He needs to personally and independently assess those two before he speaks with recruiters. Then their sessions can be realistic and productive.
I recommend that before enlisting he mentally commits himself to maximum effort for one enlistment. This effort should integrate being a superb seaman with professional development (school, qualifications, etc.). In this fashion at the end of his first enlistment he will be poised to make the decision for a Naval career or transition to civilian employment (taking full advantage of the GI Bill).
Final thoughts; historically the Navy has been the most stable of services for retaining its personnel, and with the world on the verge of major financial meltdown being in one of the services will be very important.
One thing to remember is that the military will try to get you to go into rates that they need filled, They will dote all over you and tell you how smart yo are and how great the duty is.
They tried to wrangle me into Nuke school.
There are not a lot of civilian jobs in this area and the work tends to be boring reading gauges and stuff.
Nothing against Nukes...