Some Of Your "Roads Not Taken"

dilettante

dilettante

Well-known Member
Location
Michigan
Life can present us with many forks in our roads. At each one the coin flips, the dice roll, we take a chance or not... and we go left or we go right.


One of mine came at the end of high school. The draft was newly in abeyance, but one evening after school a buddy and I were messing around downtown and got lured in by a recruiter just a bit before daily closing. We got a pitch, and we were urged to take a "no obligations" written test. Bored killing time... why the heck not?

Not long after i got a call at home. The U.S. Navy was offering me a Saturday tour of a new nuclear power plant still under construction. A car came by to pick me up, several other guys inside. It was extremely interesting, we had early access to the Visitor Center and two engineers gave a talk.

Then I got another call "Please come take another test. No obligation."

This was a long battery of tests in a building with a big anchor out front, and a lot of others guys. I quickly found out they had all signed up. A bit of a panic, but I wasn't actually on the hook.

Later I kept getting pestered. All through college they'd contact me about ROTC and scholarships. They wanted me for the Nuclear Navy. I turned them down, but my life would have turned out very differently if I hadn't.


Anyone have alternate paths to share?
 

dilettante said:
Life can present us with many forks in our roads. At each one the coin flips, the dice roll, we take a chance or not... and we go left or we go right.


One of mine came at the end of high school. The draft was newly in abeyance, but one evening after school a buddy and I were messing around downtown and got lured in by a recruiter just a bit before daily closing. We got a pitch, and we were urged to take a "no obligations" written test. Bored killing time... why the heck not?

Not long after i got a call at home. The U.S. Navy was offering me a Saturday tour of a new nuclear power plant still under construction. A car came by to pick me up, several other guys inside. It was extremely interesting, we had early access to the Visitor Center and two engineers gave a talk.

Then I got another call "Please come take another test. No obligation."

This was a long battery of tests in a building with a big anchor out front, and a lot of others guys. I quickly found out they had all signed up. A bit of a panic, but I wasn't actually on the hook.

Later I kept getting pestered. All through college they'd contact me about ROTC and scholarships. They wanted me for the Nuclear Navy. I turned them down, but my life would have turned out very differently if I hadn't.


Anyone have alternate paths to share?
Click to expand...
What is the nuclear navy?
 
Nuclear powered submarines and a few surface craft, land based breeder reactors. Possibly some research.

My luck I'd have ended up shoveling pitchblende in New Jersey.
 

When I was 21 in 1974, I worked as a draftsman for Golden's Foundry & Machine Company in Columbus Georgia. My boss, Sonny Grantham, the chief engineer told me on more than one occasion that he was retiring in 10yrs and if I stuck it out, I'd move into the foundry's chief engineer position. At that age, 10yrs was about half my life to that point and therefore seemed an eternity ... and I moved on.

I went to work in furniture manufacturing for Pilliod Furniture. I became adept at spotting material and workmanship discrepancies and was moved into the quality control department. There I was told that I was on track to become quality control department head ... and I moved on to a better paying job.

I was one of the first 20 hires for a brand new LaBour Pump Company machine shop. Over 5yrs I advanced from machine operator to programmer for computer controlled machining centers to day shift supervisor. The plant manager told me I was on track to become shop foreman ... then life happened and I fell in love with a girl that lived far out of town and I moved on.

The girl was in pre-med at the University of South Alabama in Mobile. The jobs I found in Mobile were dead end jobs. Worked in a paint & body shop, worked in the parts department of a construction equipment dealer. The girl and I lived together for 3yrs and just before her graduation, we broke up and I was devastated. I maybe didn't care anymore and I hit rock bottom. Eventually I became homeless for 3mos. Finally, I pulled myself up by my bootstraps ... and moved on.

At 33 I took the Navy entrance test and virtually aced it. Not because I'm smart but because the test was pretty much a logical type test and at 33, I had the ability to think logically. Thing was, at 33 I was also too old for many Naval programs, anything leading to an officer commission and some Navy rates, such as the Nuclear ratings. So the Navy gave me a career in electronics repair. After Navy advanced electronic schools, the first of what would be four ships in my Naval career was the USS Bainbridge CGN-25, a Nuclear powered guided missile cruiser. My last ship was the USS John F Kennedy, an aircraft carrier, from which I retired with a secret security clearance from the Navy in 2006 ... and I moved on.

With the knowledge, experience and security clearance gained from a very successful 20yr Naval career I could have walked into a very well paying civilian job in the defense industry but chose to take it easy for a while ... bought a house, settled down and so far, "a while" has been 17yrs since I was 53 and retired with a military pension. I have not had one single job since, nor even considered looking for one.

None of the jobs I had prior to joining the Navy provided a pension. So I guess I would say the Navy saved my life in that regard. I wouldn't be where I am today or had some opportunities were it not for the Navy and military retirement.

The last award I was given before retiring from the Navy ...

MaqHqWj.jpg
 
I graduated from an Engineering college in NYC. I could see a life of getting married, moving to Long Island. and living a life of quiet desperation.
I moved to CA and never looked back. I had wanderlust, and spent 3 years overseas working with the Air Force.
 
Roads Not Taken
Click to expand...
Ah, a great wouda-shouda-couda opportunity. If I had stayed focused on getting my degree on the GI Bill, rather than sidetracked by marriage & divorce, I likely would have had some kind of white collar career paths to choose from. Instead, I used the skill set from my military training to earn a lifetime of living. I did well, I have no regrets with the paths that I ended up on.
 
Naturally said:
When I was 21 in 1974, I worked as a draftsman for Golden's Foundry & Machine Company in Columbus Georgia. My boss, Sonny Grantham, the chief engineer told me on more than one occasion that he was retiring in 10yrs and if I stuck it out, I'd move into the foundry's chief engineer position. At that age, 10yrs was about half my life to that point and therefore seemed an eternity ... and I moved on.

I went to work in furniture manufacturing for Pilliod Furniture. I became adept at spotting material and workmanship discrepancies and was moved into the quality control department. There I was told that I was on track to become quality control department head ... and I moved on to a better paying job.

I was one of the first 20 hires for a brand new LaBour Pump Company machine shop. Over 5yrs I advanced from machine operator to programmer for computer controlled machining centers to day shift supervisor. The plant manager told me I was on track to become shop foreman ... then life happened and I fell in love with a girl that lived far out of town and I moved on.

The girl was in pre-med at the University of South Alabama in Mobile. The jobs I found in Mobile were dead end jobs. Worked in a paint & body shop, worked in the parts department of a construction equipment dealer. The girl and I lived together for 3yrs and just before her graduation, we broke up and I was devastated. I maybe didn't care anymore and I hit rock bottom. Eventually I became homeless for 3mos. Finally, I pulled myself up by my bootstraps ... and moved on.

At 33 I took the Navy entrance test and virtually aced it. Not because I'm smart but because the test was pretty much a logical type test and at 33, I had the ability to think logically. Thing was, at 33 I was also too old for many Naval programs, anything leading to an officer commission and some Navy rates, such as the Nuclear ratings. So the Navy gave me a career in electronics repair. After Navy advanced electronic schools, the first of what would be four ships in my Naval career was the USS Bainbridge CGN-25, a Nuclear powered guided missile cruiser. My last ship was the USS John F Kennedy, an aircraft carrier, from which I retired with a secret security clearance from the Navy in 2006 ... and I moved on.

With the knowledge, experience and security clearance gained from a very successful 20yr Naval career I could have walked into a very well paying civilian job in the defense industry but chose to take it easy for a while ... bought a house, settled down and so far, "a while" has been 17yrs since I was 53 and retired with a military pension. I have not had one single job since, nor even considered looking for one.

None of the jobs I had prior to joining the Navy provided a pension. So I guess I would say the Navy saved my life in that regard. I wouldn't be where I am today or had some opportunities were it not for the Navy and military retirement.

The last award I was given before retiring from the Navy ...

MaqHqWj.jpg
Click to expand...
Well done Naturally. It's not every day a person gets a citation like that. I bet you were "as happy as a fox with a Silver tooth. "
 
A couple of "roads".

First, I studied Architecture in junior college and aced all of the courses. I used to draw my own house plans when I was a kid. I was one course away from graduating. It was a Design course that included abstract and spacial assignments and I just didn't get it. I'm a very "literal" person. I just wasn't used to getting bad grades so I quit. I was really close to my professor and still remember the night I told him I was changing majors. I ended up getting a Bachelor's in Business Administration when I attended college.

The second time was when my father, who was a successful financial advisor, asked me if I would be interested in joining him in his business and taking over his clients when he retired. I went for an interview at Dean Witter where they literally put me in a room with a phone and had different "made up" clients call me to ask for my advice because the market was down, their stocks were down, there had been a shift in their lifestyle, they wanted to trade equities, etc. I knew nothing about the stock market so I failed miserably. My father's boss basically told me I had no sales ability.

So, I went into retail sales at a department store, a men's clothing store, a tour operator and eventually a cruise line. I stayed with one cruise line for 15 years and another for 20 years. I was VP of Sales when I retired. The irony. At one point, I was responsible for sales teams in North America, South America, Asia and Australia/NZ. The business trips to Sidney alone were great. The Business Admin courses worked out well because I was managing a team of people and a fairly large budget.

We never know where life will lead us. I didn't make the money of an architect or financial advisor but I was in a fun industry, worked with great people and traveled all over the world. No regrets.
 
It was 1968, after the Tet Offenses in Vietnam, and my local draft board was looking for me. I didn't want to win an all expense paid trip to Nam. It was either the Navy for 4 years, or the Air Force for 4 years.
My dad had been in the Navy, and I liked the idea on being in a big, thick battleship 50 miles off shore from Nam. I figured if I couldn't fly the planes, why join the A.F.
I told the Navy recruiter, I'd join the Navy only if I was a Corpsman (medic). He said he would "try";). 4 years in the Navy influenced my entire life.
BTW The Navy recruiter neglected to tell me, that the Marines didn't have their own corpsman, they use Navy corpsmen- good bye thick battleship, welcome to Nam.
 
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Woulda, coulda, shoulda…
I just remember walking to school in high school, pausing at a corner and thinking, “If I go this way, my life will turn out one way, but if I go the other way, it will turn out another way.” I think about that all the time. Was it true? Is life THAT random? If so, I went the wrong way at that corner.
 
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