Nuke Officer

[CaseEEStud]

I am currently applying for the NUPOC program. I am an electrical engineer, at a good university, with good grades, and work experience. Reading this forum has provided me with a lot of information, but there are some things that I would like to have clarified. Some things I am asking may be answered somewhere else, but with unclear answers. I am getting many things confused as to whether they are referring to enlisted or commisioned. That being said, please bear with me.

1.) If I am accepted in to the NUPOC program, can I be transferred out (or is this likely)?
2.) If I fail the NUPOC program (for whatever reason) what happens to me?
3.) How much/often can you take time off?
4.) I understand that NUPOCs usually fill the role of engineer on watch. What does that mean?
5.) Any advice/comments that might be helpful?

Thanks, I appreciate the comments.

[NukeLDO]

1)  If accepted, and you pass all the screenings and schools, you won't be transferred out unless you want to be.
2)  If you fail the nuclear pipeline, you will still be on active duty and required to fulfill your obligation in some other field, usually the conventional surface fleet.
3)  Its the military...30 days per year.  Don't count on that time off while you're in the training pipeline.
4)  You will stand EOOW and be in charge of a watchteam operating the propulsion plant....not alot of engineering to it.  You'll stand watch in the "control room," otherwise known as Maneuvering or EOS.  You'll have a few 19-21 year old kids actually operating the equipment under your direction.  There will be one old "goat," known as the Engineering Watch Supervisor (EWS) or Propulsion Plant Watch Supervisor (PPWS), in the engineroom to cover your **s.

[CaseEEStud]

Thanks guys. I am in contact with a recruiter. I am going on the trip in the next few months, so hopefully a lot of questions will be answered then. This forum has been a lot of help. Any and all further advice is appreciated!

[withroaj]

As an enlisted fellow I bid you good luck, friend.  Nuclear Officers in the U.S. Navy don't have it easy.  I think it might be the only sector of the military where an enlisted guy can say he's glad he doesn't have your job.  I can promise you that you will be challenged in ways you never imagined.  Make sure you enjoy it.

[CaseEEStud]

Somewhat ominous... Can you expand on that a little more withroaj? I'd like to get a good idea of what exactly I am getting myself in to.

[withroaj]

Again, I am enlisted.  Please understand that my perspective comes from that angle.  There are plenty of seasoned officers that could better answer for the true challenge (and how I overstate it).  I am a submarine ELT(Engineering Lab. Tech.).  I deal with plant chemistry and radcon (tons of paperwork).  On a submarine there are three more nuke divisions (Machinery, Electrical and Reactor Controls), all with loads of paperwork, work to do, and the ability to go home once they finish.

As an officer, you will stand Engineering Duty Officer in port, and Engineering Officer of the Watch at sea.  You are the Man in Charge of the engineering spaces, with more or less direct control over everything that happens therein.  A lot of stuff happens 'therein,' and just about all of it requires your authorization (before), oversight (during; often directly carried out by a senior enlisted supervisor and reported to you), and review (after).

Remember that many enlisted folk are more interested in liberty (going home at the end of the day) than just about anything, and will try to steam-roll things through you to get the job done.  That can and will (only once, if you're good) screw you.  On a submarine, the military environment is not quite so formal, and the lines between paygrades will blur once you go on deployment together.  That may cause people to take a buddy-buddy approach to their agendas when it comes time to get a job done, and you may be tempted to trust a guy just because he is like a 'friend' to you.  That can/will bite you in the end.  The tough thing here comes from the fact that you need to be a 'people person' to be effective in a submarine environment (malevolent dictator works as well, but no one gains from that). 

Now that I have spouted a bunch of vague nonsense, I guess I can say that you will have to pay 100% attention to everything you put your signature on or give a nod of approval to.  No matter how competent a guy seems, I'd recommend you make him prove to you what he wants to do.  It may take some extra time, but you WILL catch mistakes before they happen if you take this approach.  Know that every time anything screws up in your division (you will be placed in charge of a nuke division right out of school if you go to a submarine), you will have to talk to the Commanding Officer about it.  Also know that a culture of complacency can creep up on even the best divisions, and that as a division officer you will have to keep that in check.  Remember that the average age of a Navy nuclear operator is about 21 (someone correct me if I'm wrong), probably too young to be in charge of a reactor plant.  That leaves you, fresh out of school, as the adult supervision.  You will have a senior enlisted supervisor (probably about 25 years old), and he WILL have your back, but ultimate responsibility of the plant falls to you.  That means that our Program's 50+ year perfect safety record sits in your hands every time you say "I relieve you."

I know that I have over stated it here, but that's how I see a nuke officer's job.  One of the salty sea-dog officers can tell you what it's really like.  No pressure or anything.  Good luck.

Question:  Did I just play the Judas role against us enlisted folk?

[withroaj]

I also forgot to mention the Enlisted nuke ego.  Poke around nukeworker long enough and you will gt the feel for it.  You can tell the Officers by their Elder Statesman approach to the community (maybe we really don't know how much poo they shield us from, to retire humble and wise).  While I have to humbly admit that I am God's gift to the ELT world, when I am in Maneuvering trying to sell you something ony I can be right.  There is no other way for me.  While I owe it to you to prove that I want to do the right thing, I may just be in a hurry to get some work done and say, "don't worry about it."  That is where it falls to you to have me prove it, and to me to choke down my ego and show you in a book the procedure I intend to follow. 

It's kind of funny in that aspect, that a bunch of kids, supervised by kids, have pushed the most powerful Naval force the world has ever seen for decades without a major incident.

[Fermi2]

"That means that our Program's 50+ year perfect safety record sits in your hands every time you say "I relieve you.""


Propaganda High Level Alarm!! Abandon Reality!


Mike

[withroaj]

Propaganda High Level Alarm!! Abandon Reality!

Mike

It's just that closet diggit that can surface when you think you're typing to a bunch of strangers.  If anyone I know reads this (and they do), they will make fun of me for it, and probably beat me up.  Besides, don't you think it feels good to make the Program sound exclusive and prestigeous to someone who hasn't been there yet?

Fine.  Coners call themselves "steely eyed killers of the deep."  Some blog out there calls it "sleepy eyed whiners of the deep."  That guy is right.

That's reality.  It's boring and stinky, and sometimes you have to secure showers because the distilling plant goes poo poo.  You can never find a place private enough to masturbate, but after a few weeks it doesn't matter.  Friday is pizza night, but you don't get any because you have work and paperwork to do.  There's not always enough oxygen, so you start to feel sleepy all of the time. We (the blueshirts) will complain about damn near everything we have to do, and then try to take a shortcut once you convince us to do it.  Every corner in the Engine Room has testicles hanging out, probably belonging to a watchstander.  Three growls in ERF means the sample is falling down the starboard ladder, four means port.  Be on your toes, it's falling wether you're there or not.  Three growls might mean you look up and see balls, or it might be a bucket of water.  Maybe balls, water AND a sample.

Sadly, I miss it.

[withroaj]

Define incident,...

You know...  Reactor accident...  Major FP release...  Come on, guys.  I am just trying to hype the program.  Don't tell me it doesn't sound exciting.

Fine.  Plenty of incidents.  NRTB's, incident report binders, the T-7, oh my!  I guess those are just more testament to why I'd rather be enlisted scum.

[CaseEEStud]

Quite a bit going on here...
Right now I am working at a large product engineering place. All of the management here does basically the thing you just described... Review a lot of things presented by lower engineers and decide whether or not to sign it. My old boss had the biggest phobia of signing off on things. I can only imagine how much worst it has to be in a submarine. This is some good advice, I appreciate it. I think I am getting a better picture of what to expect.

[Fermi2]

I'd rather just tell the truth rather than embellish anything, isn't truth supposed to be the cornerstone of the Naval Nuclear program? I can think of at least twice there have been major radiological releases. So let's not give the Naval Program this aura of perfection we all know it doesn't have.

So far as officers signing paperwork, I saw PLENTY just plain sign stuff without looking at it. Face it, they sign maybe 3 things a year that really are Reactor Safety Significant. Most of what they sign is for verifying someone else reviewed someone elses work.

Mike

[withroaj]

I won't argue that for a second. Consider the way a command treats a small oversight, though. Maybe I embellished the reality of the program, but not the approach to the average mistake.  In my mind I just put a positive spin on the program's approach to routine matters. I might even think that way. Makes the job feel edgy and exciting.

[withroaj]

All that being said, I would still recommend Navy nuke Officer to anyone with a degree looking to get out of the monotony of the private sector for a bit.  Great experience.  As far as I see it, surfaced OOD on a sub is damn near the coolest job a person could do (though it doesn't happen much).

[JustinHEMI05]

I won't argue that for a second. Consider the way a command treats a small oversight, though. Maybe I embellished the reality of the program, but not the approach to the average mistake.  In my mind I just put a positive spin on the program's approach to routine matters. I might even think that way. Makes the job feel edgy and exciting.

So you took the red pill, huh?

The NNPP is FAR FAR from perfect. And this "high standard" they cling to is a big bleeding lie. I have seen far higher standards and ethics in my 1 year in commercial nuke power than I did in 9 NNPP years. 

All BS propaganda.

But none of that has anything to do with this thread.

Sub JO.... in my opinion, takes a man with alot of mental fortitude to be successful. Again in my opinion, one of the toughest and most rewarding jobs the military has to offer. These guys get kicked around by the senior officers (quite literally if you were a JO under my second CO) and the enlisted. They stand EOOW, then go up for their OOD U/Is, then go to the ward room for post watch recontruct. Then they go back on watch as EOOW. Can you figure out when they had time to do anything besides cram in a meal and maybe a nap? They then get to man all kinds of other neat watches like the missile strike party or nav parties. On top of all of that, they are cramming A LOT of stuff to learn how to navigate a submarine submerged and on the surface while trying to run a division of know it all nukes... pretty freakin daunting if you ask me. But very rewarding too, as you will be a better man for the experience. Sub JOs, when they get it right, earn a lot of respect from me.

Justin

[JustinHEMI05]

Remember that many enlisted folk are more interested in liberty (going home at the end of the day) than just about anything, and will try to steam-roll things through you to get the job done.  That can and will (only once, if you're good) screw you.  On a submarine, the military environment is not quite so formal, and the lines between paygrades will blur once you go on deployment together.  That may cause people to take a buddy-buddy approach to their agendas when it comes time to get a job done, and you may be tempted to trust a guy just because he is like a 'friend' to you.  That can/will bite you in the end.  The tough thing here comes from the fact that you need to be a 'people person' to be effective in a submarine environment (malevolent dictator works as well, but no one gains from that). 

Question:  Did I just play the Judas role against us enlisted folk?

I would say that you have been involved with ruining good JOs before, and are off to a nice start before he even is one.

Sad really, that you would let your friendship with a JO bite him in the end.

He and other JOs that might be reading should know that most of his enlisted relationships (professionally and personally) will not be career challenging/ending/biting.

Justin

[withroaj]

I would say that you have been involved with ruining good JOs before, and are off to a nice start before he even is one.

Sad really, that you would let your friendship with a JO bite him in the end.

He and other JOs that might be reading should know that most of his enlisted relationships (professionally and personally) will not be career challenging/ending/biting.

Justin

That's true, and I can also say that I haven't personnaly screwed over an officer.  I had the opportunity to show up to the boat with a new CRA at the beginning of the "CPO LELT on every boat" initiative.  It was a good period of RL Div growth and development, where some bad guys got out and the division trained to do the job right the first time.  Our CRA was absolutely phenomenal.  The guy was a Naval Academy grad and he knew everything about everything (or he would learn it -- his directory in the divisional folder on the LAN was called 'my evenings').  I haven't seen many people get dumped into a division held solely responsible for a BAM on the last periodic Engineering evaluation, with TONS of skeletons in the closet (the division, not the officer), take absolute leadership over the group without an iron fist, and pull out an AA for the division on the next one.  True, we as the division have to take some credit, but we went home at the end of the work day.  Now that I think about it, that CRA is over in Iraq (excelling I am sure) as we polish our soap boxes over here.

You have to admit you've seen some good JO's get screwed in the past, though.

[JustinHEMI05]

That's true, and I can also say that I haven't personnaly screwed over an officer.  I had the opportunity to show up to the boat with a new CRA at the beginning of the "CPO LELT on every boat" initiative.  It was a good period of RL Div growth and development, where some bad guys got out and the division trained to do the job right the first time.  Our CRA was absolutely phenomenal.  The guy was a Naval Academy grad and he knew everything about everything (or he would learn it -- his directory in the divisional folder on the LAN was called 'my evenings').  I haven't seen many people get dumped into a division held solely responsible for a BAM on the last periodic Engineering evaluation, with TONS of skeletons in the closet (the division, not the officer), take absolute leadership over the group without an iron fist, and pull out an AA for the division on the next one.  True, we as the division have to take some credit, but we went home at the end of the work day.  Now that I think about it, that CRA is over in Iraq (excelling I am sure) as we polish our soap boxes over here.

You have to admit you've seen some good JO's get screwed in the past, though.

Oh ok, I am glad you didn't personally ruin a JO. It just read as if you had. No I agree, some good JOs have gone down, either their careers or by going "bad." I just don't think that is the norm, number one, and second it has as much to do with themselves and the enlisted involved with the ruining. I just didn't like how you made it sound as if having a relationship with enlisted was somehow career ending, or that enlisted were out to "get them."

There are dozens of young JOs that played cards at my house while at prototype who's careers weren't ruined by me.

Seriously though, we were able to do that because we were all mature enough to have a friendship along with a professional relationship with each enhancing the other. That is the single biggest thing I miss about the Navy, training JOs AND forming lasting friendships with them.

Justin

[withroaj]

Good point.  I came across as a bit negative.  CaseEEstud, I hope my little rant didn't turn you away.  I have to agree about JO's being some of the coolest people on the boat without interfering with their effectiveness as leaders.  As you put it Justin, the friendship aspect of the JO/Enlisted relationship mostly enhances the JO's ability to lead.  As a blueshirt it really helps to see that the guy in charge is about the same age with the same interests.

[CaseEEStud]

Don't worry, you haven't scared me off yet. I understand your point.

[Abiien]

So you took the red pill, huh?

The NNPP is FAR FAR from perfect. And this "high standard" they cling to is a big bleeding lie. I have seen far higher standards and ethics in my 1 year in commercial nuke power than I did in 9 NNPP years. 

Haven't you heard the phrase "Good enough for government work?"

perfect place to use it ;-)