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Navy,
The time for you to have signed up was when you didn't have a wife and kids.
Are you running from something?
I'm afraid you are going to have to decide what is more important to you,
your wife and kids or your Military job.
Don't get frustrated and upset if you choose the military and your family
ties break.
It's up to you what you choose, but remember, it's your decision.
You will live with the consequences.
Good or Bad.
After navy boot camp everybody in my company did get to request what coast they wanted to be stationed on. Being from the east coast and never been to the west coast, I requested the west coast to become a west pac sailer and I got it. I don't know if this is something that they still do but back when I went through down in Orlando we had that option. My brother wanted to stay on the east coast and he got it, he got Norfolk and I got san diego. Also you do have shore duty in the navy also. I got shore duty right out of boot camp so when I went to my first ship, I had made E5 so that made a big difference on the ship. I was E3 out of bootcamp. Best of luck and follow your dreams man the navy was a blast.
To Butterfly4U, no, I'm not running from anything. Over the past seven years I've been apart from my wife for a year. Our first year of marriage, to be precise.. She was going to school in AZ, I went to school in WI. During my first year of law school she worked in VA and I went to school in NJ. Every Friday I drove to see her, and got up at the crack ass of dawn on Monday to go back to school. We can handle a year or so of separation (4 years in the navy. 5 months in training...24 in San Diego or someplace nearby...rest somewhere else? Yeah, we could handle that). 4 years though? That seems excessive. Especially as we now have kids.
I want to join the navy...and I know this sounds cliche, because it is a life long dream. I kept putting even thinking about it off because there was always something else to do. Well, I finished law school, I'm waiting for my bar results...and I have this feeling that if I don't do this now then I never will. And someday I'll be old and gray and will still be thinking about this, wishing that I followed through. I don't want that regret.
And I can't ask her to switch programs. She is doing her PhD in Biomedical Informatics. There aren't that many of them around the country, and she is doing her research at the local VA. If I made her move, she'd lose her adviser, she'd lose her research, it'd seriously set her back. And that is even assuming one of the few other schools in the country would take her...which I don't think is likely.
----------------------------------
So yes, I'll request San Diego. Failing that, anything west coast. Is anyone here in the Navy, and could you confirm that you can switch assignments with someone else? Hell, I'd pay someone for that if it came to it.
Also, if I'm on a base...what's the day care like? Would it be possible to act the single dad with a young kid?
Last edited by navyapplicant; 10-22-2013 at 12:14 AM..
What's going to happen when you deploy? The war isn't over yet.
The reality is that the military really isn't family friendly. You'll be missing birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, etc...
Last Christmas was the first I spent "at home" in many years. I've seen my parents 2 times in the past 5 years. I've moved about 7 times in the past 5 years.
It really depends. My fiance has mostly had shore duty...however, when you get orders, you go wherever those orders are, and your family deals. That's just the way it is. Is your wife okay with this reality? I'm marrying into it with my eyes wide open, but I imagine it would be a different thing if it wasn't part of the picture for years of married life.
FWIW, I'm a Great Lakes right now, where my soon-to-be husband is instructing, and, although we don't have kids, many of the people he works with do have kids, live in family housing, and there is day care.
When I was in the Navy, I never met a sailor past first enlistment who wasn't divorced at least once.
NEVER
Sure, there were some who weren't but they never were in our dept.
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