I don’t know about your friendly opinion about the Navy. I had One son in the Navy and One in the Air Force and if you aren’t the type that fights the system in the Air Force you don’t get the benefits that are available to you. The Navy doesn’t throw those barriers in front of the benefits such as a promotion post basic for having been in JROTC! Both my sons had JROTC for 3 years. The Navy gave the promotion the Air Force said he had to go to some office that was only open during duty hours (8-4) of which he was busy with basic training in order to get it and you had to do that before you finished basic. The Air Force never gave the promotion.
Ravenstar
I have nothing but the highest regard for the Navy and Navy personnel I’ve worked with over the years. I was joking. It’s called Inter-service Rivalry. We MUST say something bad about the other services. It’s in the contract. :)
Seriously though - I didn’t have those problems. I got my “JROTC” promotion out of Basic. I made SSgt in under four years (which was pretty much unheard of in those days) and would have made Tech in just under six - but for some reason I kept missing the damned “cut off” by factions of a point.
I studied harder next time around, and still missed it. Last night I missed Tech was four years later... and I missed it by .01 points. Amazing.
Next time around I have two more medals to my name worth points which kicked me way over the line. So... took 5 years to make E6.
I watched some army guys come into my unit as E2s.... and get promoted to E6 faster than I did. Watched Navy guys going through the same thing I was going through.
So, each of the services has its ups and downs.