If you enlist to be a nuclear operator through the enlisted nuclear pipeline, whoever does so should be fully prepared to do SIX FULL YEARS on the enlisted side. I used to work in the indoctrination office at NNPTC, with students coming straight from boot camp and their recruiters told them (including myself when I joined in 2001)... "Go to nuke school, they WILL pick you up"
Needless to say, I went to my sub, did 5 years, then did my instructor duty... now I am a commissioned US Navy Medical Service Corps Radiation Health Officer. Health physics is awesome.
My advice to whoever wants to join the Navy to get picked up STA-21: Take the experience you can get from being enlisted, while trying to pursue that officer career. It may not be STA-21 that makes it happen.
- Jeff