Not sure if i'm in any place to give my two cents, but i'm finding this post pretty disturbing.
I'm a to-be ex navy nuke. from the original post... I won't deny that the bonus, threat of unemployment in said economy, and the exceptional life of a senior watchstander, are all tempting reasons to stay in and reenlist. I opted not to because I thought that I'd be able to land a job doing what I currently do where i want to live, never to be deployed again, no longer gov't property, and hopefully be paid more than a similarly ranked E5 whose job it is to cook rice in the galley. "you'll be able to find a job for sure","there are tons of companies looking to hire navy nukes" they said, but looking around nukeworker as well as in this thread, I'm starting to really worry that it's actually quite the contrary.
I do have several gripes about current nukes. senior seconds suck. they "delegate" work too much, feel like they're too good for certain job-related tasks, become too friendly with their chiefs and divos and are therefore damn near untouchable, they get away with mediocrity because they understand that you don't get fired in the navy. that said, there are nukes (not to toot my own horn) like me, who resent the navy and said fellow sailors, are 'delegated' responsibility, do the work, gain the experience, have better hard-work ethics, and can't stand to be in this nuclear navy any longer.
True the Enterprise is decommed, however from what i understand there are still many plans ahead for its nukes, they'll be very busy for at least the next three years. There isn't talk of transferring its nukes around to other ships. then again i wouldn't imagine that there are going to be many billets available to come back to the big E for salty sea returnees.
interested to see how your project and data collection pans out. I'll be getting out within the year and I am currently trying to find an NLO/AO job, hopefully this opinion of yours of ex navy nukes isn't as wide spread among all plants, for my sake.