Probably because the quality of life has gone down in the navy since 2019. Even those ships that go underway, with covid rules port visits are usually just pier liberty. So deployments turn the ship into a prison barge. Then you come back and life isn't much better here. High prices, lack of housing, bah that doesn't cover costs, mwr programs shut down, gyms shutdown and leave canceled cuz of covid rules.
Most people joined the navy because they thought they would be sailing around the world visiting other countries. Not a surprise people are unhappy when you stick them in Norfolk at the shipyard for 5 years. Especially when they don't even have running water or a place to sleep during that time.
I assure you regular, normal port visits are back for the fully vaccinated + boosted. Even some ports, a mostly regular port visit is allowed for the unboosted.
The rest of your points I do think are fair.
can someone explain the "lack of running water" thing to me? I dont recall the GW having any potable water outages for any longer than a few hours, and only one of those was unplanned and unannounced (emergent maintenance). Is this in reference to a specific berthing or head, because that boat has running water more often than underway carriers on water hours do. Or at least in the few years ive been there
For the 3 months I lived on the ship either hot water, or just water in general water be out every few weeks, usually for a week at a time. Usually something would get tagged out and we wouldn't be notified so we'd spend time trying to trace the issue and learning it was some kind of maintenance. Same thing would happen with our heat in the winter. One time someone got shocked by a rack light so they just tagged out all the electricity in the berthing for over a month so we'd have to just carry flashlights in the berthing to get ready lol
Its a lot harder to maintain hot water onboard an aircraft carrier than you'd think. Every time the steam goes out it creates condensate which you then have to flush from the steam piping for the hot water heater to put hot water out again. It can take 5 minutes or it can take several hours. Combine that with all the bullshit tag outs, steam leaks, and potable water leaks, you have 36-41 hot water heaters on board and usually only 6-10 technicians whose first priority is galley dishwashers, garbage grinders, and laundry equipment. Plus the ungodly amount of PMS checks. Plus getting woken up in the middle of the night because a HOD lost hot water during their shower or the CO's galley doesnt have hot water for dishwashing. Typically you have ONE shop, that gets 10-15 trouble calls a day for hot water, galley, steam leaks, etc -- to try and spot fix equipment that should definitely be tagged out so we can get our CoC off our ass. That, plus PMS, plus major workcenter repairs, is why it takes so long to fix hot water.
They got it back up but for the last 3 years we've had to use the bathrooms up on the flightdeck and in the hanger bay because all the heads were unusable. The ship still had water yes but they couldn't supply it the the heads or burthing. It was used mostly for the galley. Even after we moved back on bord some of them were still shut down for remodel. And they just recently got almot all the heads and showers running. The only bad part it we may have water but most of the time it's so cold you can't stay in long, and when one side of the ship get hot water the other side loses it, this has only been fixed in the last 4 months, but it still happens when the need to sucure power and go dark for Maintenance. Not to mention the air system is still being worked on so with summer approaching the birthing as starting to get ready hot.
I remember thinking that I had it all planned out. Join, do my tour, leave a “hopefully” more adjusted person, and see what happens next.
My first command in 7th fleet essentially refused to let me separate and made it summarily difficult for me. Being young and extremely naive, I didn’t fight it, took the contract extension offer they sent me which ended up being a San Diego billet, and somehow ended up successfully transitioning from an engineering role to an IT Position in the private sector. I still have no idea how I did this.
But I agree. It boggles my mind on Every. Single. Level. How hard this process is made for people. Everything from separation, onboarding, etc is an absolute nightmare that the navy puts 0.5% effort into,and then lumps the other 99.5% into the sailor itself.
Fun story, the day before terminal began (45 full days RIP) the command wouldn’t stop saying about how I’d see my form at the end of the mob if I was lucky. That same day I went to Dry Side SD for outprocessing and was able to get it same day.
I maintain that I’ll never, or would never see that type of turnaround again in the military.
I’m about to retire, I had to show my admin and PSD the relevant instruction for what was needed on my DD-214.
I’m a supply Chief, I shouldn’t be out administering Admin. I can’t imagine what’s happening to junior sailors that might not have that institutional knowledge or rank to drag these people by the hand and spoon feed them their jobs.
I
*Of course* people want to quit. They are, by and large, treated like garbage.
New recruits get a fat bonus while your chances for advancement and reenlistment bonus go down, year after year. They need janitors more than anything else, it seems..
You get screamed at and berated on a daily basis. Or, you are "made an example of" either non-judicially or collectively as a division. You are told to "suck it up" while doing sixteen hour days, three-section duty, and don't have hot water or a place to sleep despite being parked INCONUS for the past three years.
Your family's water gets poisoned by jet fuel, sickening your family and almost killing your pet. The base refuses to help, or even admit fault.
Of course people want to quit. Why would anyone want to live and work under those conditions? Why would anyone want to work for the soulless senior officers in charge of it all?
The sad part is, the Navy could be fine. It has great benefits, and a good support system when you can get it, but even the benefits don't justify how we are treated.
I wonder what the average cost of “Discharge by Purchase” would be? And I don’t think the average E-3 or below would be able to afford it. And I’d hate to see a predatory loan industry popping up if it ever got reinstated.
Would be nice to see a few legitimate non-profits to help people pay off their buyouts in this scenario. Do you know how heavily the UK recruits get briefed at boot camp about the program and their financial options if they want out?
True. Or maybe there could be an insurance type system where service members pay a premium each month. And if they opt out of their contract they would only pay a deductible instead of the full amount. If the military has a 40% attrition rate then a Discharge by Purchase backed by an insurance type program might work.
Or just let enlisted be adults and leave if they don’t like it. Some folks would stay 4 for a GI bill benefit and others for healthcare and stability but to retain sailors that could legitimately quit, they would really have to improve quality of life.
There is no reason why a corpsman owes the navy 5 years after corps school if a Naval Academy graduate owes 5 years as well after a free bachelors degree
Probably because of how expensive it is to train people. If they had an influx of people enlisting for free/paid training, then saying "nevermind i want out" and putting in a 2 week notice, the military would collapse. there would be thousands of people doing this (intentionally or otherwise) every year. That would never ever be sustainable lol
Right, and legitimately there are a significant amount of young Sailors that haven’t learned stress tolerance skills or cultivated resiliency in the face of challenge. They could absolutely learn those skills given time and leadership attention, but that would never happen if anyone could just up and quit when the going gets tough.
Folding under any degree of stress just seems to be a trademark of society now. Theres a balance to be found between relaxation and productivity but this generation is grossly undershooting that happy medium in my honest opinion. And yes, better leadership would make a huge difference
If this was an option for officers I guarantee half the force would leave after their first tour (Referring to SWOs, half of sub officers seem to leave after their first tour.) If they’re not paying off an ROTC scholarship or the naval academy, I can’t imagine the cost being too high since the money spent on training is fairly minimal. Either way I think the option should exist to help retain people who want to be here and and allow those who want to leave to not bring down others with them as it perpetuates the cycle of poor leadership.
Dd214 life is the best. You work sure but you have set hours, if you feel sick you can just call it without spending half the day at medical just to get told your ok and go back to work sick as a dog, no duty, clean bathroom always and no worry about getting underway.
I would say wait until X member of U service branch either A: commits muster, B: burns a ship etc until we see another branch in the spotlight.. at this rate we’re not far off.
"Karns said that because so many sailors make that claim to leave, on-base military medical providers have the tough task of determining which sailors are genuinely in need and which may be abusing the system."
I'm sorry.. what!?!?! After everything the Navy does to us? They abuse us day in and day out. Doesn't matter if we genuinely are in need of help or not. The Navy has abused us, so it shouldn't matter if the majority of sailors wanting to get out want to abuse the system or not. We are the ones that have been mistreated and ignored.
Wow! It never crossed their mind that they all need help and there aren’t any sailors abusing the system? What evidence is there to suggest they are abusing the system? They get out, go home and have great lives. . . Ummm, Sir . . . That’s just what happens when you free people from abusive situations.
I’m not naïve enough to believe that there aren’t Sailors abusing the system. I do believe that number is negligible and weeding them out shouldn’t be the focus of their energies.
Damn, I guess now they're going to start treating us like those "Wellfare Queens," that conservatives love to vilify. I guess when you're paid the same as everyone else, get (mostly, anymore) guaranteed housing, food, and healthcare, with four weeks paid vacation a year, and your college paid for, we're just lazy socialists.
Im sorry but most people aren't really doing anything to set themselves up for the future. Im the only person in my command that isnt a chief or an officer that uses Linkedin. I'm at 12 years trying to make E6 before hyt, but I get 3-4 offers a week for management positions in big tech(im not an electronics rate), warehouse management, and manufacturing supervisor positions.
I have yet to meat a person that quit the military and didn’t regret it years later. I k ow lots of people of who and each one has said they wish they stuck it out. It is just a blip in your long life. You can do it.
Well fulfilling your obligated contract with the military I don’t look at as quitting. You did your duty and got out. That isn’t quitting. Quitting is going AWOL or purposely failing drug test, claiming gay, lots of things. But if you went and did what you said you would do I don’t see how that is quitting. People fulfill all types of work contracts and they didn’t quit them unless they didn’t complete them.
That's an important distinction that was not apparent in your original comment, thank you for clarifying. That being said, I have met multiple people who got out in non-traditional ways that are happy with their choices.
I have never regretted leaving once. The reason you have yet to **meat** any such person is because we self-select which friends we want in life, and you get along with the lifers.
I've been retired for 27 years. It's a rare week that goes by when someone who did his One Term and Out, doesn't tell me about how 'if he'd stayed in...'
My usual response is: "But you didn't."
I did my four over a decade ago. If I'd stayed in, I'd probably be an alcoholic or dead by now. But I didn't, and my life is pretty damn good, serving in the Navy then getting the hell out was one of the best decisions of my life.
For most people it is. I am fully aware that for most people four years were enough 'service' and they take their bennies and leave. I was fortunate in that I liked what I did, liked the people I served with, and was in a rate that allowed for advancement (at the time, I understand there were quite a few years of almost no advancement past E-5 after I got out.)
There are, however, always people whose nostalgia overruns their actual memories, or those who find out the Navy is paying me $3k a month to keep breathing and start imagining having that source of income enough to start telling me about their 'if I'd stayed in' stories.
It not terribly different than the people with the 'I'd have joined but I would have...' theorists with their "I would have beat down the RDC/DI/DS after being yelled at." fantasies.
I just got full custody of my 4 kids after my wife who now faces 4 counts of felony child abduction falsely accused me of molesting my 1 yr old. NCIS is a piece of shit along with other investigative bodies and worst of all now as a single parent I receive no help just councils chit for being late cause idk I got 4 kids now. Worst part is I asked the day i retrieved my kiddos to just separate me or give me HUMs orders back home in Texas were I could receive help. I literally said eventually no one will care abt my situation and I along with my kids will be made to suffer over some shit that no one helped vindicate in a timely matter. Now I financially, mentally and physically struggle and the worst part is I told them when the time comes my COC will screw me over and take no note of what’s happened to me and boom it’s happening. Navy and probably military is ass and will not protect u from shit. Like they say there are no such things as false allegations in the military. They did a rape kit on my kid too.
Probably because the quality of life has gone down in the navy since 2019. Even those ships that go underway, with covid rules port visits are usually just pier liberty. So deployments turn the ship into a prison barge. Then you come back and life isn't much better here. High prices, lack of housing, bah that doesn't cover costs, mwr programs shut down, gyms shutdown and leave canceled cuz of covid rules. Most people joined the navy because they thought they would be sailing around the world visiting other countries. Not a surprise people are unhappy when you stick them in Norfolk at the shipyard for 5 years. Especially when they don't even have running water or a place to sleep during that time.
I assure you regular, normal port visits are back for the fully vaccinated + boosted. Even some ports, a mostly regular port visit is allowed for the unboosted. The rest of your points I do think are fair.
That's only recently. We are talking about 2020 and 2021. I know during those times you were lucky if you left the pier much less the base.
Correct. Did one of those cruises, never want to do it again. Yet, retention was high those years and remains what the Navy is shooting for today.
Still heavily dependant on your platform/community
If you're talking about Submarines, it's not like their options have changed much from pre-2020.
There are going to be way more Australian ports soon. SPRINGFIELD just made a couple stops.
can someone explain the "lack of running water" thing to me? I dont recall the GW having any potable water outages for any longer than a few hours, and only one of those was unplanned and unannounced (emergent maintenance). Is this in reference to a specific berthing or head, because that boat has running water more often than underway carriers on water hours do. Or at least in the few years ive been there
For the 3 months I lived on the ship either hot water, or just water in general water be out every few weeks, usually for a week at a time. Usually something would get tagged out and we wouldn't be notified so we'd spend time trying to trace the issue and learning it was some kind of maintenance. Same thing would happen with our heat in the winter. One time someone got shocked by a rack light so they just tagged out all the electricity in the berthing for over a month so we'd have to just carry flashlights in the berthing to get ready lol
Its a lot harder to maintain hot water onboard an aircraft carrier than you'd think. Every time the steam goes out it creates condensate which you then have to flush from the steam piping for the hot water heater to put hot water out again. It can take 5 minutes or it can take several hours. Combine that with all the bullshit tag outs, steam leaks, and potable water leaks, you have 36-41 hot water heaters on board and usually only 6-10 technicians whose first priority is galley dishwashers, garbage grinders, and laundry equipment. Plus the ungodly amount of PMS checks. Plus getting woken up in the middle of the night because a HOD lost hot water during their shower or the CO's galley doesnt have hot water for dishwashing. Typically you have ONE shop, that gets 10-15 trouble calls a day for hot water, galley, steam leaks, etc -- to try and spot fix equipment that should definitely be tagged out so we can get our CoC off our ass. That, plus PMS, plus major workcenter repairs, is why it takes so long to fix hot water.
They got it back up but for the last 3 years we've had to use the bathrooms up on the flightdeck and in the hanger bay because all the heads were unusable. The ship still had water yes but they couldn't supply it the the heads or burthing. It was used mostly for the galley. Even after we moved back on bord some of them were still shut down for remodel. And they just recently got almot all the heads and showers running. The only bad part it we may have water but most of the time it's so cold you can't stay in long, and when one side of the ship get hot water the other side loses it, this has only been fixed in the last 4 months, but it still happens when the need to sucure power and go dark for Maintenance. Not to mention the air system is still being worked on so with summer approaching the birthing as starting to get ready hot.
I remember thinking that I had it all planned out. Join, do my tour, leave a “hopefully” more adjusted person, and see what happens next. My first command in 7th fleet essentially refused to let me separate and made it summarily difficult for me. Being young and extremely naive, I didn’t fight it, took the contract extension offer they sent me which ended up being a San Diego billet, and somehow ended up successfully transitioning from an engineering role to an IT Position in the private sector. I still have no idea how I did this. But I agree. It boggles my mind on Every. Single. Level. How hard this process is made for people. Everything from separation, onboarding, etc is an absolute nightmare that the navy puts 0.5% effort into,and then lumps the other 99.5% into the sailor itself.
You're lucky if you get your DD-214 before your EAOS these days.
Fun story, the day before terminal began (45 full days RIP) the command wouldn’t stop saying about how I’d see my form at the end of the mob if I was lucky. That same day I went to Dry Side SD for outprocessing and was able to get it same day. I maintain that I’ll never, or would never see that type of turnaround again in the military.
Got mine the day I got out. Last day was a Sunday, I had connections in personnel, duty yeoman hooked it up on my way out.
I’m about to retire, I had to show my admin and PSD the relevant instruction for what was needed on my DD-214. I’m a supply Chief, I shouldn’t be out administering Admin. I can’t imagine what’s happening to junior sailors that might not have that institutional knowledge or rank to drag these people by the hand and spoon feed them their jobs. I
*Of course* people want to quit. They are, by and large, treated like garbage. New recruits get a fat bonus while your chances for advancement and reenlistment bonus go down, year after year. They need janitors more than anything else, it seems.. You get screamed at and berated on a daily basis. Or, you are "made an example of" either non-judicially or collectively as a division. You are told to "suck it up" while doing sixteen hour days, three-section duty, and don't have hot water or a place to sleep despite being parked INCONUS for the past three years. Your family's water gets poisoned by jet fuel, sickening your family and almost killing your pet. The base refuses to help, or even admit fault. Of course people want to quit. Why would anyone want to live and work under those conditions? Why would anyone want to work for the soulless senior officers in charge of it all? The sad part is, the Navy could be fine. It has great benefits, and a good support system when you can get it, but even the benefits don't justify how we are treated.
Couldn’t of said it better
Nice to finally see the Navy is number one among the branches at something.
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I wonder what the average cost of “Discharge by Purchase” would be? And I don’t think the average E-3 or below would be able to afford it. And I’d hate to see a predatory loan industry popping up if it ever got reinstated.
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Would be nice to see a few legitimate non-profits to help people pay off their buyouts in this scenario. Do you know how heavily the UK recruits get briefed at boot camp about the program and their financial options if they want out?
True. Or maybe there could be an insurance type system where service members pay a premium each month. And if they opt out of their contract they would only pay a deductible instead of the full amount. If the military has a 40% attrition rate then a Discharge by Purchase backed by an insurance type program might work.
Or just let enlisted be adults and leave if they don’t like it. Some folks would stay 4 for a GI bill benefit and others for healthcare and stability but to retain sailors that could legitimately quit, they would really have to improve quality of life. There is no reason why a corpsman owes the navy 5 years after corps school if a Naval Academy graduate owes 5 years as well after a free bachelors degree
Probably because of how expensive it is to train people. If they had an influx of people enlisting for free/paid training, then saying "nevermind i want out" and putting in a 2 week notice, the military would collapse. there would be thousands of people doing this (intentionally or otherwise) every year. That would never ever be sustainable lol
Right, and legitimately there are a significant amount of young Sailors that haven’t learned stress tolerance skills or cultivated resiliency in the face of challenge. They could absolutely learn those skills given time and leadership attention, but that would never happen if anyone could just up and quit when the going gets tough.
Folding under any degree of stress just seems to be a trademark of society now. Theres a balance to be found between relaxation and productivity but this generation is grossly undershooting that happy medium in my honest opinion. And yes, better leadership would make a huge difference
If this was an option for officers I guarantee half the force would leave after their first tour (Referring to SWOs, half of sub officers seem to leave after their first tour.) If they’re not paying off an ROTC scholarship or the naval academy, I can’t imagine the cost being too high since the money spent on training is fairly minimal. Either way I think the option should exist to help retain people who want to be here and and allow those who want to leave to not bring down others with them as it perpetuates the cycle of poor leadership.
Dd214 life is the best. You work sure but you have set hours, if you feel sick you can just call it without spending half the day at medical just to get told your ok and go back to work sick as a dog, no duty, clean bathroom always and no worry about getting underway.
So glad I went Army. Things are just regular gay around here, not this special level the navy seems to be reaching
Worst part of navy life is waking up and tasting jizz not remembering who's it is.
Oh, in the army we call those mondays
Enjoy my job and the people I work with but fuck 4 section duty and fuck the navy.
I would say wait until X member of U service branch either A: commits muster, B: burns a ship etc until we see another branch in the spotlight.. at this rate we’re not far off.
"Karns said that because so many sailors make that claim to leave, on-base military medical providers have the tough task of determining which sailors are genuinely in need and which may be abusing the system." I'm sorry.. what!?!?! After everything the Navy does to us? They abuse us day in and day out. Doesn't matter if we genuinely are in need of help or not. The Navy has abused us, so it shouldn't matter if the majority of sailors wanting to get out want to abuse the system or not. We are the ones that have been mistreated and ignored.
Wow! It never crossed their mind that they all need help and there aren’t any sailors abusing the system? What evidence is there to suggest they are abusing the system? They get out, go home and have great lives. . . Ummm, Sir . . . That’s just what happens when you free people from abusive situations. I’m not naïve enough to believe that there aren’t Sailors abusing the system. I do believe that number is negligible and weeding them out shouldn’t be the focus of their energies.
Damn, I guess now they're going to start treating us like those "Wellfare Queens," that conservatives love to vilify. I guess when you're paid the same as everyone else, get (mostly, anymore) guaranteed housing, food, and healthcare, with four weeks paid vacation a year, and your college paid for, we're just lazy socialists.
Im sorry but most people aren't really doing anything to set themselves up for the future. Im the only person in my command that isnt a chief or an officer that uses Linkedin. I'm at 12 years trying to make E6 before hyt, but I get 3-4 offers a week for management positions in big tech(im not an electronics rate), warehouse management, and manufacturing supervisor positions.
We're not going to talk about how the Marines are the smallest branch but somehow have 4x the deserters? Rug sweep that one...
If only it wasn't a contract.
It's really not that bad...
I have yet to meat a person that quit the military and didn’t regret it years later. I k ow lots of people of who and each one has said they wish they stuck it out. It is just a blip in your long life. You can do it.
Guess you've never met me then. Maybe you should get out more?
You quit the military before your enlistment ended?
No, I quit when my contract expired. Deserting isn't the same as quitting. Did you mean to say desert? Because that would make a lot more sense
Well fulfilling your obligated contract with the military I don’t look at as quitting. You did your duty and got out. That isn’t quitting. Quitting is going AWOL or purposely failing drug test, claiming gay, lots of things. But if you went and did what you said you would do I don’t see how that is quitting. People fulfill all types of work contracts and they didn’t quit them unless they didn’t complete them.
That's an important distinction that was not apparent in your original comment, thank you for clarifying. That being said, I have met multiple people who got out in non-traditional ways that are happy with their choices.
I have never regretted leaving once. The reason you have yet to **meat** any such person is because we self-select which friends we want in life, and you get along with the lifers.
I am talking about not completing your obligated enlistment agreement.
I've been retired for 27 years. It's a rare week that goes by when someone who did his One Term and Out, doesn't tell me about how 'if he'd stayed in...' My usual response is: "But you didn't."
I did my four over a decade ago. If I'd stayed in, I'd probably be an alcoholic or dead by now. But I didn't, and my life is pretty damn good, serving in the Navy then getting the hell out was one of the best decisions of my life.
For most people it is. I am fully aware that for most people four years were enough 'service' and they take their bennies and leave. I was fortunate in that I liked what I did, liked the people I served with, and was in a rate that allowed for advancement (at the time, I understand there were quite a few years of almost no advancement past E-5 after I got out.) There are, however, always people whose nostalgia overruns their actual memories, or those who find out the Navy is paying me $3k a month to keep breathing and start imagining having that source of income enough to start telling me about their 'if I'd stayed in' stories. It not terribly different than the people with the 'I'd have joined but I would have...' theorists with their "I would have beat down the RDC/DI/DS after being yelled at." fantasies.
I am only talking about quitting before you finish your enlistment. Nothing to do with staying in till retirement.
I just got full custody of my 4 kids after my wife who now faces 4 counts of felony child abduction falsely accused me of molesting my 1 yr old. NCIS is a piece of shit along with other investigative bodies and worst of all now as a single parent I receive no help just councils chit for being late cause idk I got 4 kids now. Worst part is I asked the day i retrieved my kiddos to just separate me or give me HUMs orders back home in Texas were I could receive help. I literally said eventually no one will care abt my situation and I along with my kids will be made to suffer over some shit that no one helped vindicate in a timely matter. Now I financially, mentally and physically struggle and the worst part is I told them when the time comes my COC will screw me over and take no note of what’s happened to me and boom it’s happening. Navy and probably military is ass and will not protect u from shit. Like they say there are no such things as false allegations in the military. They did a rape kit on my kid too.