAF projects.  "A good wife is a blessing" to paraphrase the Bible.

[RaptorReed]

Got off Active Duty last April after 8yrs, doing the weekend warrior Reserve thing now, I'm not married though. I've been Aviation Maintenance my whole time in (Undesignated Airman to AM to AD(FTS) )...I miss the Carrier Flight Deck life. Aviation ratings are great if you don't mind lots of hard work when needed, advancement sucks (most do these days anyway), but had some of the greatest times either as Ship's Company or when I went to a Squadron (VFA-105). Only thing I ever regretted, converting to Full Time Support (FTS) during my second 4yrs, imo, that's better for the Married folks and not so much for the single crowd.  Basically your mission is to train the Reserves up, Aviation wise, you would be mostly attached to a squadron, but most don't deploy for longer than 3 months if they do deploy at all that is. 

 

You really do need to decide for yourself what you want to do, if you are serious about the Navy and going for the right reasons. The worst attitudes I ever saw were the ones that joined soley for college benefits, they had the worst work ethic and bitched the most that the shitbags actually looked good compared to them lol.

 

Why Navy? Because Flight Deck Adrenaline! And Aviation rocks!

http://vimeo.com/34898950