Replies

In high school, my son told me he wanted to become a fireman, and I supported the decision. We decided the best way to go about it was to focus his HS classes on things that would help him in that regard, including NJROTC and Sports Medicine (to give him some early training towards becoming an EMT if he chose to go that route). I went in with him and helped negotiate his enlistment, which included assuring that he would become an ABH = a fireman on an Aircraft Carrier.

He spent a decade in the USN as an ABH on a carrier. Over the course of his 10 year career in the Navy, he regularly scored in the top 1% on exams, but was passed over for promotion time and again for less qualified sailors who had diversity bonus points. Amazingly, his superiors were also diversity hires, and they showed diversity sailors a LOT of preference. He decided to leave the Navy this last Spring. The thing is, had he gotten the promotions that he had earned then denied because of diversity, he might have stuck it out and stayed in long enough to retire. Most of those who were promoted over him would leave shortly after their promotions, because they did not choose to become an ABH, they were assigned to it. Diversity did not help retain those who did not want to do it in the first place, and it cost them my son, who focused his life around doing it.

My son is now a fireman stateside.